3,354 research outputs found
Interview with Joe Griffith
No full textErix Infante interviews Joe Griffith about his life as a student at Wright State University. They discuss topics ranging from morning routines, the first day of classes, to favorite classes and professors
Joe Engel and Clark Griffith portrait, undated
No full textBlack-and-white photograph of Joe Engel and Clark Griffith sitting together on a wooden bench at a baseball field in Winter Garden, Florida. Pictured left to right: Clark Griffith, Joe Engel. Griffith owned the Washington Senators franchise from 1920-1955, through which Joe Engel had come up as a player and later as a scout. With Griffith's backing, Engel bought the Chattanooga Lookouts minor league team in 1929. The Lookouts were part of the Senators' farm team system from its purchase until 1960. From the mid 1930s until 1945, the Washington Senators and Chattanooga Lookouts traveled to Winter Garden, Florida for spring training. The handwritten text on the reverse of the image reads "L. to R. Clark Griffith-Pres-Washington Baseball Club Died 1955, Joe Engel - Pres Chattanooga Baseball Club Died 6/12/69, Winter Garden, Fla.
Joe Engel and Clark Griffith portrait, undated
No full textBlack-and-white photograph of Joe Engel and Clark Griffith sitting together on a wooden bench at a baseball field in Winter Garden, Florida. Pictured left to right: Clark Griffith, Joe Engel. Griffith owned the Washington Senators franchise from 1920-1955, through which Joe Engel had come up as a player and later as a scout. With Griffith's backing, Engel bought the Chattanooga Lookouts minor league team in 1929. The Lookouts were part of the Senators' farm team system from its purchase until 1960. From the mid 1930s until 1945, the Washington Senators and Chattanooga Lookouts traveled to Winter Garden, Florida for spring training. The handwritten text on the reverse of the image reads "L. to R. Clark Griffith-Pres-Washington Baseball Club Died 1955, Joe Engel - Pres Chattanooga Baseball Club Died 6/12/69, Winter Garden, Fla.
Biotic Responses to Urbanisation in Mangrove Dominated Estuaries
No full textIncreasing urbanisation of coastal areas is placing unprecedented pressure on estuarine environments. Impacts associated with urbanisation can alter the health of estuarine ecosystems, reducing their capacity to provide valuable ecosystem services. In order protect these environments, relationships between estuarine health and urbanisation should be understood and applied to sustainable urban planning in coastal areas. Responses measured in estuarine biota offer much potential for providing pragmatic and sensitive means for the detection of urban impacts in estuaries. I assessed the responses of estuarine biota to increasing levels of urbanisation in the rapidly developing coastal region of southeast Queensland, Australia. I measured a suite of biotic indicators, namely: the [delta-N-15] of mangroves and crabs as a tracer for urban N sources, sediment chlorophyll a concentration (Chl a) as an estimate of the biomass of microphytobenthos (MPB), and a condition index in crabs, measured as the hepatosomatic index (HI). Urbanisation was estimated as the percentage of catchment covered by impervious surfaces (impervious cover, IC). Increases in impervious surfaces such as roads, footpaths and car parks are closely linked to urbanisation. These surfaces concentrate and convey pollutants generated from urban activities into coastal waterways and estuaries, thus making IC a useful indicator of urban impact.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Griffith School of EnvironmentScience, Environment, Engineering and TechnologyFull Tex
Interview about Mattie Griffith with Joe Lockard by Dr. Elizabeth Renker
No full textRemote interview conducted in Columbus, Ohio.Interview with Dr. Joe Lockard, associate professor of English at Arizona State University, where he has taught for 21 years. He's a specialist in nineteenth-century American Literature, particularly the literature of U.S. slavery and early African American literature. Joe talks about his groundbreaking research recovering the life and work of abolitionist Mattie Griffith, a young Kentucky poet who shared social circles with Sarah. Mattie's hatred of enslavement led her to leave Kentucky for the North, where she published a pseudo-slave narrative, Autobiography of a Female Slave. Interview conducted via Zoom by Dr. Elizabeth Renker from the Department of English at The Ohio State University
Detritivory in the Mangrove Sesarmid Crab Parasesarma Erythodactyla
No full textSesarmid crabs have important ecological roles in the mangroves of the Indo-west-Pacific biogeographic region. By processing large amount of leaf litter, these crabs retain organic matter in the mangroves, increase the rate of mineralisation, and fuel additional trophic links with the processed material. However, the dietary composition of the mangrove sesarmids is still a controversy. Gut content analyses suggest a dominant contribution of mangrove leaf litter in the crab diet but stable isotope data seem to support the assimilation of organic matter derived from the microphytobenthos but not mangrove litter. In addition, ability of the sesarmid crabs to obtain sufficient nutrition from mangrove litter, which is rich in structural carbon (cellulose) but poor in other nutrients such as nitrogen, has been questioned. The over-arching goal of this thesis was to fill these gaps of knowledge in detritivory of the mangrove sesarmids, using Parasesarma erythodactyla (Hess, 1865), the dominant shredder in sub-tropical Australian mangroves, as an animal model.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Griffith School of EnvironmentScience, Environment, Engineering and TechnologyFull Tex
