Island Counties Research Articles

Pleistocene Glacial Transport of Nephrite Jade from British Columbia, Canada, to Coastal Washington State, USA

Since prehistoric times, indigenous residents of southwest British Columbia, Canada, collected water-worn nephrite specimens from the gravel bars along the Fraser River, using the stone for the manufacture of tools that were widely traded with other tribes. Allochthonous nephrite occurs in another geologic setting. Late Pleistocene continental glaciers transported nephrite and many other rock types from western Canada to northwest Washington State, producing extensive sediment deposits that border the Salish Sea coast in Whatcom and Island Counties, Washington. This material was little utilized by indigenous residents, but “black jade” specimens are prized by modern collectors. The depositional history and mineralogy of this material has received little attention. X-ray diffraction and SEM/EDS analyses indicate that the Salish Sea “black jade” is a form of impure nephrite that probably originated from metamorphism of a mafic igneous parent material (metabasite). The texture consists of prismatic amphibole crystals (ferro-actinolite) set in a matrix rich in plagioclase feldspar. Pyrite inclusions are locally present. A second material, sometimes erroneously labelled “muttonfat jade” by amateur collectors, consists of an intermixture of quartz and sillimanite.

COVID-19 Disruptions Driving Sustainable Tourism: A Case of the Hawaiian Tourism Industry

This study inquires about the COVID-19-generated momentum and how it resulted in transformative opportunities for the hard-hit tourism industry in Hawai’i. A single embedded case study has been selected to explore the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic-generated momentum for the risk-prevalent industry and identify sustainability-based management strategies within the tourism industry in Hawai’i’s small island economy. Documentation and archival records analysis paired with direct observations performed during the 2022 Hawai’i Tourism Conference exposed the pivot taken by the Hawai’i Tourism Authority and the four island counties, toward rebuilding, redefining, and resetting the tourism industry in accelerating the timeline for sustainable and regenerative tourism. Findings indicate that actors from the tourism industry in Hawai’i perceived the COVID-19 pandemic as a huliau, or a point of transformation, to reflect and reevaluate the tourism industry's responsibility and shift toward a recovery focused on sustainability. This research confirms that the pandemic-driven momentum accelerated opportunities for changing and transforming traditional business models and indicators of progress within the tourism industry in Hawai’i and it revealed that the Hawai’i Tourism Authority and the four island counties adopted new management and collaborative approaches and measures of success to rebuild, redefine, and reset the directions of tourism. Further research may explore additional Pacific Island countries to gain a deeper understanding of the problem within the region’s context.

Data-driven decision-making of marine ecological civilization construction in island county of China

In the cause of assessing the construction of ecological civilization in island county accurately, an evaluation index system involving 27 single indexes under the framework of Pressure-State-Response (PSR) model is established. Because the system of island county ecological civilization development is a complex network system. This research designs an assessment method based on network analytical method to evaluate the development of island county ecological civilization. For this purpose, a Back-Propagation (BP) neural network-based decision-making model are established at the same time. Regarding the standardized data of 6 island counties from 2010 to 2020 in China as the input learning matrix, both entropy and coefficient of variation are applied to the evaluation of the “Development Index of Marine Ecological Civilization Construction” (DIMECC). More specifically, after 10,000 times of training, the error accuracy is within overhead manageable, and the island counties which are evaluated as ecological civilization level are found out and the key impacting indicator contributing to low level are identified. According to the actual evaluation result of island counties obtained by BP neural network, the ecological civilization of them is proposed as a whole under land-sea coordination. Finally, this paper suggests on the decision-making of the participants to contribute the construction of the island county ecological civilization development system.

Overview of dental professionally topical fluoride application in public health measure in Taiwan in 2021

Background/purposeIn Taiwan, it has been 16 years since the policy of children's dental professionally topical fluoride application (PTFA) services was implemented. This study investigated the differences in the number of children's dental PTFA outpatient visits among cities and counties or different regions of Taiwan in 2021. Materials and methodsThe population data and medical records of the number of children's dental PTFA outpatient visits were obtained from the websites of Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Health and Welfare, respectively. The secondary data were divided by cities and counties to analyze the urban-rural gap and regional differences in the number of children's dental PTFA outpatient visits in Taiwan in 2021. ResultsIn Taiwan, municipalities had the largest number of dental PTFA visits (721,338, 66.91% of the total dental PTFA visits), while remote and outlying island counties had the smallest number of dental PTFA visits (84,509, 7.84%). The northern region had the largest number of dental PTFA visits (466,728, 43.29%), while outlying islands had the smallest number of dental PTFA visits (25,055, 2.32%). Based on the children aged 3–5 years, municipalities had the lowest dental PTFA use rate (171.70%), while remote and outlying island counties had the highest dental PTFA use rate (482.96%). ConclusionIn Taiwan, there is a higher number of children's dental PTFA outpatient visits in municipalities than in non-municipalities or remote and outlying island counties as well as in northern region than in each of other four regions (central, southern, and eastern regions and outlying islands).

