Long distance dispersal and pseudo-cryptic species in Gastrotricha: first description of a new species (Chaetonotida, Chaetonotidae, Polymerurus) from an oceanic island with volcanic rocks

The majority of meiofaunal organisms have limited abilities to disperse over long distances, yet they may still have disjointed distributions. Many studies have found evidence of long distance meiofauna dispersal due to passive transport by wind and/or animals that serve as vectors for these widespread distributions. Our research on an archipelago in northeast Brazil uncovered a species of freshwater gastrotrich that at first sight appeared to be a ‘cosmopolitanʼ species that had surpassed the connectivity constraint to occupy an island more than 350 km from the mainland. However, through an integrative approach using molecular sequences and morphology, we have uncovered evidence of a pseudo-cryptic species in this freshwater gastrotrich. Polymerurus insularis sp. nov. closely resembles its congeners and can easily be mistaken for similar species such as P. nodicaudus, a cosmopolitan gastrotrich. Unique to P. insularis sp. nov. are (1) a cuticular armature composed of simple spined scales with polygonal shape (Type 1 scales), (2) a single, spineless dorsal scale with a triangular shape located terminally next to the furca base (Type 2 scale), (3) a spineless zone composed by a patch lacking cuticular ornamentation and flat, rounded or polygonal scales without spines (Type 4 scales) (4) particular sets of terminal spined or keeled scales located both dorsally and ventrally around the furca base (Types 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8 scales). The presence of this species on a volcanic island is discussed, as is the relationship between pseudocryptism and dispersal in gastrotrichs and other meiofauna.

Algorithm for computing the connectivity in planar kinematic chains and its application

The number of synthesized kinematic chains usually is too large to evaluate individual characteristics of each chain. The concept of connectivity is useful to classify the kinematic chains. In this paper, an algorithm is developed to automatically compute the connectivity matrix in planar kinematic chains. The main work is to compute two intermediate parameters, namely the minimum mobility matrix and the minimum distance matrix. The algorithm is capable of dealing with both simple-jointed and multiple-jointed kinematic chains. The present work can be used to automatically determine kinematic chains satisfying the required connectivity constraint, and is helpful for the creative design of mechanisms. The practical application is illustrated by taking the face-shovel hydraulic excavator for instance.

Object segmentation by Oriented Image Foresting Transform with connectivity constraints

Global properties, such as connectivity, shape constraints and boundary polarity, are useful high-level priors for image segmentation, allowing its customization for a given target object. In this work, we introduce a new method called Connected Oriented Image Foresting Transform (COIFT), which provides global optimum solutions according to a graph-cut measure, subject to the connectivity constraint in Oriented Image Foresting Transform (OIFT), ensuring the generation of connected objects, as well as allowing the simultaneous control of the boundary polarity. While the use of connectivity constraints in other frameworks, such as in the min-cut/max-flow algorithm, leads to an NP-Hard problem, COIFT conserves the low complexity of the OIFT algorithm. Experiments show that COIFT can considerably improve the segmentation of objects with thin and elongated parts, for the same number of seeds in segmentation based on markers.