Abstract: A method for processing insurance coverage requests. An insurance data processing system (IDPS) receives at least one request from a customer relating to insurance coverage for the customer. Each request independently requests activation or deactivation of the insurance coverage. The requests are ordered in a time sequence if the at least one request includes more than one request. The IDPS verifies, for each request received, that it is permissible for the IDPS to accommodate each request. After each request is verified, the IDPS archives each request in a non-volatile storage medium of the IDPS.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
August 15, 2006
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: Power is conserved by dynamically applying clocks to execution units in a pipeline of a microprocessor. A clock to an execution unit is applied only when an instruction to the execution unit is valid. At other times when the execution unit needs not to be operational, the clock is not applied to the execution unit. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a dynamic clock-control unit is used to provide a control signal to a local clock buffer providing a local clock to an execution unit.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
October 25, 2006
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Christopher Michael Abernathy, Gilles Gervais, Rolf Hilgendork
Abstract: A method, system, apparatus, and computer program product for processing e-commerce information are presented. A business entity may transfer e-commerce agreements through an electronic marketplace. The business entity retrieves dependency information about a commercial transaction from an e-commerce agreement. The business entity incorporates the dependency information, e.g., dates, costs, deliveries, etc., as dependency relationships within a project model that represents a project for a product or service for sale by the first business entity. User input is received for manipulating a cost dependency relationship within the project model while constraining the user input to ensure that another type of dependency relationship is not incompatible with modifications to the cost dependency relationship.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
March 28, 2002
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
David B. Kumhyr, Margaret G. MacPhail, Sebastian D. Hassinger
Abstract: Electrically conducting adhesives having a broader selectable range of properties are provided by having random sizes of micrometer diameter range particles coated with a low melting temperature metal. The coated particles are suspended in a vehicle of a mixture of thermosetting resins together with a flux resin selected for viscosity and low shrinkage, for screen printability, for electrical and for mechanical properties over a broad range of specification conditions. The vehicle or resin system includes thermosetting cyclo-aliphatic epoxy, thermosetting phenoxy polymer and thermosetting mono-functional limonene oxide. The low temperature melting coating system for the particles includes In, Sn, and alloys such as In—Sn, Sn—Pb, Bi—Sn—In and InAg. The micrometer diameter range particles includes Cu, Ni, Co, Ag, Pd, Pt, polymer and ceramic.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 24, 2000
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: A method for monitoring events includes defining alert events based on primitive event types in an environment monitored by monitoring devices. Alert parameters are set for each alert event, and alert events are combined to create a composite alert event based on a plurality of alert events. A plurality of engines is monitored to determine if multiple events comprising the composite alert event have occurred.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
June 16, 2006
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Senem Velipasalar, Lisa Marie Brown, Arun Hampapur, Chiao-Fe Shu
Abstract: A fork system call by a first process is detected. A second process is created as a replication of the first process with a second affinity. If a replication of the replicated shared library is present in the second affinity domain, effective addresses of the replication of the replicated shared library are mapped using a mapping mechanism of the present invention to physical addresses in the second affinity domain.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
July 22, 2004
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
David Alan Hepkin, Bret Ronald Olszewski
Abstract: A system and method for concurrently spooling and despooling print jobs, which allows print data associated with a print job to be despooled from storage at the same time that additional print data associated with the print job is spooled onto storage. Print jobs are received and storing of the print job is initiated. The portion of the print data that has been stored is concurrently read from the storage device, and sent to the print engine, thereby allowing the print job to be printed as the print job is being stored onto the storage device.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
April 17, 2000
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Charles David Johnson, Russel Neil Miller, Larry David Teklits
Abstract: A multiprocessor computer system has nodes which use processor state information to determine which coherent caches are required to examine a coherency transaction produced by a single originating processor's storage request. A node has dynamic coherency boundaries such that the hardware uses only a subset of the total processors for a single workload at any specific point in time and can optimize cache coherency as the supervisor software or firmware expands and contracts the number of processors used to run any single workload. Multiple instances of a node can be connected with a second level controller to create a larger multiprocessor system. The node controllers use the mode bits to determine which nodes must receive any given transaction. Logical partitions are mapped to allowable physical processors. Cache coherence regions and caches are chosen for their physical proximity. A distinct cache coherency region can be hypervisor defined for each partition.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
June 25, 2003
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: Multiple interfaces dedicated to individual logic circuits such as memory arrays are capable of being dynamically reconfigured from operating separately and in parallel to operating in a more collective manner to ensure that data associated with all of the logic circuits will be communicated irrespective of a failure in any of the interfaces. Specifically, a plurality of interfaces, each of which being ordinarily configured to communicate data associated with an associated logic circuit in parallel with the other interfaces, may be dynamically reconfigured, e.g., in response to a detected failure in one or more of the interfaces, to communicate data associated with each of the interfaces over each of at least a subset of the interfaces in a time multiplexed and replicated manner.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
January 14, 2005
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Gerald Keith Bartley, John Michael Borkenhagen, William Paul Hovis, Paul Rudrud
Abstract: Within a display device, a respective one of a plurality of design graphical representations is displayed for each of a plurality of hierarchically arranged design entity instances within a simulated system. The design entity instances include a particular design entity instance containing a latch that is represented by a particular design graphical representation. A configuration entity instance associated with the particular design entity is identified within a configuration database associated with the simulated system. The configuration entity instance has a plurality of different settings that each reflects a value of the latch. Within the display device, a configuration graphical representation of the configuration entity instance is presented in association with the particular design graphical representation corresponding to the particular design entity instance.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
November 30, 2007
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Wolfgang Roesner, Derek Edward Williams
