International Business Machines Corporation

David Locke

Fenglian Xu

Peter John Johnson

Timothy John Baldwin

Peter J Johnson

Duncan George Clark

Christopher Paul Backhouse

Martin J Gale

Anthony Alan Garrard

Andrew Ian Hickson

Andrew James Stanford-Clark

Ian Gerald Craggs

Andrew David Reynolds

Jason C Edmeades

Ian Robert Harwood

Jane Louise Stockdill

A method of decision definition using a rules vocabulary includes: receiving free form input; identifying terms contained within the free form input; searching the rules vocabulary objects for terms; responsive to the term being found, obtaining input from a user as to whether to use the found term; responsive to the term not being found; searching the rules vocabulary attributes for terms having attributes corresponding to the term; responsive to the term being found, obtaining input from a user as to whether to use the found term; and refactoring the free form input with the found term accepted by the user. The method also includes updating the rules vocabulary with the term identified in the free form input as a synonym for the term found in said rules vocabulary. One embodiment further provides a method of determining semantic equivalence between a plurality of rules using a rules database having preferred terms.

Assisted free form decision definition using rules vocabulary

A computer program product of decision definition using a rules vocabulary includes program code for: receiving free form input; identifying terms contained within the free form input; searching the rules vocabulary objects for terms; responsive to the term being found, obtaining input from a user as to whether to use the found term; responsive to the term not being found; searching the rules vocabulary attributes for terms having attributes corresponding to the term; responsive to the term being found, obtaining input from a user as to whether to use the found term; and refactoring the free form input with the found term accepted by the user. The program code also includes code for updating the rules vocabulary with the term identified in the free form input as a synonym for the term found in said rules vocabulary. One embodiment further provides determining semantic equivalence between a plurality of rules using a rules database having preferred terms.

A computer system determines a category of users to which a user of a computer belongs. The computer system determines a relationship between the category of users and at least one program available for installation from the computer system. Based on the determined relationship, the computer system determines that at least one feature of the at least one program are of potential interest to the user of the computer. The computer system notifies the user of the at least one feature of the at least one program of potential interest.

Intelligent software installation

A method of operating a network of connected nodes comprises the steps of maintaining a trust value for each node in the network, maintaining one or more attributes for each node in the network, each attribute comprising a value and a respective confidence level, and performing a validation of a specific attribute of a specific node. The validation comprises the steps of querying nodes connected to the specific node for specific attribute values for the specific node, creating a results set from the returned attribute values from the connected nodes and the trust values of the connected nodes, and processing the results set according to a predefined algorithm to determine a new value and/or a new confidence level for the specific attribute of the specific node.

Node validation in a network

The disclosure is for run-time accessing a software component is provided, together with a computer system embodying the same, and a software utility directing the method. Initially a software component is loaded and analyzed to identify one or more features thereof, which features are checked against a database. Following the check, the component is classified as one of at least first, second, and third component types. A first component type is run without amendment. A second component type is replaced by a component of equivalent functionality prior to running. A third component type is blocked from running.

Realtime tracking of software components

There is disclosed a method, apparatus and computer program for communicating messages between a first messaging system and a second messaging system. The messaging system comprises a set of source queues with each source queue owning messages retrievable in priority order. It is determined that a message should be transferred from the first messaging system to the second messaging system. A source queue is selected which contains a message having at least an equal highest priority when compared with messages on the source queues. A message having the at least equal highest priority from the selected source queue of the first messaging system is then transferred to a target queue at the second messaging system.

Communicating prioritized messages to a destination queue from multiple source queues using source-queue-specific priority values

The present invention provides methods, apparatus and computer programs for event-based control of subscription matching in a publish/subscribe communications environment. Activation and/or deactivation events are associated with subscriptions at a publish/subscribe broker and are used to control when a subscription is active. The broker is responsive to temporally-unpredictable events, such as receipt of a published message on a predefined activation topic, to activate subscription matching for messages that are subsequently received or which have been received earlier and retained at the broker. Conventional subscription matching can be avoided for a registered subscription while that subscription is inactive, and subscribers are not required to explicitly and repeatedly subscribe and unsubscribe.

Event-based activation and deactivation of subscription matching

Provided are a method, apparatus and a computer program for managing message queues. Message streaming is enabled in a transactional messaging system that supports priority ordering of messages, without the need for complex locking mechanisms. Any messages which are transferred from a message queue to a message consumer after the message consumer initiates commit processing are replaced on the message queue at an appropriate position ahead of other messages. As part of commit processing, the consumer sends back to the manager of the message queue an identification of messages delivered to it before the commit, and this list of messages is extracted and compared with a message log to identify undelivered messages. Successfully delivered and committed messages can be committed by the queue manager, and undelivered messages can be replaced on the queue. A special high priority is assigned to the replaced messages to place them ahead of other messages.

Method, apparatus and software for managing a transactional message queue

To handle web server failures, a client comprises a health monitor for monitoring the status of the web server, the client being an originator of requests for web pages from the web server. The health monitor receives status information for the web server. If the health monitor determines that the web server has failed, the health monitor redirects requests for web pages hosted by the failed web server to another web server that is working.

Growing community of inventors

Chandlers Ford, United Kingdom

David Locke