International Business Machines Corporation

Michael Cobbett

Ronald John Bowater

Andrew David James Banks

David R Vyvyan

Mervyn Anthony Staton

Paul Andrew Duffin

Mark Andrew Wynn-MacKenzie

Martin Oberhofer

Scott Schumacher

John Brian Pickering

Samuel Jonathan Smith

Nicholas David Butler

Jonathan Limburn

Lawrence Leon Porter

Yuk-Lun Wong

Robert Michael Jordan

Patrice Pominville

Raymond Jepson

Andrew James Ritchie

Olena Woolf

David Borean

Mervyn Aubony Staton

An ontology is automatically generated for a set of data from multiple data sources. A semantic network of known concepts serves as an ontology template for a target domain of knowledge with known concepts defined as base entity types. Logical groupings of data and associated technical metadata are read from the data sources. Data discovery techniques are applied to detect semantic and/or syntactic classification of data attributes in the logical groupings of data. For each of the logical groupings of data, an entity type with properties for the data attributes are generated and the generated entity type is added to the semantic network with classifications of the properties as derived from the applied data discovery techniques. Semantic meanings of the generated entity types are generated and associated with other entity types within the semantic network and the semantic network is output as a resultant ontology for the set of data.

Automatic ontology generation

A method and apparatus are provided to create a parent XSD document that separately identifies localized data and non-localized content definitions. A tool is employed to parse the localized content definitions from the non-localized content definitions. The parsing tool generates a child XSD document pertaining to the localized content definitions identified within the parent XSD document. One or more child XML documents are created to store data pertaining to the localized content definitions of the child XSD document. Localized content is isolated in a child XML document that is governed by a corresponding child XSD document, wherein the corresponding child XSD document is derived from the parent XSD document. Just as with any other XML document, the localized content in the isolated child XML document is supported by querying and validation by XML tools.

Method for storing localized XML document values

A sequence of processing transactions operating on a cached data set, which depend on each other because they operate on the same items of data from the data set. The transactions are saved until the master copy of the data becomes available. The transactions are played back against the master copy until one of the played back transactions fails because another transaction which operated on the same items of data but against a separate cached copy and originating from another application, was successfully played back on the master copy at an earlier time. At this point, all subsequent transactions which depended on the failing transaction are rolled back on the cached copy (with appropriate failure reports generated) and activity resumes from there. 'Chained' (optimistic) transactions can therefore be applied to cached data and can be allowed to progress by recording their dependencies so they can be undone when required.

Commitment chains for conflict resolution between disconnected data sharing applications

Contention in a distributed processor computer system with a replicated message environment is reduced. The system comprises processor consumers intercommunicating via a server interface that receives a message from a producer. The server favors one consumer, marks the message accordingly, communicates the marked message to the system, and delays the processing in another consumer beyond a predetermined time, for example the time normally taken to process a message.

Reducing contention in an environment using optimistic locks

A system for adding internet functionality to a telephone call between a first caller and a second caller. The system comprises a telephony application, responsive to receiving a source telephone number associated with the first caller and a destination telephone number associated with the second caller, for extracting the numbers. A first query is constructed using the source number to access details relating to the first caller and a second query is constructed using the destination number to access details relating to the second caller. An internet related function is then performed in accordance with these details. The internet related function may be to record a telephone conversation and email it to the callers, or to email call or caller details to each of the callers, or to exchange files, such as word processing documents and images etc.

System and method for adding internet functionality to a telephone call

The invention relates to a method for executing, in a computer system , a device driver which is used by a number of applications running on that system. A first and second version 11 of the device driver are provided, with the first version being optimised and the second version containing debug code for providing trace information. Upon discovering a problem with the device driver, it is possible to selectively switch to the debug version of the code without any of the applications already using the device driver being aware of the switch. Having gathered the necessary trace data, it is then possible to transparently switch back to the optimised version. Conventionally, device drivers form part of the operating system within a computer and so are difficult to remove and re-load without taking the whole system down and re-booting. The invention however affords continuous service to any application already using the device driver and does not require a time-wasting reboot which may in any event remove the error condition.

