Family business, resilience, and ethnic tourism in Yunnan, China

The expansion in commodification through tourism and the transformation of communities and heritages into destination attributes have become the centre of tourism research facing the COVID-19 crisis. Since small family businesses comprise the majority of the tourism industry, theories and practices on surviving the crisis are urgently required. This research attempts to clarify the level of business resilience during the COVID-19 lock down when business can only be conducted at home with very few visitors. It provides insights on family businesses in Yunnan, China, moving ahead with ethnic tourism against the lockdown and shutdown of tourism industry. Data were collected through in-depth interviews. The researchers invited previous research respondents who agreed to continue for online interviews. Eight interviewees were selected by purposive sampling. Although the COVID-19 crisis was unexpected, external shocks need to be taken into account for business planning. Tourism will not necessarily grow massively in the total number of visitors as the destinations have become saturated. The diversification of a tourism business facilitates the resilience of the firm by venturing into other areas of practice, including taking advantage of online platforms in selling local food and herbs, live broadcasting the local flora and fauna, teaching school children in making the traditional pickles, and other business extensions from tourism. Businesses are working together with other stakeholders in the effort of overcoming the COVID-19 crisis. Previous visitors from not only China but also overseas, who have kept in touch with the hosts in Yunnan, are becoming part of the supporting team for the business. However, there appears to be a lack of coordination in the community when businesses are isolated. There is a call for skills in using technology for online business, complementarity in the community, and policy support in the ethnic family businesses. Small family businesses in ethnic Yunnan are actively adapting and progressing despite the odds. They are resilient in times of crisis, with a strong presence of entrepreneurship, diversification of activities, re-organising resources, and digital literacy. The research sheds light on how community-based small family businesses surviving the crisis through resilience, entrepreneurship, and celebrating their ethnic cultures in tourism. Small-scale tourism closely linked with the community, family, and people may provide more promising prospects for tourism

Improvement of muscle quality in tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) with dietary faba bean (Vicia faba L.)

Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is a freshwater fish which is farmed worldwide. Improving the muscle quality of fish has become a major goal while maintaining a sustainable aquaculture system. This research attempts to assess the effect of 0% (FB0), 40%(FB40), 50%(FB50), 60%(FB60) and 70% (FB70) faba bean on the texture parameter, histological analysis, proximate, amino acids, and fatty acids composition in tilapia fed 90 days. The results showed that hardness, chewiness, and shear force of tilapia muscle fed FB60, and FB70 were considerably more in comparison to fish fed FB0 at 90 days (p < 0.05). Tilapia fed faba beans had higher muscle fiber density, wider spaces between muscle fibers and smaller fiber diameter, with the greatest difference in tilapia fed FB60. The total protein content in tilapia fed FB40 was considerably more in comparison to in fish fed FB70 (p < 0.05), where the total protein content in muscle first increased and then reduced with increasing dietary faba bean level. The muscle ∑TAA, ∑EAA, valine, tyrosine, cysteine, aspartic acid, methionine, isoleucine, glutamic acid, leucine, arginine, and serine, contents in tilapia fed FB60 were much more in contrast to in fish fed FB0 (p < 0.05), which initially increased and then reduced with increasing dietary faba bean level. The muscle ∑PUFA content in tilapia fed dietary faba beans was greater compared with fish fed FB0, whereas the ∑SFA contents in tilapia fed FB50 and FB60 were lower in contrast to in fish fed FB0. In summary, dietary faba beans can improve muscle texture, muscle fibers, amino acids content and fatty acids content in tilapia. The research’s results make a contribution to the improved knowledge of the association among muscle quality in tilapia and dietary faba beans

Non-Markovian epidemic spreading on temporal networks

Many empirical studies have revealed that the occurrences of contacts associated with human activities are non-Markovian temporal processes with a heavy tailed inter-event time distribution. Besides, there has been increasing empirical evidence that the infection and recovery rates are time-dependent. However, we lack a comprehensive framework to analyze and understand non-Markovian contact and spreading processes on temporal networks. In this paper, we propose a general formalism to study non-Markovian dynamics on non-Markovian temporal networks. We find that, under certain conditions, non-Markovian dynamics on temporal networks are equivalent to Markovian dynamics on static networks. Interestingly, this result is independent of the underlying network topology