The Challenge of Toleration: How a Minority Religion Adapted in the New Republic

This thesis examines the early American Catholic Church and how its first bishop, John Carroll, guided it through the first years of the American republic. The struggles Carroll faced were the legacy of the English heritage of the colonies. English Catholics who shaped colonial Catholic life made the community private and personal in response to the religious atmosphere in the English world. The American Revolution brought toleration for Catholics and they struggled to adapt their hierarchal religion to new republican language. Some congregations went as far as to deny episcopal power, a theory known as trusteeism. Different interpretations struggled to gain prominence and the issue was not resolved until decades after Carroll’s death in 1815. Yet the Church he left behind provided a strong base for later immigrants who nonetheless dramatically changed the face of the American Catholic Church

The Challenge of Toleration: How a Minority Religion Adapted in the New Republic

This thesis examines the early American Catholic Church and how its first bishop, John Carroll, guided it through the first years of the American republic. The struggles Carroll faced were the legacy of the English heritage of the colonies. English Catholics who shaped colonial Catholic life made the community private and personal in response to the religious atmosphere in the English world. The American Revolution brought toleration for Catholics and they struggled to adapt their hierarchal religion to new republican language. Some congregations went as far as to deny episcopal power, a theory known as trusteeism. Different interpretations struggled to gain prominence and the issue was not resolved until decades after Carroll’s death in 1815. Yet the Church he left behind provided a strong base for later immigrants who nonetheless dramatically changed the face of the American Catholic Church

Engaging Older Immigrants To Learn English: Advocating For Late-In-Life Learning For Everyone

In the United States, late-in-life and aging-in-place immigrants require basic English language skills to support their ability to independently access economic, medical, housing, legal, and social services. Older immigrants typically rely on family members, potentiating the risks of neglect and dependency. There is an opportunity to expand their agency in society by increasing their English proficiency. Foreign language geragogy supports differentiated educational strategies for older learners. There is no upper age limit on the ability to learn a new language, and there are new methods and practices to teach foreign languages to older students. It is insufficient to mainstream older language learners into generic English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs if these students have learning differences. The scarcity of ESOL programs targeting late-in-life learners may reflect the influence of ageism on the allocation of educational resources to the detriment of these immigrants, their families, and our society. The Language CLUB field project consolidates critical findings from a literature review into a handbook to facilitate ESOL programming for older immigrant learners. The project\u27s significance is that it can serve as a template for establishing ESOL instruction to meet these diverse learners\u27 needs and motivate them to pursue additional education

Assessing Rat Forelimb and Hindlimb Motor Unit Connectivity as Objective and Robust Biomarkers of Spinal Motor Neuron Function

Sensitive and objective biomarkers of neuronal injury, degeneration, and regeneration can help facilitate translation of experimental findings into clinical testing. Whereas measures of upper motor neuron connectivity have been readily established, functional assessments of lower motor neuron (LMN) innervation of forelimb muscles are lacking. Compound muscle action potential (CMAP) and motor unit (MU) number estimation (MUNE) are well-established methods that allow longitudinal MU integrity monitoring in patients. In analogy we refined CMAP and MUNE methods for assessing spinal MU input in the rat forelimb and hindlimb. Repeated CMAP and MUNE recordings are robust (coefficients of variability: 4.5–11.3%), and MUNE measurements from forelimb wrist flexor muscles (415 ± 8 [SEM]) align with back-traced anatomical LMN counts (336 ± 16 [SEM]). For disease validation, cross-sectional blinded electrophysiological and muscle contractility measurements were obtained in a cohort of G93A SOD1 mutant overexpressing rats and compared with controls. Longitudinal assessment of mutant animals demonstrated progressive motor unit decline in the hindlimb to a greater extent than the forelimb. Hindlimb CMAP and MUNE demonstrated strong correlations with plantarflexion muscle contractility. Cross-species assessment of upper/fore- limb and lower/hind- limb motor units using objective electrophysiological CMAP and MUNE values as biomarkers will guide and improve bi-directional translation

Length-Based Assessment of an Artisanal Albulid Fishery in the South Pacific: a Data-Limited Approach for Management and Conservation

Data-limited fisheries assessment methods have great potential to help inform small island communi

Substantial impacts of subsistence fishing on the population status of an Endangered reef predator at a remote coral atoll

