Abstract: A dynamic services infrastructure accepts data describing data resources and stores that data in a relational database from which it may be retrieved to handle service requests issued by application programs. The database stores Service Definition data which is initially supplied in the form of XML Service Descriptor documents which are then mapped into the database from which they may be accessed. Each Service Definition includes an input specification which identifies the address of a resource as well as the nature of the input data to be supplied to the resource with the request, and further includes an output specification which describes the nature of the output information which is supplied by the resource in response to the request.

Abstract: A system for enabling a user of a relational database to define and enforce ordered check constraints to insure that defined logical relationships are maintained between data values in pairs of adjacent rows when adjacency is defined by some ordering of the data. These inter-row conditions, here called “ordered check constraints,” are expressed by a logical expressions which define a required relationship between the attributes of a given row and its adjacent row or rows. Arbitrarily complex expressions involving these sets of attributes can be formed to model the constraints of interest. These expressions can be created by the database in support of, for example, traditional primary key or uniqueness constraints, or they can be provided by the database user to model new more complex constraints such as a requirement that there be no gaps in a list of serial numbers.

Abstract: A system for storing and dynamically updating data represented in the Extensible Markup Language (XML) which separates the data values in at least some of the elements of an XML document and places those data values in relational database tables where they may be processed using conventional RDBMS techniques. The hierarchical structure of the XML document is saved separately in an XML skeleton object from which element data other than primary key values has been removed. The XML documents document type definition (DTD) is stored, along with additional property data used the RDBMS, in an XML Definition object.

Abstract: A system for automatically enhancing Web pages with annotations expressed in Extensible Markup Language (XML) which describes the pages' multimedia content. Each Web page is parsed or scanned to identify markup tags which contain the URLs of separately stored multimedia data (e.g. image, audio or video files). Each referenced multimedia data entity is then retrieved and analyzed by a type-specific process to extract metadata which describes its content. Additional descriptive metadata may be obtained from the referencing markup tag, accepted from a human editor, or fetched from operating system directories which provide access to the multimedia files. The resulting metadata is expressed in text-based XML format and inserted into a copy of the Web page to form an enhanced Web page whose multimedia content may then be processed by conventional text-based indexing and searching facilities.