Griffith University

About: Griffith University is a education organization based out in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 13830 authors who have published 49318 publications receiving 1420865 citations.

Carbonized nanoscale metal-organic frameworks as high performance electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction.

Abstract: The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is one of the key steps in clean and efficient energy conversion techniques such as in fuel cells and metal-air batteries; however, several disadvantages of current ORRs including the kinetically sluggish process and expensive catalysts hinder mass production of these devices Herein, we develop carbonized nanoparticles, which are derived from monodisperse nanoscale metal organic frameworks (MIL-88B-NH3), as the high performance ORR catalysts The onset potential and the half-wave potential for the ORR at these carbonized nanoparticles is up to 103 and 092 V (vs RHE) in 01 M KOH solution, respectively, which represents the best ORR activity of all the non-noble metal catalysts reported so far Furthermore, when used as the cathode of the alkaline direct fuel cell, the power density obtained with the carbonized nanoparticles reaches 227 mW/cm2, 17 times higher than the commercial Pt/C catalysts

New realities: a systematic literature review on virtual reality and augmented reality in tourism research

Abstract: Despite the growing interest and discussions on Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) in tourism, we do not yet know systematically the knowledge that has been built from academic papers ...

Classification of natural flow regimes in Australia to support environmental flow management

Abstract: Keywords: * Bayesian mixture modelling; * catchment characteristics; * climate; * hydrologic metrics; * prediction; * uncertainty Summary 1. The importance of hydrologic variability for shaping the biophysical attributes and functioning of riverine ecosystems is well recognised by ecologists and water resource managers. In addition to the ecological dependences of flow for aquatic organisms, human societies modify natural flow regimes to provide dependable ecological services, including water supply, hydropower generation, flood control, recreation and navigation. Management of scarce water resources needs to be based on sound science that supports the development of environmental flow standards at the regional scale. 2. Hydrological classification has long played an essential role in the ecological sciences for understanding geographic patterns of riverine flow variability and exploring its influence on biological communities, and more recently, has been identified as a critical process in environmental flow assessments. 3. We present the first continental-scale classification of hydrologic regimes for Australia based on 120 metrics describing ecologically relevant characteristics of the natural hydrologic regime derived from discharge data for 830 stream gauges. Metrics were calculated from continuous time series (15-30 years of record constrained within a 36-year period) of mean daily discharge data, and classification was undertaken using a fuzzy partitional method - Bayesian mixture modelling. 4. The analysis resulted in the most likely classification having 12 classes of distinctive flow-regime types differing in the seasonal pattern of discharge, degree of flow permanence (i.e. perennial versus varying degrees of intermittency), variations in flood magnitude and frequency and other aspects of flow predictability and variability. Geographic, climatic and some catchment topographic factors were generally strong discriminators of flow-regime classes. The geographical distribution of flow-regime classes showed varying degrees of spatial cohesion, with stream gauges from certain flow-regime classes often being non-contiguously distributed across the continent. These results support the view that spatial variation in hydrology is determined by interactions among climate, geology, topography and vegetation at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Decision trees were also developed to provide the ability to determine the natural flow-regime class membership of new stream gauges based on their key environmental and/or hydrological characteristics. 5. The need to recognise hydrologic variation at multiple spatial scales is an important first step to setting regional-scale environmental flow management strategies. We expect that the classification produced here can underpin the development of a greater understanding of flow-ecology relationships in Australia, and management efforts aimed at prescribing environmental flows for riverine restoration and conservation.

Land-use intensification reduces functional redundancy and response diversity in plant communities

Abstract: Ecosystem resilience depends on functional redundancy (the number of species contributing similarly to an ecosystem function) and response diversity (how functionally similar species respond differently to disturbance). Here, we explore how land-use change impacts these attributes in plant communities, using data from 18 land-use intensity gradients that represent five biomes and > 2800 species. We identify functional groups using multivariate analysis of plant traits which influence ecosystem processes. Functional redundancy is calculated as the species richness within each group, and response diversity as the multivariate within-group dispersion in response trait space, using traits that influence responses to disturbances. Meta-analysis across all datasets showed that land-use intensification significantly reduced both functional redundancy and response diversity, although specific relationships varied considerably among the different land-use gradients. These results indicate that intensified management of ecosystems for resource extraction can increase their vulnerability to future disturbances.