Napoleon wrasse Cheilinus undulatus has declined drastically throughout most of its range, owing, in large part, to overexploitation. In Anaa, French Polynesia, the species is harvested as part of the subsistence catch by fishers using rockpile traps, spearguns, handmade harpoons, and baited handlines. We sampled 70 Napoleon wrasse captured by artisanal fishers of Anaa between 2015 and 2018 to assess the status of this population, and we applied data-poor fisheries models to assess the stock status of this iconic reef predator. The species was determined to be overexploited at a rate of 0.82 based on values of natural (0.14; Hoenig method) and fishing (0.58; difference of total and natural mortality) mortality as components of total mortality (0.72; Beverton-Holt estimation). The left-skewed length distribution (mean = 36 ± 13 cm SL) suggested an under-representation of large adults in the population, which would predominantly be terminal males in this sequentially hermaphroditic protogynous fish. This was not considered to be reflective of poor sel

Novel disease-causing variants and phenotypic features of X-linked megalocornea

Purpose: The aim of the study was to describe the phenotype and molecular genetic causes of X-linked megalocornea (MGC1). We recruited four British, one New Zealand, one Vietnamese and four Czech families. // Methods: All probands and three female carriers underwent ocular examination and Sanger sequencing of the CHRDL1 gene. Two of the probands also had magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain. // Results: We identified nine pathogenic or likely pathogenic and one variant of uncertain significance in CHRDL1, of which eight are novel. Three probands had ocular findings that have not previously been associated with MGC1, namely pigmentary glaucoma, unilateral posterior corneal vesicles, unilateral keratoconus and unilateral Fuchs heterochromic iridocyclitis. The corneal diameters of the three heterozygous carriers were normal, but two had abnormally thin corneas, and one of these was also diagnosed with unilateral keratoconus. Brain MRI identified arachnoid cysts in both probands, one also had a neuroepithelial cyst, while the second had a midsagittal neurodevelopmental abnormality (cavum septum pellucidum et vergae). // Conclusion: The study expands the spectrum of pathogenic variants and the ocular and brain abnormalities that have been identified in individuals with MGC1. Reduced corneal thickness may represent a mild phenotypic feature in some heterozygous female carriers of CHRDL1 pathogenic variants

Locomotor recovery following contusive spinal cord injury does not require oligodendrocyte remyelination

The contribution of oligodendrocytes to remyelination in functional recovery after spinal cord injury is not fully understood. Here, the authors show that oligodendrocyte progenitor cell differentiation is not required for functional recovery after spinal cord injury in mice

An Assessment of Mobile Predator Populations along Shallow and Mesophotic Depth Gradients in the Hawaiian Archipelago.

Large-bodied coral reef roving predators (sharks, jacks, snappers) are largely considered to be depleted around human population centers. In the Hawaiian Archipelago, supporting evidence is primarily derived from underwater visual censuses in shallow waters (=30?m). However, while many roving predators are present or potentially more abundant in deeper strata (30-100?m+), distributional information remains sparse. To partially fill that knowledge gap, we conducted surveys in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) and populated Main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) from 2012-2014 using baited remote underwater stereo-video. Surveys between 0-100?m found considerable roving predator community dissimilarities between regions, marked conspicuous changes in species abundances with increasing depth, and largely corroborated patterns documented during shallow water underwater visual censuses, with up to an order of magnitude more jacks and five times more sharks sampled in the NWHI compared to the MHI. Additionally, several species were significantly more abundant and larger in mesophotic versus shallow depths, which remains particularly suggestive of deep-water refugia effects in the MHI. Stereo-video extends the depth range of current roving predator surveys in a more robust manner than was previously available, and appears to be well-suited for large-scale roving predator work in the Hawaiian Archipelago

Fidelity of yellowfin tuna to seamount and island foraging grounds in the central South Atlantic Ocean

The yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) is a widely distributed, migratory species that supports valuable commercial fisheries throughout their range. Management of migratory species requires knowledge of movement, mixing and key life history parameters such as growth rate, natural and fisheries mortality. Current management is based on the assumptions that the species is highly migratory and populations are well mixed, but these assumptions have been questioned by recent studies. Since November 2015, yellowfin tuna have been tagged with conventional, archival and pop-up satellite tags (PSAT) in the South Atlantic Ocean around St Helena, with the goal of better understanding their movement patterns and ecology in this region. Conventional tags were attached to 4049 yellowfin tuna (size range 24–158 cm fork length, FL), PSAT tags were deployed on 15 yellowfin in inshore St Helena waters (size range 95–138 cm FL) and 7 yellowfin (size range 125–140 cm FL) at Cardno Seamount, and archival tags were deployed on 48 yellowfin tuna in inshore St Helena waters (size range 69–111 cm FL). Most yellowfin tuna remained within 70 km of their release location, suggesting a degree of retention to the region. Although displacement of yellowfin was generally low, the furthest distance travelled between release and recapture location was 2755 km, with other tuna also displaying large-scale movements. Tagging revealed connections between inshore regions and seamounts, as well as links between St Helena waters and key fishing regions and putative spawning grounds in the Gulf of Guinea