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• The sample produced in this work has a large specific surface area and absorbance. • The evaporation device has the advantages of low cost, high water delivery efficiency, and simple production. • The samples produced in this work have high photothermal conversion efficiency. Solar-driven interfacial water evaporation is an emerging water purification technology. However, the high cost and low evaporation efficiency limit the wide application of solar-driven interfacial water evaporation technology. In this work, we use the dough fermented flour and yeast powder production, and then after fermentation of dough to produce high temperature carbonization of carbon materials, the preparation of the sample surface formed a large number of pits, increased specific surface area and the absorbance of the sample, and increased the solar-thermal conversion efficiency of the sample. It is found that the evaporation rate and evaporation efficiency of the sample made in this work is 1.5 kg m−2h−1 and 94.2 % respectively under one solar irradiation intensity. The maximum surface temperature of the sample can reach 43.3℃ during the experimental test, which has good evaporation performance. It provides a new idea for making economical and environmentally friendly materials in the field of solar-driven water evaporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of a regional industrial system in China can be separated into two internal stages: production stage and pollutant abatement stage. This paper aims to examine the efficiency of Chinese regional industrial systems by taking the operational performance of its two internal stages into consideration. Unlike traditional data envelopment analysis models that treat decision making units as “black box” when measuring their efficiencies with undesirable factors, this paper proposes a two-stage model based on slacks-based measure to evaluate the efficiency of Chinese regional industrial systems. By decomposing the efficiency into production efficiency and abatement efficiency, the proposed model can estimate the efficiencies of the whole regional industrial system, its production stage and abatement stage simultaneously. The model provides a way of improving performance of a regional industrial system through identifying its inefficient internal stages. This can help to find out the main sources of the inefficiency that arise from the internal stages within the system, which cannot be done by using conventional environmental data envelopment analysis models. Findings resulting from the model application show that there are great disparities in regional industrial systems' efficiencies, and the inefficiency of Chinese industrial system is largely driven by the abatement stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data envelopment analysis has recently gained popularity and attention in operational and environmental assessment. A common feature of previous studies is decreasing an input vector to decrease the vector of undesirable outputs which is referred to as natural disposability. However, little research has considered how to increase the amount of capital input for clean production technology to decrease the amount of undesirable outputs in a data envelopment analysis framework, which is referred to as managerial disposability. Thus, this paper proposes an improved approach that considers measuring unified (operational and environmental) efficiency for managerial disposability, and compares this approach with the one for natural disposability. The proposed approach provides a positive strategy to reduce undesirable outputs and improve unified efficiency through increasing capital investment in clean production technology. A case study of regional industries in China in 2006–2010 utilizing this approach is also presented. The empirical study shows that the unified efficiencies of regional industries in China have relatively high scores for managerial disposability, and increasing capital investment is vital to achieve sustainable development in clean production technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psoriasis is a chronic recurrent inflammatory disease. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can regulate the inflammatory microenvironment, thereby controlling the proliferation, differentiation, and migration of immune cells. Connexin 43(Cx43), a key gap junction protein, has been shown to form gap junctions for communication between neighboring cells. We investigated the expression of Cx43 in dermal mesenchymal stem cells (DMSCs) derived from psoriasis patients and explored the relationship between the Cx43-mediated gap junction intercellular communication (GJIC) and DMSCs. Human DMSCs were isolated and propagated in adherent culture. Quantitative real-time reverse transcription PCR and western blot and immunofluorescence were used to detect the expression and localization of Cx43 in DMSCs. Fluorescence redistribution after photobleaching was performed to assess adjacent DMSCs GJIC. CCK8 was used to detect the proliferation of DMSCs before and after gap junction blocker (18α-glycyrrhetinic acid; AGA) treatment. Cell energy metabolism was analyzed with an energy metabolism analyzer. Cx43 was located in the cytoplasm and cytomembrane, as well as partially in the nucleus of DMSCs. The expression of Cx43 in psoriasis DMSCs was higher than that in control samples and the gap junction function was enhanced. In addition, the glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration of psoriasis DMSCs were also enhanced. However, AGA inhibited the expression of Cx43, attenuated GJIC function, and inhibited the proliferation of DMSCs. Our results indicated that the expression of Cx43 in DMSCs from psoriasis lesions is increased and that the inhibition of Cx43 leads to the inhibition of both GJIC and DMSCs proliferation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]