КНР И СТРАНЫ ОКЕАНИИ В ПЕРИОД ПАНДЕМИИ COVID-19: ПОМОЩЬ С КИТАЙСКОЙ СПЕЦИФИКОЙ

This paper analyses China’s aid to Pacific Island counties in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The author consequently studies the components of this aid: providing vaccines, personal protective equipment, testing kits, thermometers, ventilators and other medical ma-terials and equipment, as well as consulting activities and direct financial aid. Then, the characteristic features of Chinese policy are formulated, and the incentives of Beijing’s actions are emphasized.

Food trade among Pacific Island countries and territories: implications for food security and nutrition

BackgroundThere is growing attention to intra-regional trade in food. However, the relationship between such trade and food and nutrition is understudied. In this paper, we present an analysis of intra-regional food trade in the Pacific region, where there are major concerns regarding the nutritional implications of international food trade. Using a new regional database, we examine trends in food trade among Pacific Island Counties and Territories (PICTs) relative to extra-regional trade.ResultsIntra-regional trade represents a small, but increasing proportion of total imports. The major food group traded within the Pacific is cereal grains and flour, which represented 51% of total intra-regional food trade in 2018. Processed and prepared foods, sweetened or flavoured beverages, processed fish, and sugar and confectionary are also traded in large quantities among PICTs. Trade in root crops is negligible, and overall intra-regional trade of healthy foods is limited, both in terms of tonnage and relative to imports from outside the region. Fiji remains the main source of intra-regional imports into PICTs, particularly for non-traditional staple foods.ConclusionsThis study highlights the growth in trade of staple foods intra-regionally, indicating a role for Fiji (in particular) in regional food security. Within this overall pattern, there is considerable opportunity to enhance intra-regional trade in traditional staple foods, namely root crops. Looking forward, the current food system disruption arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and associated policy measures has highlighted the long-term lack of investment in agriculture, and suggests an increased role for regional approaches in fostering trade in healthy foods.

COVID-19 heterogeneity in islands chain environment.

BackgroundIt is critical to capture data and modeling from the COVID-19 pandemic to understand as much as possible and prepare for future epidemics and possible pandemics. The Hawaiian Islands provide a unique opportunity to study heterogeneity and demographics in a controlled environment due to the geographically closed borders and mostly uniform pandemic-induced governmental controls and restrictions.ObjectiveThe goal of the paper is to quantify the differences and similarities in the spread of COVID-19 among different Hawaiian islands as well as several other archipelago and islands, which could potentially help us better understand the effect of differences in social behavior and various mitigation measures. The approach should be robust with respect to the unavoidable differences in time, as the arrival of the virus and promptness of mitigation measures may vary significantly among the chosen locations. At the same time, the comparison should be able to capture differences in the overall pandemic experience.MethodsWe examine available data on the daily cases, positivity rates, mobility, and employ a compartmentalized model fitted to the daily cases to develop appropriate comparison approaches. In particular, we focus on merge trees for the daily cases, normalized positivity rates, and baseline transmission rates of the models.ResultsWe observe noticeable differences among different Hawaiian counties and interesting similarities between some Hawaiian counties and other geographic locations. The results suggest that mitigation measures should be more localized, that is, targeting the county level rather than the state level if the counties are reasonably insulated from one another. We also notice that the spread of the disease is very sensitive to unexpected events and certain changes in mitigation measures.ConclusionsDespite being a part of the same archipelago and having similar protocols for mitigation measures, different Hawaiian counties exhibit quantifiably different dynamics of the spread of the disease. One potential explanation is that not sufficiently targeted mitigation measures are incapable of handling unexpected, localized outbreak events. At a larger-scale view of the general spread of the disease on the Hawaiian island counties, we find very interesting similarities between individual Hawaiian islands and other archipelago and islands.

