White Abalone (Haliotis sorenseni) Restoration Aquaculture: An Assessment of Formulated Diets and Probiotics

White abalone (Haliotis sorenseni) are an endangered species found along the California coast. They are at historically low densities, nearing extinction. Aquaculture facilities throughout California are currently involved in the captive breeding of the species and grow out of juveniles for outplanting to wild habitat. White abalone have historically suffered from an infectious bacterial disease known as withering syndrome or Ca.Xc. This disease can be treated with an antibiotic, but antibiotic treatments can lower immune functions and create antibiotic resistance genes. A probiotic treatment could replace this need for antibiotics and increase overall health and growth rates in white abalone. White abalone restoration activity aims to enhance the species recovery by developing self-sustaining populations, which is costly due to the species’ slow growth, high early mortality rate, and reliance on seasonal macroalgae feed. These limiting factors warrant an assessment of alternative diets and probiotic treatments to shorten the culture time and lower costs before outplanting. Diet administered probiotics have previously shown improved growth rates, feed digestibility, and survivorship in abalone species, while formulated feeds can provide adequate nutrition and reduce costs for several cultured species. The probiotic, Bacillus licheniformis was added to macroalgae feed for white abalone exposed to and unexposed to Ca.Xc. No Ca.Xc was detected in any of the white abalone at the end of the study. This indicated that white abalone may be able to combat Ca.Xc with a bacteriophage (pCXc). Shell loss during the first probiotic experiment hindered data collection on feeding and growth rates. In the first probiotic study 42% of the white abalone and 53% of the red abalone lost their shells. Two subsequent studies were conducted to understand the cause of the shell loss. These studies were inconclusive, but one experiment showed that low stocking density (588 abalone/m2) increased feeding and growth rates compared to high densities (1,176 abalone/m2). The second probiotic study investigated the effects of B. licheniformis on a formulated abalone feed, ABKelp®. Three diet treatments were assessed: 1) formulated, 2) formulated + probiotic, 3) standard (Devaleraea mollis and Macrocystis pyrifera). The standard treatment resulted in the fastest growth and feed intake. The formulated + probiotic treatment had the lowest growth and feeding rates, which may be due to reduced palatability from the probiotic. Despite comparatively inferior growth metrics, the formulated treatment resulted in adequate growth and survivorship in white abalone. The use of a formulated diet is feasible for white abalone restoration aquaculture when considering additional costs associated with fresh macroalgae feeding, including permits, diving, and boat operations for M. pyrifera collection and culture facilities devoted to macroalgae culture and storage. The growth rates, feeding rates, and proximate analysis suggest that formulated feed is not a viable alternative diet for white abalone, but could be used as a supplemental feed for conservation aquaculture facilities with limited access to fresh macroalgae or during times of the year when fresh feed is unavailable

Pensadoras in the New Latino Diaspora: Latina Girls Navigating the Intersections of Their Social, Emotional, and Sexual Lives

The social, emotional, and sexual experiences of adolescent girls in the United States are often framed as superfluous, negative, and distracting from academic activity, rather than as significant learning experiences in girls’ developmental and academic trajectories. Specifically, the social, emotional, and sexual experiences of Latina adolescents living in poverty are commonly characterized as causing them to make poor choices, to drop out of school, or to become teenage mothers or the girlfriends of gang members (Denner & Guzman, 2006). However, most Latina girls’ experiences do not match these characterizations and little research has been conducted on the relationships between the social, emotional, and sexual experiences of Latina adolescents and their educational trajectories. Using ethnographic techniques, this research aims to the roles that Latina girls’ social, emotional, and sexual experiences play in their identity development and experiences as students in one New Latino Diaspora town called Marshall. This research will enrich feminist, educational, and developmental psychological scholarship and will provide a deeper understanding of how scholars and practitioners can provide nurturing developmental spaces for Latina girls to support one another’s academic and personal trajectories

Parental Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviours towards Human Papillomavirus Vaccination for Their Children: A Systematic Review from 2001 to 2011

Objectives. A systematic review of parental surveys about HPV and/or child HPV vaccination to understand parental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour before and after FDA approval of the quadrivalent HPV vaccine and the bivalent HPV vaccine. Search Strategy. Searches were conducted using electronic databases limited to published studies between 2001 and 2011. Findings. The percentage of parents who heard about HPV rose over time (from 60% in 2005 to 93% in 2009), as did their appreciation for the HPV infection and cervical cancer link (from 70% in 2003 to 91% in 2011). During the FDA approval, there was a stronger vaccine awareness but it has waned. The same pattern is seen with parents whose children received the HPV vaccine (peak at 84% in 2010 and now 36% in 2011) or the intention to vaccinate (peak at 80% in 2008 and now 41% in 2011). Conclusions. Parents had safety concerns and wanted more information their physician from to recommend and to confidently HPV vaccinate their children

Dynamical Decoupling in Optical Fibers: Preserving Polarization Qubits from Birefringent Dephasing

One of the major challenges in quantum computation has been to preserve the coherence of a quantum system against dephasing effects of the environment. The information stored in photon polarization, for example, is quickly lost due to such dephasing, and it is crucial to preserve the input states when one tries to transmit quantum information encoded in the photons through a communication channel. We propose a dynamical decoupling sequence to protect photonic qubits from dephasing by integrating wave plates into optical fiber at prescribed locations. We simulate random birefringent noise along realistic lengths of optical fiber and study preservation of polarization qubits through such fibers enhanced with Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) dynamical decoupling. This technique can maintain photonic qubit coherence at high fidelity, making a step towards achieving scalable and useful quantum communication with photonic qubits.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Migration Narratives

Migration Narratives presents an ethnographic study of an American town that recently became home to thousands of Mexican migrants, with the Mexican population rising from 125 in 1990 to slightly under 10,000 in 2016. Through interviews with residents, the book focuses on key educational, religious, and civic institutions that shape and are shaped by the realities of Mexican immigrants. Focusing on African American, Mexican, Irish and Italian communities, the authors describe how interethnic relations played a central role in newcomers’ pathways and draw links between the town’s earlier cycles of migration. The town represents similar communities across the USA and around the world that have received large numbers of immigrants in a short time. The purpose of the book is to document the complexities that migrants and hosts experience and to suggest ways in which policy-makers, researchers, educators and communities can respond intelligently to politically-motivated stories that oversimplify migration across the contemporary world. This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Boston College