Synthetic membranes play a crucial role in a wide range of separation processes, including dialysis, electrodialysis, ultrafiltration, and pervaporation, with growing interest in synthetic emulsion membranes due to their precision, versatility, and ion exchange capabilities. These membranes enable tailored solutions for specific applications, such as water and gas separation, wastewater treatment, and chemical purification, by leveraging their multi-layered structures and customizable properties. Emulsion membrane technology, particularly in pressure-driven methods like reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF), has shown great potential in overcoming traditional challenges, such as fouling and energy inefficiency, by improving filtration efficiency and selectivity. This review explores the latest advancements in emulsion membrane development, their adaptability to various industrial needs, and their contribution to addressing long-standing limitations in membrane separation technologies. The findings underscore the promise of emulsion membranes in advancing industrial processes and highlight their potential for broader applications in water treatment, environmental management, and other key sectors.

The technological development and the rise of artificial intelligence are driving a significant transformation of the labor market. The technological unemployment predicted by Keynes poses challenges for the global labor market that require new solutions. Basic income research has become a significant field of study, attracting attention from various disciplines such as political science, law, economics, and sociology. The aim of this paper is to explore on the basis of a literature review, what factors influence the support for basic income among the population. A systematic literature review based on the Web of Science and Scopus databases, after screening 2623 publications, identified 23 articles that contained findings relevant to the research question. A significant number of authors (12/23) analyzed data from the same source, the European Social Survey 2016 (ESS Round 8, 2020), conducted in 2016, first published in 2017 and updated several times since then. The paper shows that the study of the topic has a strong European focus. The social, economic, social and cultural diversity of European countries makes these studies important from a European and EU perspective, but from an international perspective, further research on the topic is needed.

This paper revisits the analysis on the effect of cross-cultural awareness and self-efficacy, which are both significant constructs in today’s globalized world. People are expected to have both a high level of self-efficacy and a strong sense of cross-cultural awareness due to the growing frequency of cross-cultural interactions. For fields like education, psychology, and cross-cultural communication, it can be very crucial to comprehend how cross-cultural awareness affects self-efficacy. 60 relevant articles were found after a thorough assessment of the literature on the subject using thematic analysis of the CNKI and Google Scholar databases. Ten major themes were found in the review: 1) the cultivation of cross-cultural awareness, 2) the current situation of students’ cross-cultural awareness, 3) the importance of cross-cultural awareness, 4) the relationship between self-efficacy and academic achievement, 5) the relationship between learning self-efficacy and influencing factors, 6) the relationship between cross-cultural awareness and self-efficacy, 7) the relationship between self-efficacy and cross-cultural adaptation, 8) cultural factors affecting learning self-efficacy, 9) the effect of social environment on individual self-efficacy, and 10) the relationship between cultural expectations and self-efficacy. The findings of this review demonstrate how crucial cross-cultural understanding is to the growth of self-efficacy. The design of educational and training programs aiming at boosting cross-cultural knowledge and self-efficacy will also be significantly impacted by this review.

Due to the bounded rationality of decision-makers and the substitution effect of non-green products, retailers are not always profitable when selling green products. To assist retailers who may be disadvantaged in the game, this study constructs a two-stage green supply chain game model, considering the bounded rationality of decision-makers and the substitution effect of non-green products, and analyzes the impacts of two operational strategies that retailers can adopt—price-cutting strategy and early replenishment strategy. The research reveals that retailers tend to lower prices in the second stage when price reductions stimulate consumer purchases, enhancing their profitability. However, strategic retailers may raise prices in the first stage to create room for discounts later, potentially harming consumer interests. Contrary to expectations, anticipating future demand does not always improve supply chain profitability in the early replenishment strategy, which mainly depends on the market environment. Early replenishment deprives retailers of negotiation leverage in the second stage, and bulk orders may lead manufacturers to over-invest in green innovation. Therefore, this strategy is effective only when green innovation costs are low, consumer environmental awareness is high, or price sensitivity is low.