Study on the path of Xi Jinping's ecological view for the high quality development of islands

PurposeThe island areas, in particular, are characterized by a more fragile ecological carrying capacity and higher value of resources and environment, which requires us to take Xi Jinping's green ecological development view as the theoretical basis and adhere to the high-quality development path of gradual development and ecological environment priority. Taking Shengsi and Daishan counties as examples, on the basis of their high-quality development evaluation and identification of the main influencing factors, this study explores the specific path of Xi Jinping's ecological development view in the high-quality development of typical island counties in China.Design/methodology/approachThis paper applies the interpretative structural model to construct an evaluation index system for the high-quality development of the island. In determining the factor weights of the index layer, the AHP hierarchical analysis method was combined with the Delphi method to increase the objectivity of the assignment process as much as possible. This study used the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution to calculate island high quality development index. To measure the main obstacle factors, the index factor contribution rate, the index factor deviation, and the index factor obstacle degree were applied in this research.FindingsThe study is supported by Guangxi Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Guangxi Academy of Sciences (GXKLHY21-04), Special Funds for Fundamental Scientific Research Operation of Central Universities (202113011), Shandong Provincial Social Science Planning Research Youth Project (21DSHJ2) and Tianjin Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project of China (No. TJKS20XSX-015).Originality/valueThe connotation and extension of Xi Jinping's view of ecological development should be continuously studied in depth and enriched, with green development as the core idea to guide the correct direction of the high-quality development of the island. In this paper, it is suggested that researchers are supposed to focus on these problems, such as the changes of sea water quality, the reduction of urban greening, the continuous negative growth of population in island areas, the decline of forestry added value and air quality protection, so as to ensure the sustainable high-quality development of example islands.

Spatiotemporal Evolution Characteristics of Ecosystem Service Values Based on NDVI Changes in Island Cities

Vegetation plays a dominant role in and serves as the structural foundation of island-land ecosystems. Island cities, as sea-land ecological complexes, are able to somewhat reflect the general realities of island ecological environments. By using the Landsat series remote-sensing images and an ecosystem service value (ESV) evaluation system, in this paper, the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of the NDVIs and ESVs of China’s 12 island counties over the past three decades are analyzed. According to the research results, (1) The average NDVI of China’s island counties dropped from 0.380 to 0.347 in 1990-2018, reflecting a continuous downtrend. The NDVIs of Changhai County and Changdao County show significant changes, with decreases of 45.24% and 37.57%, respectively. (2) The total ESV of China’s island counties showed a “V”-shaped change trend from 1990-2018; the minimum value reached USD 362 million in 2010, then essentially recovered to the 2000 level in 2018. (3) The high and low values of NDVI and ESV in island counties over the years were distributed with the spatial characteristics of high values in the center of the islands and low values at the edges of the islands. The island counties north of the Yangtze River showed the largest changes in NDVI and ESV. (4) Forest cover is the main factor that drives ESV reduction in China’s island counties, followed by grassland cover. This study provides an effective method to study the changes in the NDVI and ESV of island cities and proposes the strengthening of island vegetation protection and the promotion of sustainable development in the ecological environments and economies of island cities.

Surveillance strategies for the detection of disease outbreaks in the Pacific islands: meta-analysis of published literature, 2010-2019.

Due to their tropical location, development status and the limited capacity of health systems, Pacific island counties and territories are particularly susceptible to infectious disease outbreaks; but evidence as to the optimal way in which outbreaks are detected is scarce. In this review, we synthesise evidence from literature about how outbreaks are detected in Pacific island countries and territories and critique factors identified as inhibiting surveillance practice. For this systematic review, we searched electronic databases Embase, Global Health, MEDLINE and MEDLINE Epub from 1 January 2010 and 31 March 2019 for reports describing infectious disease outbreaks occurring in the Pacific islands. Reports were included if they reported the method by which an outbreak was detected or the time between an outbreak's onset and its detection. We extracted information about the report type and authors, the outbreak and its method/s of detection, and pertinent issues inhibiting surveillance practice. Of 860 articles identified, 37 reports describing 39 outbreaks met the inclusion criteria. Most outbreaks (n=30) were identified through formal event-based surveillance; six through syndromic surveillance; and two by ad hoc notification from the community. Barriers to early outbreak detection included population isolation; lack of resources and infrastructure to support surveillance implementation and signal investigation; and broader health system factors such as preparedness planning and availability of laboratory services. Most surveillance-related gain in the Pacific islands may be made through building formal event-based surveillance systems and streamlining reporting processes to facilitate outbreak notification. This observation is pertinent given the focus on establishing and expanding syndromic surveillance approaches for outbreak detection in the islands over the last decade.

Development and usability of a mobile tool for identification of depression and suicide risk in Fiji.

