Livelihood changes and evolution of upland ethnic communities driven by tourism: a case study in Guizhou Province,southwest China

As an effective livelihood approach to alleviate poverty without rural population migration, ethnic tourism has become the primary choice of economic development in ethnic areas worldwide in addition to traditional livelihood approaches. This article applies the theories of livelihood to study the community evolution driven by tourism livelihood and examine three mountainous tourism communities in different stages of tourist area life cycle. Drawing on the methods of GIS spatial analysis, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, this article proposes a sustainable livelihood framework for ethnic tourism to explore the evolution of ethnic tourism communities by identifying changes in livelihood assets (natural, financial, social, cultural and human capitals) in the process of tourism development. The results show that the development of ethnic tourism has led to changes in the increase of building land, and the diversification of land use functions with a trend of shifting from meeting local villagers' living needs to satisfying tourists, income composition and uneven distribution of tourism income spatially. Ethnic tourism also led to the deterioration of traditional social management structure, collapse of neighboring relationship, the over- commercialization and staged authenticity of ethnic culture, as well as the gradual vanish of agricultural knowledge with a trend of increasing modern business knowledge and higher education. In addition, these changes, involving livelihood assets from natural, economic, human, social and cultural aspects are interrelated and interactive, which form new evolution characters of ethnic community. This study reveals the conflicts over livelihood approaches which have formed new vulnerabilities to impact on sustainable evolution of ethnic communities. This research provides implications for achieving the sustainable development of ethnic communities with the driving force of tourism livelihood.     

A public Cloud-based China’s Landslide Inventory Database (CsLID): development,zone, and spatiotemporal analysis for significant historical events, 1949-2011

Landslide inventory plays an important role in recording landslide events and showing their temporal-spatial distribution. This paper describes the development, visualization, and analysis of a China's Landslide Inventory Database (CsLID) by utilizing Google’s public cloud computing platform. Firstly, CsLID (Landslide Inventory Database) compiles a total of 1221 historical landslide events spanning the years 1949-2011 from relevant data sources. Secondly, the CsLID is further broken down into six zones for characterizing landslide cause-effect, spatiotemporal distribution, fatalities, and socioeconomic impacts based on the geological environment and terrain. The results show that among all the six zones, zone V, located in Qinba and Southwest Mountainous Area is the most active landslide hotspot with the highest landslide hazard in China. Additionally, the Google public cloud computing platform enables the CsLID to be easily accessible, visually interactive, and with the capability of allowing new data input to dynamically augment the database. This work developed a cyber-landslide inventory and used it to analyze the landslide temporal-spatial distribution in China.     

An approach to determination of phenolic compounds in seawater using SPME-GC-MS based on SWCNTs coating

Phenolic compounds have become one kind of the important pollutants of the marine environment. Single-walled Carbon nanotubes, as one-dimensional nano materials, have light weight and perfect hexagonal structure of connections, with many unusual mechanical, chemical and electrical properties. In recent years, with the research of carbon nanotubes and other nano materials, the application prospect is also constantly discussed. In this paper, homemade single-walled carbon nanotubes(SWCNTs) coating was used for establishing an analytical approach to the determination of five kinds of phenolic compounds in seawater using SPME-GC-MS. Optimal conditions: After saturation was conducted with Na Cl, and p H was adjusted to 2.0 with H_2SO_4, the extract was immersed in a water bath at 40 for GC℃-MS determination through 40-min agitating extraction at 500 rmin~(-1) and 3-min desorption at 280℃. The liniearities ranged between 0.01-100 μg L~(-1), and the determination limits ranged between 1.5-10 ngL~(-1). The relative standard deviation(RSD, n = 5) was less than 6.5%. For the phenolic compounds obtained from the spiked recovery test for actual seawater samples, the rates of recovery were 87.5%-101.7%, and the RSDs were less than 8.8%, which met the requirements of determination. Due to its simplicity, high efficiency and low consumption, this approach is suitable for the analysis of trace amounts of phenolic compounds in marine waters.     

Study on biogenic amines in various dry salted fish consumed in China

This study was carried out to investigate the biogenic amines（BAs）, physicochemical property and microorganisms in dry salted fish, a traditional aquatic food consumed in China. Forty three samples of dry salted fish were gathered from retail and wholesale markets and manufacturers, which had been produced in various regions in China. Cadaverine（CAD） and putrescine（PUT） were quantitatively the most common biogenic amines. About 14% of the samples exceeded the histamine content standards established by the FDA and/or EU. The highest histamine content was found in Silver pomfret（Pampus argenteus）(347.79 mg kg^-1). Five of forty three samples exceeded the acceptable content of TYR(100 mg kg^-1), and 23.26% of dried-salted fish contained high contents of biogenic amines(above 600 mg kg^-1). In addition, species, regions, pickling processes and drying methods made the physicochemical property, microorganisms and biogenic amines in dry salted fish to be different to some extents. The total plate count（TPC） was much higher than that of total halophilic bacteria in all samples. The biogenic amines, physicochemical property and microbiological counts exhibited large variations among samples. Furthermore, no significant correlation between biogenic amines and physicochemical property and TPC was observed. This study indicated that dry salted fish may still present healthy risk for BAs, depending on the processing methods, storage conditions among others.     

