Abstract: Techniques for establishing contact between a first node and a second node in a communication system having a plurality of nodes. Upon a failure of an attempt by the first node to contact the second node, the first node contacts a 3rd party node, which in turn attempts to contact the second node on behalf of the first node. The first node's initial attempt to contact the second node can be verified by the 3rd party node, thereby avoiding an unjust detriment to the first node. Multiple retries or 3rd party nodes can be used to attempt contact on behalf of the first node. Responsiveness of nodes can be measured, and subsequent penalties can be assessed, as a result of their unresponsiveness.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for finding query responses from database queries using an interactive process between a user (e.g., a person entering a query to a database) and a computer system (e.g., a computing system upon which the database resides or which has access to the database). The interactive process comprises providing the user with one or more visual perspectives as feedback on the distribution of points in the database. These visual perspectives may be considered by the user in order for the user to provide feedback to the computer system. The computer system may then use the user-provided feedback to determine the best response to the query.

Abstract: Systems and methods are described for the execution and authoring of policies that use event rates for event management. The first system addresses policy execution. Included in this system are: a controller that provides overall operational control, a grouping engine, a rate detector, and a rate diagnoser. The second system automates the construction of event rate policies based on primary information sources (e.g., topology, inventory). The components of this system include: an authoring user interface, source-specific hierarchy generators, an event group generator and hierarchy builder, and a threshold constructor.

Abstract: Periodic patterns in time series data can be hierarchical in nature, where a higher level pattern may comprise repetitions of lower level patterns. In the presence of noises, these repetitions of lower level patterns may not be perfect. A novel model, namely a meta-pattern, is provided in accordance with the present invention to capture these higher level patterns. The meta-pattern can not only provide a more compact representation of patterns but also capture the regularities of pattern evolutions, which may not be expressed by previous models due to the presence of noise. A method is provided to mine meta-patterns in an iterative manner by discovering meta-patterns and their supporting subsequences in the form of lists of segments of contiguous repetitions of a meta-pattern. The number of pattern repetitions in each said segment is at least a predefined threshold min_rep and the distance between any two adjacent segments is at most a predefined threshold max_dis.

Abstract: A method of performing a flexible similarity search is provided. In one embodiment, the method comprises the steps of: (i) constructing an indexed representation of one or more documents to be used in the similarity search; (ii) specifying a target document and a similarity function to be used for the search of the one or more documents for which the indexed representation is constructed; and (iii) finding a document among the one or more documents for which the indexed representation is constructed which is similar to the target document, based on the specified similarity function. Thus, the invention creates a universal index for text similarity searches so that a user can specify a function at the time of query.

Abstract: A user-oriented database query system, comprising user management means; device management means; control means for identifying a user, receiving a database query request and appended parameters, converting the database query request into a database query command; query agent means for submitting database query command at suitable time and receiving the query results; query recording means for storing the database query request, the appended parameters, the query command, the query time and the query results; wherein the control means further determines a receiving device, converts the query results into a form acceptable by the receiving device and sends the query results thereto, and terminates the query after the acknowledgment of the success of sending.

Abstract: An apparatus for providing responses to requests of an off-line client, comprising: a local request-response storage which stores a plurality of requests and a plurality of responses; a network traffic redirector, for redirecting requests of the client to the client machine itself by modifying the system configuration of the client machine when the client is off-line, and for redirecting requests of the client to the network connection by resuming the system configuration of the client machine when the client leaves the off-line state and enters an on-line state; and a local off-line server, for receiving a request of the client redirected to the client machine itself, for generating a response based on the request, the plurality of requests and the plurality of responses stored in the request-response storage, and for returning the response to the client.

Abstract: An intelligent local client agent can passively keep track of the state of network intermediaries, and can allocate network traffic according to different policies. In addition, an optional management platform running on a policy server provides an active network monitor of intermediaries and implements administrative policies. Under the present invention, an intermediary-aware application (e.g., a browser) will be configured to use the local client agent instead of an intermediary. The policy server can remotely load configuration information into a running client agent to provide administrative constraints or state changes. At each client agent, the intermediary servers (e.g. SOCKS servers) are ranked into tiers, so that several servers in the top-rated tier can be used concurrently to provide better performance. When the performance of a server degrades, its tier rating is lowered, and thus it may be avoided. Administratively defined tiers can be used to reserve resources for mission critical applications.

Abstract: A communications protocol conversion system and methodology includes one or more first interface devices for receiving data signals communicated by a first communications device in accordance with a first communications protocol; a format converter device for on the fly converting the received data signals into data signals in accordance with a second communications protocol; and, one or more second interface devices for outputting the data signals in accordance with the second protocol to a second communications device. Advantageously, the protocol conversion system obviates a necessity for multiprotocol support in communications devices thereby enabling such devices to remain relatively smaller in size.