System and method for optimizing a device driver by incorporating debugging and tracing

A bus connection controller in a voice processing is for managing the connection of a timeslot on a time-division multiplex (TDM) bus to a port on an adapter. The voice processing system includes basic time-division multiplex (TDM) connection management to enable the coordination of connections between resources such as channels on line cards (SPacks or VPacks), and channels on digital signal processor (DSPs) cards that provide, amongst others things, voice recognition, text-to-speech, fax capabilities and so on. Problems are encountered when a telephone call in a voice processing system ends suddenly because one of the callers hangs up. If the telephony channel has connections with other channels or resources via a TDM bus, callers may hear spurious data. To address this problem each call is associated with its corresponding connection on the TDM bus and each connection is associated with its connection details including the adapters and ports involved in connecting the calls. When one of the calls ends all the relevant ports involved with the connection are immediately disconnected.

Bus connection set up and tear down

A system and method for boot failure recovery in a digital computer as a result of an attempt to load a procedure in which a flag is associated with the procedure following a loading attempt which results in failure. The flag is read on a further attempt to load the same procedure to initiate an orderly exit thereby avoiding the potential for entry into an endless loop.

System for setting a flag indicating a boot failure of loading a procedure and aborting additional loading attempt thereof when the flag is detected

The invention relates to a voice processing system capable of varying the speed of output of digitized audio data stored therein. The digitized audio data is stored using blocks of LPC coefficients. Each block is sufficient to allow twenty milliseconds of speech to be generated therefrom. Periodically, or selectably, the utilization of particular blocks is repeated resulting in a decrease in the speed of output of the speech synthesized therefrom. Alternatively, selectably blocks of LPC coefficients are omitted from use thereby producing a corresponding increase in speech output.

Variation in playback speed of a stored audio data signal encoded using a history based encoding technique

Using the Internet World Wide Web (WWW) network 320, a WWW Client 310 can communicate with a WWW Server 330 to request the reconfiguration of or to generate software which controls a voice processing application. A voice response system client communicates with a voice response system server to alter the configuration of the voice response system or control the execution of software on said voice response system which enables a voice application program to be generated. The output of the voice response system ordinarily destined for display on a visual display unit of a local terminal is directed to the voice response system server. The voice response system server forwards the data to a voice response system client. The voice response system client generates data in a first format useable by said WWW client terminal from data in a second format received from said voice response system and generates data in said second format useable by said voice response system from data in said first format received from WWW client terminal, that is, the voice response system client dynamically generates HTML data from the data generated by the voice response system for transmission to and subsequent display at the WWW client terminal and visa versa.

Client-server system

The invention relates to a voice processing system capable of outputting voice prompts and background music. The volume of background music is progressively variable relative to the voice prompts or speech. The progressive variation is effected by multiplying the background music samples by a scaling factor and then adding together a current voice sample and the scaled background music sample. Accordingly, when the combined samples are output to the user the volume of the background music varies.

Voice processing system and method

A speech recognition system for discrete words uses a single Hidden Markov Model (HMM), which is nominally adapted to recognise N different isolated words, but which is trained to recognise M different words, where M&gt;N. This is achieved by providing M sets of audio recordings, each set comprising multiple recordings of a respective one of said M words being spoken. Only N different labels are assigned to the M sets of audio recordings, so that at least one of the N labels has two or more sets of audio recordings assigned thereto. These two or more sets of audio recordings correspond to phonetically dissimilar words. The HMM is then trained by inputting each set of audio recordings and its assigned label. The HMM can effectively compensate for the phonetic variations between the different words assigned the same label, thereby avoiding the need to utilise a larger model (i.e., to use M labels).

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Eastleigh, United Kingdom

Michael Cobbett