International Business Machines Corporation

Raphael P Chancey

Eduardo T Kahan

Manish Mahesh Modh

Peter C Bahrs

Lei He

Barry Alan Feigenbaum

Sean Michael Sundberg

John Allen Hubert Woolfrey

Lei Chen

Yong Zhao

Li-Ju Chen

Ernest Grady Booch

Chen Tian

Michael Wilfrid Brown

Chang He Weng

Dong Bing Li

Charles C Ebbs

One embodiment provides an apparatus, including: a sensor subsystem comprising i) a plurality of sensors that collect information about the apparatus' immediate environment and ii) at least one agent that fuses and interprets the collected information; a model subsystem comprising i) a plurality of models, including a model for each of the apparatus' immediate environment, sentient beings, and the apparatus itself, the models receiving the collected information and storing other information and ii) at least one agent that uses the collected information and the stored other information to deduce information about the apparatus' immediate environment; an actuator subsystem comprising a plurality of actuators that interact with the apparatus' immediate environment based upon the collected information and the information deduced by the model subsystem; and an agency subsystem comprising a plurality of agents that carry out plans according to goals identifying at least one desired outcome in relation to the apparatus' immediate environment.

Embodied cognition platform for use in and control of a device

A reusable asset packaging and consumption method and system that support consumption activities and variability point instances associated with asset types or artifact types. Generic consumption activities and variability point types for different asset types or artifact types and developed and stored in a repository. When an asset packager packages an asset, a needed activity is selected from the activities associated with the type of the asset. The activity, a variability point instance bound with the activity, and the context constraints, together with the artifacts is packaged into the asset package, where the asset package is then stored in a repository. During consumption, the asset consumer obtains the asset package, verifies the context, and executes the activity packaged in the asset, while specifying variability point values for the bound variability instance.

Software asset packaging and consumption

A computer implemented method and apparatus is provided for generating and using constraints that are associated with software programs or other software entities intended for use in a specified data processing system or environment. One embodiment is directed to a method that includes the step of extracting metadata pertaining to the one or more software programs from at least one database. The extracted metadata is selectively processed to generate a set of constraints that affect the use of the one or more programs in a specified environment, wherein such processing includes transforming the extracted metadata to provide the set of constraints in a prespecified constraint language. The method further comprises detecting a proposed action of a user that is associated with the one or more software programs, and determining whether the proposed action violates any constraint in the set.

Generating and using constraints associated with software related products

A visualization tool that provides visibility of the functionality implemented with each system used by an institution(s) at code unit granularity can be used to overcome a variety of challenges that can occur in an environment with disparate systems. The visualization tool discovers and graphically displays functions/procedures/methods ('code units') that satisfy a set of one or more criteria, as well as attributes of the discovered code units. Furthermore, the visualization tool can automatically provide visual annotations to identify targets for asset maintenance, targets to leverage for other systems, etc.

Visualization of code units across disparate systems

Leveraging profiles to define stereotypes for other profiles introduces efficiency into modeling. Although constraints can be inherited, constraints cannot currently be aggregated across profiles. Aggregating constraints across profiles leverages the labor invested in defining other profiles as well as adding flexibility to defining stereotypes.

Aggregation of constraints across profiles

Although a modeling language can be used to create a deployment diagram to graphically depict a deployment model, the utility of the deployment diagram is limited to easing understanding of the model. A semantically correct deployment topology model can be processed to automate deployment of a product, add-on, update, configuration, etc. A semantically correct deployment topology model can be processed to generate activities that conform to the deployment model. The activities have executable code units associated with them. Calls to the executable code units are written into one or more files in accordance with an order of the plurality of activities that conforms to the semantically correct deployment topology model.

Automated deployment implementation with a deployment topology model

A database of data can be leveraged to automatically generate profiles for use in modeling. The data may be specific to one or more domains and/or general to multiple domains. A mapping scheme is established to map structure of the database to a structure of a profile. The mapping scheme is read and the database is read in accordance with the mapping scheme to automatically generate one or more profiles.

Automated generation of modeling language profiles

A deployment activity model is automatically generated from a deployment topology model. The operations to automatically generate the deployment activity model may be visible or 'under the covers.' Regardless of visibility, a deployment model tool traverses a representation (e.g., one or more data structures) of the one or more diagrams of the deployment topology model. The deployment model tool begins creating preliminary representations of a deployment activity model until representation of a valid deployment activity model is created. Although the preliminary representations (assuming the first traversal attempt of the deployment topology model is unsuccessful) are discarded in some embodiments, other embodiments store the representations of the preliminary representations for analysis (e.g., analysis for the tool to learn, analysis to discover values for automatically defining attributes, etc.).

Preliminary data representations of a deployment activity model

Embodiments of the invention include a method that comprises receiving and storing a power-on password. Embodiments of the invention include a method that comprises receiving and storing a power-on password. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a power-on password, wherein the receiving of the power-on password occurs during power-on operations of a computer. The method can also include storing the power-on password, wherein the storing includes saving the power-on password in memory. The method can also include loading an operating system to control the computer, wherein the loading occurs after the power-on operations. The method can also include detecting, after the loading, that a peripheral devices has been added to the computer and determining that an access password is needed to access the peripheral device. The method can also include transmitting the power-on password to the peripheral device and presenting a prompt requesting a secondary password; receiving the secondary password. The method can also include transmitting the secondary password to the peripheral device; and accessing the peripheral device.

Accessing password protected devices

A computer implemented method and apparatus is provided for generating and using constraints that are associated with software programs or other software entities intended for use in a specified data processing system or environment. One embodiment is directed to a method that includes the step of extracting metadata pertaining to the one or more software programs from at least one database. The extracted metadata is selectively processed to generate a set of constraints that affect the use of the one or more programs in a specified environment, wherein such processing includes transforming the extracted metadata to provide the set of constraints in a prespecified constraint language. The method further comprises detecting a proposed action of a user that is associated with the one or more software programs, and determining whether the proposed action would violate any constraint in the set.

Projects often involve multiple teams of developers in different locations. The different teams make updates to a central or shared database(s) that can store information about the project, such as progress. Each team or even different members of the different teams can check out instances of a representation of a model for the project. The different teams/members can independently modify their instance with data specific to that member and/or team. Database operations embedded in the individual instances are then executed on the database(s) to persist the data from their individual instances to the database(s). Database mechanisms can handle locking and/or conflicts that may arise from performance of the database operations. A manager can then request a report from the database(s), and the report with data from the different members and/or teams can be generated from the database(s).

Growing community of inventors

Leander, TX, United States of America

Raphael P Chancey