International Business Machines Corporation

Junehwa Song

Arun Kwangil Iyengar

Michelle Yoonkyung Kim

Boon-Lock Yeo

Daniel Manuel Dias

Asit Dan

Eric Michel Levy-Abegnoli

Jai P Menon

Paul Michael Dantzig

James R H Challenger

Dinkar Sitaram

Daniel Manual Dias

Leo Joskowicz

Daniel Tunkelang

Eric Michel Levy-Abegnoll

A method of dynamically generating a presentation sequence from a plurality of authored presentation documents includes the steps of receiving the plurality of authored presentation documents from a plurality of data sources; applying the plurality of authored presentation documents to a set of presentation rules; and generating the presentation sequence in response to the applying step.

System and method for programmatic generation of continuous media presentations

Under the present invention, a small cache is used for the selective buffering of devices of a heterogeneous striping group (i.e., striping group made of devices with unequal capacities) to match the load on each device to its capacity. The inventive caching algorithm utilizes a device map, or disk map, and applies a cache distribution factor for each device of a group to determined how to selectively buffer blocks read from different devices of a striping group; thereby placing different loads on the different devices of a striping group in accordance with their capacities.

Sieved caching for increasing data rate capacity of a heterogeneous striping group

A method for providing customized information in a computer processing system includes the step of defining at least one rule for one of creating and retrieving at least one customized block of data. At least one customizable template is created which includes at least one reference to the at least one rule and at least one offset that specifies at least one position at which the at least one customized block is inserted into the at least one customizable template. The at least one customized block is inserted into the at least one customizable template at the at least one position specified by the at least one offset. The customized block, the customizable template, and/or the rule may be pre-stored in a cache of the computer processing system. The customized block may also be dynamically created.

Method and system for caching customized information

Requests for objects are received from one or more clients in a system comprised of a plurality of nodes. One of the requests is sent from one of the clients. The request is received from a first node of said plurality of nodes by a second node of said plurality of nodes. A requested object is returned from the second node of the plurality of nodes using one of a plurality of protocols. The method may be applied to a scalable and highly available cache array. The cache array may enhance the performance and throughput of Web servers connected to a network such as the Internet. A network dispatcher may send requests to a cache node of a cache array. The cache node selected by the network dispatcher may either serve the request, handoff the request to another cache node of a cache array, or communicate via one of a variety of protocols with another cache node of the cache array to cooperatively serve the request. A network dispatcher, operating in a special mode, may also function as a content based router. Thus, it is also possible for a network dispatcher to route requests using a combination of content-based and non-content-based routing in order to further improve system performance.

Scalable cache

Objects are cached in a system adapted to receive requests for said objects from one or more clients. The system has at least one of a plurality of nodes. Each node of the plurality of nodes includes at least one of a plurality of caches. One or more performance criteria of the system are selected. At least one of a plurality of metrics is assigned to a selected performance criterion. The desirability of storing an object of the objects in any one of the plurality of caches is calculated by assigning at least one of a plurality of desirability values to at least one of the objects based on the at least one of the plurality metrics. Any one of the objects stored in the at least one of the plurality of caches is replaced based on the at least one of the plurality of desirability values.

System and method for replacement and duplication of objects in a cache

Given compressed video which supports the coding of interlaced and noninterlaced frames through DCT and motion compensation, shared information is used in a macroblock for efficient conversion of inter-coded blocks to DCT intra-coded blocks. The shared information is also used to efficiently construct spatially reduced images without decompression.

System and method for DCT domain inverse motion compensation using

Given compressed video which supports the coding of interlaced frames through DCT and motion compensation, different construction methods are applied based on select DCT domain coefficients and/or motion vector informations to produce spatially reduced images without decompressing. The spatially reduced images can then be used for video browsing, authoring and processing purposes.

System and method for extracting spatially reduced image sequences in a

A computer-implemented method of drawing a multimedia story including at least one episode is provided which represents a plurality of multimedia fries (e.g., text, sound, video, and picture files) graphically in a 'time-box' which can be connected to other time boxes to for a time box diagram. A user can easily stretch or shrink, reposition, delete, or otherwise manipulate the fries graphically using the time boxes in order to produce a final multimedia story within given temporal (time) constraints. The method according to the invention includes steps of inputting to a processor story data having at least one episode, and, for each episode, generating first and second events and temporal constraints. Thereafter, from the temporal constraints, first coordinates of each of the first and second events for each of the episodes are determined, and the first and second events are assigned to layers based on a temporal position of the first and second events such that for each episode the first and second events are temporally connected. Thereafter, an order of events on each layer of the layers is permuted, and, from the order of the events on each layer and the temporal constraints, second coordinates of each of the first and second events for each of the episodes are determined. Finally, a layout of the story is generated.

Multimedia document using time box diagrams

A computer implemented method reduces the complexities of obtaining a spatial design in a multimedia presentation. The method is an interactive process which assists an author in readily arriving at a suitable spatial design in the multimedia presentation. A set of objects that appear on the computer display screen simultaneously is termed a clique. The spatial design for a multimedia clique is defined in terms of three dimensions, two dimensions defining the plane of the computer display screen and the third dimension defining the depth of overlapping objects. The locations of the associated episodes and their respective depths on the screen are found. This process involves resolving space requirements between the several episodes in the clique according to a defined set of constraints. Assuming that a resolution can be reached which provides a consistent layout, the layout is displayed. The user is then given the opportunity to change the predefined set of constraints, resulting in the display of the layout with the changed set of constraints. If the layout is still not satisfactory, the user can change the sizes and locations of individual episodes in the clique. Based on the changed constraints for the episodes in the clique, the process again automatically determines a layout which is displayed for review and possible acceptance by the user. When the spatial design is finally accepted by the user, the process outputs the spatial design for the clique. Given a series of cliques which constitute an entire multimedia story, a technique of constraint propagation is provided. More particularly, an object in one clique may be displayed with other objects in a succeeding clique. Rather than moving that object around, the option is provided to fix the position of the object and let the other objects move around the fixed one.

Method for automatically obtaining spatial layout for multimedia

A multimedia system represents multimedia objects as ranges of time intervals, each bounded by a minimum and a maximum, and temporal relationships are given to a set of objects which are to be integrated. In this system, where there are uncertainties in time, a stretchable time-line is provided. The stretchable time-line is modeled after a spring system such that an object (or a spring) is associated not only with a minimum and a maximum length but also with a length at rest. As a spring rests at a certain length and stretches and shrinks by a certain degree when a force is applied, multimedia objects placed on the stretchable time-line may also rest at a certain length, and stretch or shrink if necessary. As a spring has a tendency to return to the length at rest, a multimedia object may stretch or shrink when necessary and by a smallest degree possible. The system according to the invention can answer a question like, 'Can I show this multimedia presentation in ten minutes, and if so, how should all the objects be scheduled?' If there is a solution that satisfies all the constraints given, the solution consists of a set of time intervals which 'minimally' deviate from the corresponding lengths at rest and also evenly distribute the variation of the difference between the optimum duration and the scheduled duration for each episode.

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Mt. Kisco, NY, United States of America

Junehwa Song