In Fiji and other South Pacific island countries, depression and suicide are of great concern. There is a pressing need to rapidly identify those at risk and provide treatment as soon as possible. Design, develop and test a mobile health tool that enables CHNs to easily and rapidly identify individuals at risk for suicide and depression and provide guidelines for their treatment. Using Android Studio, a native app called ASRaDA was developed that encoded two validated scales: Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D), and Suicide Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R). The usability of the app was measured using the System Usability Scale by community health nurses in Fiji. Out of a maximim possible of 100 on SUS, ASRaDA was scored at 86.79. Mobile tools with high usability can be designed to aid community health nurses in Fiji and Pacific island counties rapidly identify those at risk for depression and suicide.

A case study of an autonomous wireless sensor network system for environmental data collection

This article presents a case study of the design of an autonomous wireless sensor network for environmental monitoring to provide data for understanding the relationships among food, energy, and water systems in suburban areas in Long Island New York. The study focuses on the existing water quality data for the two counties on Long Island, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, to understand the impact of energy and food production on the coastal waters of Long Island Sound and Peconic Bay. The analysis of existing data from the US Environmental Protection Agency database reveals the challenges in using such data to understand the relationships between water quality, weather events and identified point sources of pollutants. Maintaining on-going data collection programs is expensive, time-consuming and personnel intensive which is why this project examines new ways to obtain and utilize environmental data. The researchers propose the design of an autonomous wireless sensor network environmental monitoring system with an optimal sensor placement strategy to identify targeted locations for water quality monitoring. The goal is to provide environmental data that can facilitate a better understanding of the interactions of farming activities and energy production resulting in undesirable impacts on water quality. The proposed design can be used to provide real-time data to help stakeholders improve efficiency in resource management and advance early detection of potential hazardous events. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2017

南澳海岛旅游业发展研究

南澳拥有丰富的自然与人文旅游资源，未来旅游业将成为南澳的主导产业，而由岛、海、山组成的洁净优美的海岛自然生态环境是南澳发展旅游业的最大优势。南澳旅游业近年来发展迅速，但总体规模较小，水平低，旅游品牌没有形成，知名度不高。旅游业发展存在无序开发、产品结构单一、旅游开发资金短缺等问题。本文提出南澳旅游业的发展对策，主要包括打造绿色生态旅游品牌、注重旅游形象的塑造与宣传、开拓主要客源市场和潜在市场、优化旅游产品结构和加强海岛环境保护措施。还探讨了南澳旅游经济发展对策，包括多渠道筹集旅游建设资金、调整产业结构、创新管理制度等。 Firstly, this paper analyzed rich natural and cultural tourism resources in Nanao, but clean and beautiful natural island environment composed by islands, sea and mountains is the biggest ad-vantages of the development of tourism in Nanao County. Tourism should be developed as the leading industry in Nanao in the future, and green tourism, eco-tourism should be the most prom-inent feature of Nanao tourism. Then the paper analyzed the current situation of tourism devel-opment in Nanao. It has developed rapidly in recent years, but it had low level with small overall size, and it is less developed than the 12 island counties in China. Nanao tourism brand has not been formed, and its reputation has not high. Nanao tourism had disorderly development led to the existence of most attractions having no high-grade construction, single tourism product structure, inadequate tourism service facilities and other issues. Following the authors studied on the strategies of the development of tourism in Nanao, including building green eco-tourism brand, focusing on tourism image and publicity, exploring the major tourism source markets and potential markets, optimizing tourism product mix and strengthening island environment protection. Finally, the authors discussed the tourism economic development strategies of Nanao, including multiple channels to raise funds for tourism construction, industrial restructuring, innovation of tourism management policy etc.

Agriculture and biotechnology in Pacific countries.

The Pacific countries are small in land mass and therefore represent one of the most fragile ecosystems. Due to the isolation of these island counties, these are home to unique species of plants and animals as well as crop varieties and landraces. Biosafety issues in the Pacific countries, therefore, require special attention to take these factors into account. The issues are shared with other small island nations such as the Caribbean countries. Although most Pacific countries do not have scientific capacity to develop genetically modified organisms (GMOs), they are inadvertently introduced from the developed world. As the countries do not have appropriate capacity to monitor the introduction and commerce of GMO's, it is imperative to establish biosafety legislation and capacity by pooling the resources within the Pacific countries.

