International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Robert A Harris

Nicholas Raymond Bailey

Scott John Clee

Richard John Gadd

Ian George Griffiths

Arden L Stewart

Pauline Elizabeth Andrews

Shanna Xu

Daniel Edward Would

Dennis L Plum

Gillian Curwen

Simon Richard Hakiel

Stanley Whetstone

Christopher Derrick Cawthorne

Pauline Andrews

A de-aerator for removing dissolved gasses from water in a water heating system and a water heating system comprising such a de-aerator are disclosed. The de-aerator includes a vessel defining a chamber for receiving water which has been heated by a primary water heater, an inlet through which water can be supplied into the chamber and an outlet through which the water can exit the chamber; and a vent through which gas can exit the chamber. A diameter of the chamber decreases in a direction from the inlet towards the outlet. The chamber side wall being curved and having a non-constant radius of curvature, the radius of curvature being smaller near the outlet than near the inlet, so that water supplied into the chamber is accelerated as it flows from the inlet towards the outlet, to thereby promote de-aeration of the water. De-aeration gasses exit the chamber through the vent.

De-aerator for a water heating system

A user initiated unification command can be received from a user interface. The unification command can be associated with a selected portion of a fragmented document. The fragmented document can include more than one discrete documents interconnected by at least one reference. Each reference can be a linkage to content of a document other than the one containing the reference. The selected portion can be associated with one of the discrete documents referred to as a root document. Responsive to the unification command, content represented by the reference can be acquired from the associated discrete documents without presenting the discrete document within a user interface window. The acquired content can be added to the root document.

Automated and user customizable content retrieval from a collection of linked documents to a single target document

A method of bookmarking internet resources in an internet browser includes providing to a user an internet resource discovered by a search conducted via the browser in accordance with user supplied criteria; creating, responsive to a bookmarking request from the user, bookmark data having identifying data for the internet resource and an associated resource representation of the internet resource; and creating a hierarchy, for presentation to the user, of representations of internet resources for which bookmarking has been requested and of associated search criteria, each bookmarked resource representation being placed subordinate to corresponding associated search criteria representation in the hierarchy. A user can navigate to a bookmarked representation of a resource of interest via the corresponding associated search criteria representation for selection and subsequent retrieval of the resource of interest.

Bookmarking internet resources in an internet browser

A method includes ranking services in a web services architecture and a web services architecture. The web services architecture has a hierarchy of services with a root originating service requester and a service of a first level in the hierarchy calling a service of a lower level. The originating service requestor indicates a preference regarding one or more services and a ranking machine provides a choice algorithm based on the preference. The originating service requestor invokes services of one or more levels of hierarchy. At each level of the hierarchy, a service uses a directory to find a set of possible lower-level services and the ranking machine applies the choice algorithm to the set of possible lower-level services. In one embodiment, the set of possible lower-level services is referred to the ranking machine from the directory and a preferred sequence is returned by the ranking machine to the directory.

Method and system for ranking services in a web services architecture

A method, apparatus and software is disclosed in which a temporary IP address is assigned to a selected instance of a server application program so as to provide processing continuity for processing with a client application program.

Providing access by a client application program over an internet protocol (IP) network to a server application program instance

A method and system for two-dimensional scrolling in a graphical display window () in a user interface are provided. A first scroll bar () associated with a display window () is enabled to move data displayed in the window () relative to a first direction in the direction of the first scroll bar (). Responsive to user selection of a slide button () in the first scroll bar () with a pointer device and responsive to movement of the pointer device in a second direction, data displayed in the window () is moved relative to the second direction. The second direction is perpendicular to the first direction. A second scroll bar () in the second direction may also be provided, wherein movement of the pointer device in the second direction with selection of the first scroll bar () is represented by the position of a slide button () in the second scroll bar ().

Method and apparatus for two-dimensional scrolling in a graphical display window

A system for use in a distributed environment comprising a first data processing system having a first entity (e.g. an object) and a second data processing system having a second entity. The first entity sends a request for an operation associated with the second entity. The request comprises an operation identifier in a first format (e.g. a first national language) and the operation comprises an operation identifier in a second format (e.g. a second national language). The environment also comprises a data structure comprising an association between the operation identifier in the first format and the operation identifier in the second format. The system comprises an intercept component for intercepting the request, a search component for searching the data structure for the operation identifier in the first format and a map component for mapping the operation identifier in the first format to the operation identifier in the second format.