Abstract: Personalized notifications are delivered to end users. A service provider receives, a content description from a content provider. The content description defines keywords, values attached to each keyword and a localization of values attached to each keyword in a piece of content. Each time a subscription request for a notification service related to the received content description is received from an end user, keywords values and the delivery channels selected by the user are recorded. A notification rule associated with the end user based on the selected keyword values and the localization of the selected keyword values in the content is generated. Each time a piece of content related to the content description is received from the content provider, the received piece of content is adapted to comply with the generated rules. For each rule previously generated, the values contained in the adapted piece of content are checked against the values as defined in the rule for each localization.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
December 7, 2004
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Philippe Bazot, Jacques Cresp, Fabrice Livigni, Richard Sert
Abstract: Navigating UAVs in formation, including assigning pattern positions to each of a multiplicity of UAVs flying together in a pattern; identifying a waypoint for each UAV in dependence upon the UAV's pattern position; piloting the UAVs in the pattern toward their waypoints in dependence upon a navigation algorithm, where the navigation algorithm includes repeatedly comparing the UAV's intended position and the UAV's actual position and calculating a corrective flight vector when the distance between the UAV's actual and intended positions exceeds an error threshold. The actual position of the UAV may be taken from a GPS receiver on board the UAV.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
January 24, 2005
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
William Kress Bodin, Jesse Redman, Derral Charles Thorson
Abstract: A method is disclosed to supply power to one or more battery-backup assemblies. The method supplies a first controller, a second controller, a first battery-backup assembly, and a second battery-backup assembly. The method further supplies a power bus interconnected to the first controller, the second controller, the first battery-backup assembly, and the second battery-backup assembly, and a first power supply and a second power supply interconnected with the power bus. The method provides power to the first controller and to the second controller and to the first battery-backup assembly over a first period of time, and provides power to the first controller and to the second controller and to the second battery-backup assembly over a second period of time, where the first period of time differs from the second period of time.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
November 18, 2004
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Carl E. Jones, Robert A. Kubo, Gregg S. Lucas
Abstract: A multi-band band pass filter, including: first and second multi-order asynchronous resonators connected to each other by a coupling resonator and connected to respective first and second matching resonators, the first matching resonator connected to a signal-in terminal and second matching resonator connected to a signal-out terminal respectively; a first reference resonator connected between the signal-in terminal and a reference-in terminal and a second reference resonator connected between the signal-out terminal and a reference-out terminal, the first multi-order asynchronous resonator connected between the first matching resonator and the coupling resonator to the first reference terminal and the second multi-order asynchronous resonator connected between the second matching resonator and the coupling resonator to the reference-out terminal, the reference-in terminal connected to the reference-out terminal; and a feedback resonator connected between the signal-in terminal and the signal-out terminal.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
December 12, 2006
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide method and device for searching fixed length data. The device includes a hash operation means for operating and outputting a hash value of inputted fixed length data, a data table memory consisting of N numbers of memory banks, where N is an integer that is more than and equal to 2, the data table memory for storing a data table holding a large number of fixed length data, a pointer table memory for storing a memory pointer table holding a memory address at which each fixed length datum is stored with the hash value as an index, and a comparison means for simultaneously comparing a plurality of fixed length data stored at the same memory address in the N numbers of memory banks with a single fixed length datum inputted to the hash operation means, the comparison means for outputting results of the comparison.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
January 27, 2004
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: In response to multiple data transfer requests from an application, a data definition (DD) chain is generated. The DD chain is divided into multiple DD sub-blocks by determining a bandwidth of channels (BOC) and whether the BOC is less than the DD chain. If so, the DD chain is divided by the available DMA engines. If not, the DD chain is divided by an optimum atomic transfer unit (OATU). If the division yields a remainder, the remainder is added to a last DD sub-block. If the remainder is less than a predetermined value, the size of the last DD sub-block is set to the OATU plus the remainder. Otherwise, the size of the last DD sub-block is set to the remainder. The DD sub-blocks are subsequently loaded into a set of available DMA engines. Each of the available DMA engines performs data transfers on a corresponding DD sub-block until the entire DD chain has been completed.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
September 20, 2006
Date of Patent:
December 23, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: In a client/server network, a client may be able to use any of several servers in accomplishing a particular task but may still have preferences as to which server should, if available, be used. If the preferred server is not available, the client will be connected to an alternate server. If a server having a higher preference than the alternate server becomes available, state information associated with the client session with the alternate server is used in order to decide when the client may be switched to the preferred server without compromising work currently being done.
Type:
Application
Filed:
May 28, 2008
Publication date:
December 18, 2008
Applicant:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Philip Richard Nickoll, Matthew Roberts, Graham Derek Wallis, David Ware
Abstract: A service model of resources is dynamically created from a selected service model template. A user-input or incoming event selects one of multiple pre-defined service model templates for construction of a selected service model. The selected service model represents real-time characteristics of resources for an enterprise. External data sources, which are used to describe the real-time characteristics of the depicted resources, are then identified, and the service model is constructed using the identified external data sources.
Type:
Application
Filed:
June 15, 2007
Publication date:
December 18, 2008
Applicant:
International Business Machine Corporation
Inventors:
Alan D. Braun, Isaac J. Graf, Shoel D. Perelman
Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products for answering a query to be executed on a database comprising a first table and a second table, and in which the second table includes data from the first table. In one implementation, the method includes refreshing the data in the second table with corresponding data in the first table at a first time, receiving a first query on the first table at a second time that is subsequent to the first time, rewriting the first query into a second query on the first table and a third query on the second table, and executing the second query and the third query respectively on the first table and the second table to generate results for the first query.
Type:
Application
Filed:
August 30, 2007
Publication date:
December 18, 2008
Applicant:
International Business Machines Corporation