Development of a New Calibration Method for the Continuous On-Line Analysis and Monitoring of Drinking Water Quality Based on Neural Computing Techniques
No full textAccurate, continuous, real-time water quality information is becoming of paramount importance to ensure safe supplies of potable water are available, as worldwide contamination of our freshwater resources increases and we diversify our reliance on alternative water resources. Nevertheless, the acquisition of continuous reliable data for aqueous environments has proven difficult to achieve, as the majority of on-line monitoring technologies currently employed are based on direct adaptations of traditional wet laboratory methods, which were not originally designed for field or continuous monitoring applications. Consequently, they have the inherent problem of requiring strictly controlled measurement conditions, which are rarely present in the natural environment and suffer from issues such as signal drift, reagent consumption, calibration and sample pre-treatment. Seeing that consistent measurement conditions are rarely present in real world environments, direct sensor deployment often means the sensor is unavoidably exposed to a wide range of measurement conditions leading to measurement errors and invalidating the operating conditions required for reliable performance.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Griffith School of EnvironmentScience, Environment, Engineering and TechnologyFull Tex
Habitat Ecology of the Bull Shark, Carcharhinus leucas, on Urban Coasts in Eastern Queensland, Australia
No full textThe habitat ecology of the euryhaline bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) is poorly understood, yet vital for their conservation and management on our rapidly urbanising coastlines. This study investigated the habitat ecology of the bull shark in relation to ontogeny using a variety of approaches, including long-term catch data, acoustic telemetry, chemical indicators for trophic and habitat preferences and conventional methods for dietary analysis.
Fishery-independent data from 1,060 C. leucas caught at ten locations along the east coast of Queensland (17 to 28°S) by the Queensland Shark Control Program (QSCP) from 1996 to 2006 indicated size of sharks captured ranged from 0.6 to 4 m total length (TL). Onset of female maturity was determined at 1.8 to 2 m TL. Catch per unit effort (CPUE) was higher during summer for drumlines and gill nets in tropical north QLD. Significantly larger individuals were caught on both gears in the sub-tropical southeast of Queensland compared to the tropical north. Principal components-regression analysis indicated this difference could be attributed to coastal bathymetry, i.e. distance to the 100 m contour. The number of estuaries in a region also directly influenced the C. leucas catch. General linear models (GLMs) indicated latitudinal differences in CPUE along the eastern Queensland coast with a significant decline in sub-tropical areas.
QSCP data from 1996 to 2007 were analysed to investigate the effects of climate parameters on catch of this species in the nearshore habitat. Conditional generalised linear modelling (CGLM) showed that the numbers of C. leucas caught by both techniques were significantly correlated with total rainfall within eight days prior to capture. C. leucas catch on drumlines increased with prior rainfall > 300 mm and sea surface temperature, as these conditions may encourage feeding in nearshore areas. Pregnant C. leucas caught in gill nets increased with a positive Southern Oscillation Index, suggesting higher pupping during wet periods. Catch of sharks < 2 m in TL in nets increased with prior rainfall and were negatively correlated with lunar phase (i.e. lowest catches during full moon).Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Griffith School of EnvironmentScience, Environment, Engineering and TechnologyFull Tex
Fish in Artificial Urban Waterways: Ecology, Feeding and Contamination
No full textTo maximise opportunities for coastal land with waterfrontage, property developers have claimed natural wetlands (saltmarsh, mangroves) for construction of artificial urban waterway developments in many places. These created habitats differ from nearby shallow estuarine habitats; they lack the macrophytes common in natural estuaries, they receive untreated urban stormwater runoff, and typically comprise a highly ramified network of narrow and deep channels. Few studies of these habitats exist and there is no clear understanding of their ecological value and role as coastal fish habitat. Managers are therefore faced with the challenge of managing existing systems, and of selecting coastal wetland habitats for protection from new waterway developments.