System for distributed communications

A state table includes a plurality of possible states of a computer system and the corresponding actions which produce transitions between source and target states. A set of test programs is stored, each test program performing an action in the state table. A test selects an action corresponding to the current state of the computer system; executes the test program which performs the selected action; determines the state of the computer system after the test program has executed; and compares the determined state to the state indicated in the state table as the target state to the selected action on the source state. When an error is found, instead of stopping execution, the test operations to be performed are dynamically reconfigured. Weightings are dynamically allocated to actions in the state table to create a weighted set, and selection of the next test is carried out using random selection over the weighted set. Thus, the continued testing is biased over time towards particular transitions and/or states near to the error location. This enables a tester to discover any other bugs in the same area and also to obtain further diagnostic data on the failure.

Method and apparatus for testing software

A computer program implemented method controls interruption of execution of tasks running in a multi-processing computer system to permit user intervention. The system includes a repository of data identifying preselected tasks for interruption and identifying the user defined circumstances for such interruption. It also has a plurality of task caches for storing subsets of the repository data for respective tasks. According to the method, the repository is scanned during an initiation phase of any task for data relevant to the task. Any such relevant data is stored in the respective task cache. The task is then executed and if a defined circumstance for the task arises by reference to the task cache, the task is interrupted to enable user intervention. This can include updating the repository to redefine the circumstances for interruption. Execution is then resumed and the respective task cache refreshed with any relevant repository updates.

Controlling user intervention in a multi-processing computer system

The present invention provides a method, apparatus and computer program product for combining a plurality of run units into a single executable file. According the invention each run unit may contain one or more data entities which are designated as being required only once in an executable file. As a result when the executable file is built, if a run unit with a data entity of a given value is to be added to an executable file, if a previous run unit with a data entity with a matching value has previously been added to the executable file, the run unit is added to the executable file but without the data entity.

Executable file creation

A system for use in a distributed environment comprising a first data processing system having a first entity (e.g. and object) and a second data processing system having a second entity. The first entity sends a request for an operation associated with the second entity. The request comprises an operation identifier in a first format (e.g. a first national language) and the operation comprises an operation identifier in a second format (e.g. a second national language). The environment also comprises a data structure comprising an association between the operation identifier in the first format and the operation identifier in the second format. The system comprises an intercept component for intercepting the request, a search component for searching the data structure for the operation identifier in the first format and a map component for mapping the operation identifier in the first format to the operation identifier in the second format.

A method of information personalization is provided, whereby the information has an associated status indication (such as, an image or picture for example). Firstly, information is displayed (via a Web browser for example). Next, a process to determine the presence of one or more attributes associated with the status indication is carried out. If it is determined that one or more attributes exist, each of the attributes is compared against a respective threshold, whereby each of the thresholds determines rendering of the associated status indication. In response to the comparing, if one or more respective thresholds are met, the associated status indication is displayed as an updated status indication (whereby, the status indication is partially visible or non-visible for example). If one or more respective thresholds are not met, the associated status indication is displayed (whereby, the status indication is unchanged for example).

Information personalisation method

A system and method of usage charging at any one of multiple access points to a facility involves the presentation by a user of a personalized electronic storage device, such as a smartcard, at an access point. A history of previous usage is stored on the storage device and compared at the access point with a locally stored tariff table of differential prices for different combinations of usage. An appropriate charge is then indicated to the user and, upon payment, permission to use the facility is granted and recorded in the usage history. The charge for an instance of use is variable according to the tariff table in dependence on the previous usage history.

Method and system of usage charging by presentation of a personalized electronic storage device at an access point to a facility

A computer implemented method of defining an object union in an object oriented programming environment, comprising the steps of: selecting a first class from which a first object to be contained in the object union will be instantiated at runtime; selecting a second class from which a second object to be contained in the object union will be instantiated at runtime; selecting a policy function for operating on the first and second classes, at runtime, in order to define which methods supported by the first and second classes will be accessible via the object union at runtime.

Data processing with policed object union

A speech recognition system is trained to be sensitive not only to the actual spoken text, but also to the manner in which the text is spoken, for example, whether something is said confidently, or hesitatingly. In the preferred embodiment, this is achieved by using a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) as the recognition engine, and training the HMM to recognise different styles of input. This approach finds particular application in the telephony voice processing environment, where short caller responses need to be recognised, and the system can then react in a fashion appropriate to the tone or manner in which the caller has spoken.

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Christchurch, United Kingdom

Robert A Harris