Tide and current observations in the central Chukchi Sea during the summer of 2012

Current data from a moored Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler(ADCP) deployed at 69?30.155′N,169?00.654′W in the central Chukchi Sea during 2012 summertime is analyzed in the present paper.Characteristics of tidal and residual currents are ob-tained with Cosine-Lanczos filter and cross-spectral analyses.The main achievements are as follows:1) Along with the local inertial frequency of 12.8 h,two other peaks at ~12-h and ~10-d dominate the time series of raw velocity;2) The M_2 dominates the 6 resolved tide constituents with significant amplitude variations over depth and the ratios of current speed of this constituent to that of the total tidal current are 54% and 47% for u and v components,respectively.All the resolved tidal constituents rotate clockwise at depth with the exception of MM and O1.The constituents of M_2 and S_2 with the largest major semi-axes are similar in eccentricity and orientation at deeper levels;3) The maximum of residual currents varies in a range of 20–30 cms~(-1) over depth and the current with lower velocities flow more true north with smaller magnitudes compared to the current in surface layer.The ~10 d fluctuation of residual current is found throughout the water column and attributed to the response of current to the local wind forcing,with an approximate 1.4 d lag-time at the surface level and occurring several hours later in the lower layer;4) Mean residual currents flow toward the north with the magnitudes smaller than 7 cms~(-1) in a general agreement with previous studies,which suggests a relatively weaker but stable northward flow indeed exists in the central Chukchi Sea.     

Autonomic visiting in digital 3D scenes

Human-machine interactive visiting and fixed-route visiting are currently the main roaming modes in digital three-dimensional (3D) scenes. However, in general, when a person visits an attraction area, s/he does not follow a fixed path, but instead wander about according to his/her interests. Here, we propose a new roaming mode, called autonomic visiting. That is, in a digital 3D scene, a user selects several interest spots, then a route connecting these spots can be automatically determined and 3D scene can be seen along this route. This study presents a technical approach that enables the realization of autonomic visiting in 3D scenes. Firstly, Delaunay triangular meshes for the terrain in 3D scene are established. Secondly, a plane-growth algorithm and a line-connection algorithm are introduced to automatically mend the broken parts of these triangular meshes. Thirdly, the triangular meshes are then merged and differently weighted according to different layers. Finally, a progress-zone transmission algorithm is presented to optimal the shortest route, which is derived from A-Star (A*) algorithm. Digital 3D campus of Nanjing University, China, is taken as the experimental materials. The experimental results prove the effect of the proposed approach.     

Using inverse modeling and hierarchical cluster analysis for hydrochemical characterization of springs and Talkhab River in Tang-Bijar oilfield,Iran

Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and inverse modeling (PH REdox EQuilibrium (in C language) (PHREEQC)) were simultaneously useful approaches in interpreting surface water hydrochemistry within Talkhab River in the Tang-Bijar oilfield, Iran, where large uncertainties exist in the understanding of the water quality system. Q-mode HCA applied to the data revealed three major surface water associations distinguished on the basis of the major causes of variation in the hydrochemistry. The three water groups were classified as upstream waters (group 1: Ca–SO₄), intermediate waters (group 2: Ca–SO₄–Cl), and downstream waters (group 3: Na–Cl). Geochemical reaction models were constructed using PHREEQC to establish the reactions associated with the different mineral phases through inverse modeling. The hydrochemical compositions of the water groups and the mass balance calculations indicate that the dominant processes and reactions responsible for the hydrochemical evolution in the system are (1) dissolution of evaporites, (2) precipitation of carbonate minerals, (3) silicate weathering reactions, (4) limited mixing with saline water, and (5) ion exchange.     

Hydrogeological assessment of the Tabarteh fault zone by physicochemical analysis and multivariate statistical methods

Hydrogeologically, faults may impede, conduit, exert no influence, or may play a combination of these roles on groundwater flow. The object of this paper is to study the hydrogeological role of the Tabarteh fault, which is located on the border of Zagros and Central Iran tectonic zones in an alluvial aquifer. The recorded data of water table levels, chemical parameters, and discharge rate of wells, in addition to geological maps and geophysical results, were collected and evaluated. The outcrop of travertine in limited areas and the emergence of a few small springs within the alluvium show a barrier role of the fault in the groundwater flow. The spatial analysis of chemical components, head time series, and groundwater flow direction assessment demonstrated that the fault acts as both a barrier and a non-barrier in different sections. The multivariate statistical methods of cluster and discriminant analyses also confirm the dual role of the fault.