Artificial urban waterways are an obvious feature of the coastal landscape in southeast Queensland, Australia. Because of the extensive network of these systems, many suffer hydraulic problems, and in response, legislation forced property developers to shift waterway design to estuarine lakes with restricted tidal exchange. This hydraulic restriction seemed to solve increases to the tidal compartment imposed with further artificial urban housing waterway developments, however, no consideration has been given to connectivity with downstream waterways for fish. My research demonstrates that these lakes, like open flow through canals, support many of the same fish species of economic importance that occur in natural wetlands and that there is no apparent trapping of fish in lakes. Salinity is lower in lakes because of their tidal restrictions, and while this is only weakly correlated with fish abundance, even in massive lake developments (280 ha surface area), it is the environmental factor that best explains fish assemblages. Recruitment of young fish is also influenced by lake design, with their arrival in lakes slightly delayed behind that in open canals.
Few studies have tested whether the ecological processes supporting fisheries production in artificial urban waterways are different to those in natural habitat. I used stomach content analysis and stable isotopes (carbon and nitrogen) of snub-nosed garfish (Arrhamphus sclerolepis) to examine their nutrition in artificial and natural wetlands. A. sclerolepis in natural wetlands have enriched carbon isotope values (-13.9‰) because they consume large amounts of seagrass during the day and night, and at night also ingest small quantities of crustacean prey. A. sclerolepis in artificial urban waterways have depleted values (-19.1‰) because they consume macroalgae during the night, and switch in the day to terrestrial insects washed from gardens lining the waterways. This means that fish show remarkable plasticity in the new wetland habitat, retaining the same feeding strategy from natural wetlands of bulk herbivory with the inclusion of smaller amounts of animal prey. It also suggests minimal exchange of fish populations between natural and artificial habitats over the period of weeks to months, Mathematical modelling of the carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures of A. sclerolepis and all feasible source mixtures confirmed that this diet switching is part of a feeding strategy requiring multiple food sources in each habitat.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Griffith School of EnvironmentScience, Environment, Engineering and TechnologyFull Tex
Agent-Based Modelling of Short-Term Juvenile Bull Shark Movement in a Semi-Enclosed Gold Coast Estuary
No full textThis project investigated the value and future potential of a coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian agent-based modelling approach as an alternative method of investigating the movement and habitat use of juvenile bull shark Carcharhinus leucas in small peri-urban estuaries. Through the use of the MIKE21 modelling suite (DHI), a depth-averaged two-dimensional hydro-dynamic model was developed and implemented as a means to capture the spatio-temporal variation in hydrodynamics of the semi-enclosed Tallebudgera Creek estuary. This system provides a suite of habitats comprising artificial residential canals, polyhaline and brackish creek sections in a peri-urban setting. The hydrodynamic model served as the dynamic foundation of a spatially heterogeneous agent-based model (ABM) developed for juvenile C. leucas. The movement formulation of juvenile C. leucas was represented as a kinesis search for optimal conditions, while a random walk model served as a control.
The hydrodynamic model performed satisfactorily in terms of capturing the variations of key physical conditions of Tallebudgera Creek. Modelled values of surface elevation and flow dynamics were in good agreement with measured data sets. Simulated mean levels of salinity and temperature were likewise in good agreement with measured means; however, model analysis revealed a high sensitivity to increased freshwater influxes, and a delay in model response time.
Three neonate and juvenile individuals of C. leucas were captured and attached with acoustic tags for tracking of movement in Tallebudgera Creek. Short-term continuous tracks of a juvenile C. leucas were successfully collected as a means to relate observed movement to out-puts of the hydrodynamic model and measurements of water quality, while consecutive data-points of animal position served as validation data for the agent-based model.
Analysis of C. leucas track data revealed a high site preference for the middle reach of the system over the course of the tracking campaign, even during periods when salinity levels were 27 PSU was evident. Significant movement of the animal in a downriver direction only occurred after a period of increased flow velocities and turbidity, suggesting that these parameters may play an important role in directing shark movement in conjunction with salinity.
The agent-based models in their current developmental stage performed unsatisfactorily in capturing observed movement, and their predictive ability was generally poor. The current ABM formulation of C. leucas movement is therefore deemed insufficient to capture the observed pattern of behaviour. However, unforseen technical difficulties originating from the narrow and shallow nature of the Tallebudgera Creek system prevented a full assessment of the ABM results.
Despite current technical issues that were impracticable to be resolved under the available timeframe, this study represents a first attempt to construct and implement agent-based modelling to investigate bull shark movement and habitat use in a spatially and temporally dynamic hydrologic environment. It is predicted that once these technical difficulties are overcome, agent-based modelling as a research tool holds great promise for future investigation of the habitat ecology of C. leucas to benefit its conservation and management.Thesis (Masters)Master of Philosophy (MPhil)Griffith School of EnvironmentScience, Environment, Engineering and TechnologyFull Tex
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