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We examined the impact of a ubiquitous mentoring program on self-esteem, school adaptation flexibility, and perception of parental attitude toward child rearing of elementary students from low socioeconomic status families. We selected 23 elementary-school students whom we had identified
as high-risk and each student was paired with a trained mentor for 20 sessions of a mentoring program. Ubiquitous mentoring significantly changed the students' perception of parental attitudes about child rearing and their perception of parents using democratic and authoritative styles of
parenting had increased after 20 weeks of mentoring. Social self-esteem rapidly declined from baseline to the 20th week and an increase in family self-esteem was noted on the 20th week of the program. A rapid decline in school adaptation flexibility was noted from baseline to the end of the
mentoring program. The data indicate that a ubiquitous mentoring program can serve as a support system for vulnerable children. We found that outcomes were greatly influenced by the length and quality of the mentoring and these factors should be considered as topics for future study.

The Far Eastern sea cucumber, Stichopus japonicus, is a favored food in Eastern Asia, including Korea, Japan, and China. Aquaculture production of this species has increased because of recent declines in natural stocks and government-operated stock release programs are ongoing. Therefore, the analyses of genetic structure in wild and hatchery populations are necessary to maintain the genetic diversity of this valuable marine resource. In addition, given that sea cucumber color affects market price, with the rare, possibly reproductively isolated, red type being the most valuable, an understanding of the genetic structure and diversity in color variation of green and red types is necessary. We analyzed the genetic structure of wild and hatchery-produced green type S. japonicus from Korea and China, and wild red type from Korea using 9 microsatellite makers. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 11 to 29 across all populations. The mean allele numbers of the green types from Korea (10.6) and China (10.1) were similar, but differed slightly from that of the red type (9.1). Pairwise multilocus FST and genetic distance estimations showed no significant differences between the green types from Korea and China, whereas the differences between the green and red types were significant. This was clearly illustrated by a UPGMA dendrogram, in which the two close subclusters of green types were completely separated from the red type. In addition, the allele frequencies of the green and red types were significantly different. Assignment tests correctly assigned 100% (quality index 99.97%) of individuals to their original color types and demonstrated the feasibility of microsatellite analysis for discrimination between color types.