Evolution of Industrial Structure and Evaluation of the Economic Competitiveness of Island Counties in China

Islands are special regional units with unique development models and pathways and because of their locations, resources and environmental advantages, play an important role in the process of national modernization. Here, industrial coefficient variation and shift-share methods were used to explain the evolution of island county economies and the competitiveness of their industrial structures. We found that industrial structures in island counties have undergone a complex evolution, have not followed a pure levo-rotation mode or dextrorotation mode, and have experienced mixed evolutionary modes. The industrial structures in island counties are relatively simple, and the evolution of industrial structures in island counties has an apparent leaping feature. Last, the economic development of 12 focal island counties were divided into five categories in accordance with analysis of their economic development: Competitiveness Strengthened and Structure Optimized; Competitiveness Strengthened but Structure Declined; Competitiveness Weakened but Structure Optimized; Competitiveness Weakened and Structure Declined; and Structure Relatively Stabilized.

Targeted Sampling Increases Knowledge and Improves Estimates of Ant Species Richness in Rhode Island

Only 0.7% of 28,205 known New England ant specimens (1861–2011) were from Rhode Island. Consequently, apparent ant species richness of Rhode Island counties was lower than expected based on simple biogeographic models. Collections from two poorly sampled areas—Block Island and Tiverton—and from the 2013 Rhode Island Natural History Survey's BioBlitz increased Rhode Island's ant specimens by 46%) and its ant species richness from 48 to 57. Both Washington and Newport counties now have ant species richness more in line with New England-wide species-environment predictions. The extrapolated number of Rhode Island ant species is 66, but the upper bound of the 95% confidence interval is 93 species and the total species accumulation curve has not reached an asymptote. Future collection efforts should continue to add ant species to the Rhode Island list, especially if collections are targeted in the state's north and southeast regions, and its southwest pine barrens.

Research on Tourism Competitiveness of Chinese Island Counties: Based on Factor and Cluster Analysis

From the perspective of tourism competitiveness, the paper takes 12 island counties of China as the research object, and applies the method of factor analysis to study their com- petitiveness. The result shows that Putuo and Dinghai are more competitive while Pingtan and Nan'ao are less competitive. Fi- nally, the 12 island counties are divided into four styles: first-class competitive county (Putuo), seond-class competitive counties (Dinghai,Yuhuan), third-class competitive counties (Chongming, Daishan, Changdao, Changhai and Shengsi), fourth-class competi- tive counties (Dongshan, Dongtou, Pingtan and Nan'ao) by cluster analysis. The classification of island counties is to clear their rela- tive position, then to promote their development.

Differences in arthropod communities between island and inland Masson pine forests infested by pine wilt disease in Zhejiang Province

The invasion of Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (pine wood nematode, PWN) carried by Monochamus alternatus predominately attacks Masson pine (Pinus massoniana) forests and causes great economic losses in China. In this study, we assessed whether the effect of the invasion of PWN is different between island and inland forests. Arthropods were sampled in Fuyang (inland) and Zhoushan (island) counties in Zhejiang Province with sweep netting and light traps at four plots. During two field periods (May to June 2004 and September to October 2005) a total of 21,916 insects, representing 384 species belonging to 99 families and 15 orders, were collected in the sample plots from the island, whereas, from the inland forest a total of 29,262 insects, representing 308 species belonging to 96 families and 13 orders, were found. A hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and one-way ANOVA, based on the composition of different arthropod guilds, were performed. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the composition of arthropod communities at the family level between inland and island. But these two habitats had a significant effect on the composition of species, individuals, sub-communities and energy class levels. Statistically, the composition of the two orders, Lepidoptera and Diptera, in the two habitats were significantly different.

A Counterfactual Analysis of Fiscal Decentralization in Small Countries: The Case of Mauritius

Local government autonomy may be less significant in very small island counties, due to lack of spatial variations in citizen-voters’ preferences. A counterfactual analysis is performed to test efficiency of local expenditure in a small country environment by incorporating the idea of a new institutional arrangement. Empirical analysis utilizing Mauritian data lends support to superiority of local government over central government in providing local services despite very small country size. This result is robust even when the central government is modeled to provide non-uniform local services to recognize spatial variation in preferences. Thus, voter support for local government even in very small countries is rational.

Manufacturing on the Estonian Islands: Trends and Prospects

Few small-island economies have a significant manufacturing sector. Building a competitive manufacturing sector can be observed in Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, the two island counties of Estonia. Until recently, these peripheral islands relied on agriculture, fisheries and food processing industries, but they are both gradually transforming themselves into predominantly tourism and resort locations with some expanding new sub-sectors of manufacturing. This process is examined in this paper with four case studies of some characteristic firms. Future prospects for manufacturing on these islands are also explored.