International Business Machines Corporation

Lorrie Ann Tomek

Francis Edward Noel, Jr

Joseph Michael Abler

Richard Edwin Harper

James W Murdock, Iv

Aditya Anand Kalyanpur

Jennifer Chu-Carroll

Adam P Lally

Apoorv Agarwal

William Woollcott Ellington, Jr

William Gavin Holland

Elliot Karl Kolodner

Yosef Moatti

Ofer Biran

Erez Hadad

Henry Michael Garrett

John Lock Creigh

Benjamin Evans Chodroff

Adam S Edelstein

Mangesh Kanaskar

Wayne Frederick Schildhauer

Megan Susanne Schneider

Methods/systems receive a question and automatically search sources of data containing passages to produce candidate answers to the question. The searching identifies passages that support each of the candidate answers based on scoring features that indicate whether the candidate answers are correct answers to the question. These methods/systems automatically create a scoring feature-specific matrix for each scoring feature. Each scoring feature-specific matrix has a score field for each different combination of text passage and question term (vector), and each score field holds a score value (vector value) indicating how each different combination of text passage and question term supports the candidate answers as being a correct answer to the question. Next, such methods/systems automatically combine multiple such vectors to produce a combined vector score for each of the candidate answers, and then rank the candidate answers based on the combined scores.

Multi-dimensional feature merging for open domain question answering

Systems and methods for domain management in a virtualized computing environment are provided. In one embodiment, the method comprises collating advice received from one or more domain advisors connected in the virtualized computing environment; resolving any conflicts among the advice received from said one or more domain advisors; utilizing the collated advice to generate a placement plan comprising a plurality of operations for virtual machines in said virtualized computing environment; and executing the one or more operations in the placement plan, wherein one or more domain handlers may be called to update the virtualized computing environment before, during or after execution of one or more operations from among said plurality of operations in the plan.

Domain management and integration in a virtualized computing environment

Management of a virtual machine is enhanced by establishing an initial availability policy for the machine. Once the virtual machine is invoked, the real environment for the virtual machine is monitored for the occurrence of predetermined events. If a real environment event is detected that could affect the availability of the virtual machine, the availability policy of the virtual machine is automatically adjusted to reflect the new or predicted state of the real environment.

Controlling an availability policy for a virtual machine based on changes in a real world environment

A method and apparatus for multi-protocol LAN support, which is applicable to Ethernet, Token-Ring, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocols. The LAN support is located at a workstation and provides for automatic determination of the LAN protocol type and speed. A common adapter card is provided for use in the workstation to interface the workstation to any of the LANs of interest. A four-step sequential process is taught for determining the protocol type and speed.

Dynamic detection of LAN network protocol

A programmable multispeed communication apparatus includes a plurality of identical media access control (MAC) units for use with a programmable data processing system. The MAC units when multiplexed and connected to a communication media achieve a transmission speed n&middot;s where n is the number of MAC units and s is the speed of the individual MACs. If one or more but not all of the MAC units fail, the apparatus will operate in degraded mode with the remaining active MAC units. User frames are sequentially numbered, partitioned into sequentially numbered partitions which are assigned to one or more MAC's. Each of the partitions includes a prefix which includes the sequential frame number, the sequential partition number and an indicator for distinguishing the last partition of a frame from the other partitions of that frame.

Apparatus including a scalable multiprotocol communications adapter using modular components and a method for transmitting data frames via scalable multiprotocol communication adapters

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees are extended to Token Ring LAN stations. A LAN station originating a request for a connection through an ATM network to either a remote ATM station or a remote LAN station sends a frame having an encoded priority value to a LAN/ATM interface device. The device maps the priority value to one of the standard ATM traffic classes; namely, CBR, VBR, ABR and UBR. The LAN/ATM interface device attempts to set up a connection through the ATM network conforming to the mapped class or QoS. If the connection destination is another LAN station, a destination LAN/ATM interface device attempts to set up the final ATM-LAN phase of the connection.

Extending asynchronous transfer mode ATM QoS across local area networks

Multiple stations, such as Personal Computers, are awakened (restored to full power) by a specially formatted Local Area Network (LAN) frame termed 'Wake Multiple Over LAN'. The frame includes a header field containing Destination Addresses, DA, of stations to be awakened and a data field containing a Group Address (GA) or Universal Wake-Up Address (UWUA). The receiving station parses the frame and if the station is a member of the group, it is returned to full power.

Wake multiple over LAN

Variable length LAN frames can be segmented into fixed length cells to allow the data in the frames to be transported through an intermediate cell-based system, such as an ATM network. Where transport through the intermediate system results in time gaps between data units extracted from the cells, special symbol combinations can be inserted into the time gaps to permit frame-representing data to be forwarded toward its destination as a 'stretched frame' without waiting for all the cells representing the frame to arrive. When a stretched LAN frame is received at a 'stretch-aware' LAN station, the special symbol combinations are detected and removed to recover at least the data payload of the original LAN frame.

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Durham, NC, United States of America

Lorrie Ann Tomek