Keynote Address: Why Black Catholic History Matters

To tell the stories of the nation’s Black Catholic sisters—accurately and honestly—I had to tackle four core myths about the U.S. Catholic experience that have been popularized and wielded to obscure the leading roles that European and white American Catholics played in the social, political, and cultural propagation of white supremacy in the church and wider society. This keynote identifies these four myths and counters them with the facts of Black Catholic history. My address builds on the intellectual and educational traditions of the nation’s Black Catholic sisterhoods, which were the first Catholic congregations to teach and institutionalize Black and Black Catholic history within church boundaries. Because many members of the Black sisterhoods during the Jim Crow era were the descendants of the free and enslaved Black people whose labor and faithfulness built the early American church, they recognized that teaching Black Catholic history was essential in the fight against racism in their church. Black sisters also fundamentally understood that Black history is, and always has been, Catholic history. These proceedings are available free for download but also available for purchase in print for $6 plus tax and shipping.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/global_voices_4/1006/thumbnail.jp

Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle

In Subversive Habits, Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, hailing them as the “forgotten prophets” of Catholicism and democracy. Drawing on oral histories and previously sealed church records, Williams demonstrates how master narratives of women’s religious life and Catholic commitments to racial and gender justice fundamentally change when the lives and experiences of African American nuns are taken seriously. For Black Catholic women and girls, embracing the celibate religious state constituted a radical act of resistance to white supremacy and the sexual terrorism built into chattel slavery and segregation. Williams shows how Black sisters—such as Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who was the only Black member of the inaugural delegation of Catholic sisters to travel to Selma, Alabama, and join the Black voting rights marches of 1965—were pioneering religious leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, desegregation foot soldiers, Black power activists, and womanist theologians. In the process, Williams calls attention to Catholic women’s religious life as a stronghold of white supremacy and racial segregation—and thus an important battleground in the long African American freedom struggle.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1113/thumbnail.jp

Black Boys Mental Health Help-Seeking: Exploring Perceptions, Barriers and Social Processes

Though research on Black boys’ mental health is expanding (Masuda et al., 2012; Schwartz & Blankenship, 2014; Watkins et al., 2006, 2015), it is still a largely understudied topic. In particular, research that considers the perspectives of Black boys makes up an even smaller subset of this research (Assari & Caldwell, 2017; Gaylord-Harden et al., 2017; Joe et al., 2018; Lindsey et al., 2010, 2017). It is the goal of this dissertation to elucidate the voices of Black boys in research on mental health and depression by unpacking their reported beliefs on mental health and depression, help-seeking preferences, and service utilization. This dissertation contributes to the growing scholarship on Black boys’ mental health, by using the voices of Black boys to explore their beliefs and perceptions of mental health and depression, examine barriers and facilitators to their utilization of school-based mental health resources, and explore their mental health help-seeking process. Chapter 2 explores Black boys’ views and beliefs about mental health and depression. I found that though the boys had a high amount of knowledge about mental health and depression, they often did not relate their understanding of mental health and depression to their own experiences with depression and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, their hypothetical understanding of mental health service use did not translate to their actions related to addressing their mental health needs as the boys in the study preferred to address their mental health needs on their own. Chapter 3 examines the effects of psychosocial barriers and access barriers on Black boys' use of school-based mental health resources. I found that Black boys that identified self-reliance as a barrier to mental health service use were significantly less likely to use school-based mental health resources. Furthermore, boys that identified stigma as a barrier to service use were significantly more likely to use mental health resources in their school. Findings speak to the effects of masculine norms around self-reliance as hindering Black boys' use of available mental health resources. However, they also speak to the potential benefits of having mental health resources in schools for boys that have stigmatized views of mental health and mental health services. Chapter 4 explores the social processes related to mental health help-seeking for Black boys when experiencing depressive symptoms. I find that the boys navigate through several stages in their help-seeking process. Each stage is triggered by the progression or worsening of depressive symptoms. When the progression is triggered, the boys must make decisions about whether they are going to seek help rather it be formal or informal. With each decision, the boys are attempting to maintain a sense of independence in their decision to seek formal or informal help as well as in the actual act of how they are receiving mental health support. The boys in this study attempt to maintain independence by initially addressing their needs on their own, also having control over who they seek help from when they choose to seek help and controlling how much they reveal to those they seek help from.PHDSocial Work & SociologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/169821/1/eddeew_1.pd

A Comprehensive Study of the Alteration of Ignitable Liquids by Weathering and Microbial Degradation

The differing effects of weathering and microbial degradation are described here in a comprehensive study that involved 50 different ignitable liquids from the Ignitable Liquids Database and Reference Collection. Examples of ignitable liquid residues from each of the main classes established by the American Society of Testing and Materials are presented. Weathering was accomplished via evaporation, whereas microbial degradation was carried out on soil at room temperature for periods of up to 21 days. Major trends included the rapid degradation of long n-alkanes and monosubstituted alkyl benzenes (e.g., toluene, ethylbenzene, and propylbenzene). Surprisingly, some longer branched alkanes (e.g., trimethyloctanes) were also susceptible to microbial attack. Although all ignitable liquids examined suffered at least to some extent from microbial degradation, gasoline, petroleum distillates, and oxygenates were the most susceptible. Isoparaffinic and naphthenic–paraffinic products were the most resistant to microbial degradation

