A simple and unified approach to human voluntary movements

In his provocative article, F. Mechsner (2004) advances the thesis that human voluntary movements are subject to psychological or perceptual -cognitive control and are thus organized without regard to efferent patterns (p. 355). Rather than considering in detail the experiments that he proffered by way of support, the present author discusses the degree to which that supposition has appeal on the grounds of simplicity and is defined in terms that are compatible with a unified science.

Ontological evaluation of enterprise systems interoperability using ebXML

Enterprise systems interoperability (ESI) is an important topic for business currently. This situation is evidenced, at least in part, by the number and extent of potential candidate protocols for such process interoperation, viz., ebXML, BPML, BPEL, and WSCI. Wide-ranging support for each of these candidate standards already exists. However, despite broad acceptance, a sound theoretical evaluation of these approaches has not yet been provided. We use the Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) models, in particular, the representation model, to provide the basis for such a theoretical evaluation. We, and other researchers, have shown the usefulness of the representation model for analyzing, evaluating, and engineering techniques in the areas of traditional and structured systems analysis, object-oriented modeling, and process modeling. In this work, we address the question, what are the potential semantic weaknesses of using ebXML alone for process interoperation between enterprise systems? We find that users will lack important implementation information because of representational deficiencies; due to ontological redundancy, the complexity of the specification is unnecessarily increased; and, users of the specification will have to bring in extra-model knowledge to understand constructs in the specification due to instances of ontological excess.

Unified derivations of measurement-based schemes for quantum computation

We present unified, systematic derivations of schemes in the two known measurement-based models of quantum computation. The first model (introduced by Raussendorf and Briegel, [Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5188 (2001)]) uses a fixed entangled state, adaptive measurements on single qubits, and feedforward of the measurement results. The second model (proposed by Nielsen, [Phys. Lett. A 308, 96 (2003)] and further simplified by Leung, [Int. J. Quant. Inf. 2, 33 (2004)]) uses adaptive two-qubit measurements that can be applied to arbitrary pairs of qubits, and feedforward of the measurement results. The underlying principle of our derivations is a variant of teleportation introduced by Zhou, Leung, and Chuang, [Phys. Rev. A 62, 052316 (2000)]. Our derivations unify these two measurement-based models of quantum computation and provide significantly simpler schemes.

Lipid droplets: a unified view of a dynamic organelle

Lipid droplets form the main lipid store in eukaryotic cells. Although all cells seem to be able to generate lipid droplets, their biogenesis, regulatory mechanisms and interactions with other organelles remain largely elusive. In this article, we outline some of the recent developments in lipid droplet cell biology. We show the mobile and dynamic nature of this organelle, and advocate the adoption of a unified nomenclature to consolidate terminology in this emerging field.

Positioning hierarchy in enterprise system change

There is a widening gulf in change literature between theoretical notions of evolving organisational form and the emerging reality that old and new organisational structures coexist. This paper explores this dichotomy in Enterprise Resource Planning change. It develops a cellular hierarchy framework to explain how different types of hierarchy coexist within the same organisation during the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning. © 2006 The Author; Journal compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A unified friction description and its application to the simulation of frictional instability using the finite element method

This article first summarizes some available experimental results on the frictional behaviour of contact interfaces, and briefly recalls typical frictional experiments and relationships, which are applicable for rock mechanics, and then a unified description is obtained to describe the entire frictional behaviour. It is formulated based on the experimental results and applied with a stick and slip decomposition algorithm to describe the stick-slip instability phenomena, which can describe the effects observed in rock experiments without using the so-called state variable, thus avoiding related numerical difficulties. This has been implemented to our finite element code, which uses the node-to-point contact element strategy proposed by the authors to handle the frictional contact between multiple finite-deformation bodies with stick and finite frictional slip, and applied here to simulate the frictional behaviour of rocks to show its usefulness and efficiency.

A hybrid planning method for transmission networks in a deregulated environment

The reconstruction of power industries has brought fundamental changes to both power system operation and planning. This paper presents a new planning method using multi-objective optimization (MOOP) technique, as well as human knowledge, to expand the transmission network in open access schemes. The method starts with a candidate pool of feasible expansion plans. Consequent selection of the best candidates is carried out through a MOOP approach, of which multiple objectives are tackled simultaneously, aiming at integrating the market operation and planning as one unified process in context of deregulated system. Human knowledge has been applied in both stages to ensure the selection with practical engineering and management concerns. The expansion plan from MOOP is assessed by reliability criteria before it is finalized. The proposed method has been tested with the IEEE 14-bus system and relevant analyses and discussions have been presented.