Parent Motivational Climate, Sport Enrollment Motives, and Young Athlete Commitment and Enjoyment in Year-Round Swimming

International Journal of Exercise Science 15(5): 358-372, 2022. Parents are known to influence the athlete sport experience through motivational climates. Athletes’ perception of motivational climates and their own motives for sport participation influence enjoyment and long-term sport commitment. It is unknown, however, the extent parent motives for initially enrolling their child in a year-round sports program associate with children’s sport participation enjoyment and commitment. The purposes of this study were to (a) determine parent motives for enrolling their child (5-8 years) in year-round swimming and (b) explore the relationships of parent motives and motivational climates with child enjoyment and commitment. Parents (n = 40) completed questionnaires on enrollment motives and motivational climate, while children (n = 40) answered questions on enjoyment and commitment. Of the seven motives measured, parents enrolled children in swimming primarily for fitness benefits (M = 4.5, SD = .45) followed by skill mastery (M = 4.31, SD = .48) and fun (M = 4.10, SD = .51) reasons. Findings revealed the fitness motive was moderately, negatively correlated with the success-without-effort facet of a performance climate (r = -.50, p \u3c .01). The fun motive was moderately, positively associated with commitment (r = .43, p \u3c .01). Parent motives for enrolling their child in sport may impact the young child sport experience and long-term sport continuation via motivational climates, enjoyment, and commitment

Imaging, Treatment Options, Patient Selection, and Outcome Considerations for Patients With Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease.

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement has emerged as a safe and effective alternative to surgical aortic valve replacement for patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis across the spectrum of surgical risks based on a series of foundational randomized clinical trials. Of note, patients with bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) disease were excluded from all these pivotal randomized trials, leaving a significant knowledge gap because BAVs are commonly encountered in patients referred for aortic valve surgery or intervention. In this comprehensive review, we aim to provide heart teams with a detailed insight into how to approach patients with BAV disease, focusing on imaging and characterization of bicuspid valves, an overview of surgical approaches, and an understanding of the current data behind the role of transcatheter aortic valve replacement for patients with BAV disease

Global climatology of surface water temperatures of large lakes by remote sensing

Lake surface water temperatures (LSWTs) of 246 globally distributed large lakes were derived from Along-Track Scanning Radiometers (ATSR) for the period 1991–2011. The climatological cycles of mean LSWT derived from these data quantify on a global scale the responses of large lakes' surface temperatures to the annual cycle of forcing by solar radiation and the ambient meteorological conditions. LSWT cycles reflect the twice annual peak in net solar radiation for lakes between 1°S to 12°N. For lakes without a lake-mean seasonal ice cover, LSWT extremes exceed air temperatures by 0.5–1.7 °C for maximum and 0.7–1.9 °C for minimum temperature. The summer maximum LSWTs of lakes from 25°S to 35°N show a linear decrease with increasing altitude; −3.76 ± 0.17 °C km−1 (inline image = 0.95), marginally lower than the corresponding air temperature decrease with altitude −4.15 ± 0.24 °C km−1 (inline image = 0.95). Lake altitude of tropical lakes account for 0.78–0.83 (inline image) of the variation in the March to June LSWT–air temperature differences, with differences decreasing by 1.9 °C as the altitude increases from 500 to 1800 m above sea level (a.s.l.) We define an ‘open water phase’ as the length of time the lake-mean LSWT remains above 4 °C. There is a strong global correlation between the start and end of the lake-mean open water phase and the spring and fall 0 °C air temperature transition days, (inline image = 0.74 and 0.80, respectively), allowing for a good estimation of timing and length of the open water phase of lakes without LSWT observations. Lake depth, lake altitude and distance from coast further explain some of the inter-lake variation in the start and end of the open water phase

The cloud chamber and CTR Wilson’s legacy to atmospheric science

2011 is the centenary year of the short paper (Wilson,1911) first describing the cloud chamber, the device for visualising high-energy charged particles which earned the Scottish physicist Charles Thomas Rees (‘CTR’) Wilson the 1927 Nobel Prize for physics. His many achievements in atmospheric science, some of which have current relevance, are briefly reviewed here. CTR Wilson’s lifetime of scientific research work was principally in atmospheric electricity at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge; he was Reader in Electrical Meteorology from 1918 and Jacksonian Professor from 1925 to 1935. However, he is immortalised in physics for his invention of the cloud chamber, because of its great significance as an early visualisation tool for particles such as cosmic rays1 (Galison, 1997). Sir Lawrence Bragg summarised its importance