Abstract: A system and method for communicating command parameters between a processor and a memory flow controller are provided. The system and method make use of a channel interface as the primary mechanism for communicating between the processor and a memory flow controller. The channel interface provides channels for communicating with processor facilities, memory flow control facilities, machine state registers, and external processor interrupt facilities, for example. These channels may be designated as blocking or non-blocking. With blocking channels, when no data is available to be read from the corresponding registers, or there is no space available to write to the corresponding registers, the processor is placed in a low power “stall” state. The processor is automatically awakened, via communication across the blocking channel, when data becomes available or space is freed. Thus, the channels of the present invention permit the processor to stay in a low power state.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
August 19, 2005
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Michael N. Day, Charles R. Johns, Peichun P. Liu, Todd E. Swanson, Thuong Q. Truong
Abstract: A method, computer program product, and distributed data processing system that allows a single physical I/O adapter to validate that a memory mapped I/O address referenced by an incoming I/O operation is associated with a virtual host that initiated the incoming memory mapped I/O operation is provided. Specifically, the present invention is directed to a mechanism for sharing a PCI family I/O adapter and, in general, any I/O adapter that uses a memory mapped I/O interface for communications. A mechanism is provided that allows a single physical I/O adapter to validate that a memory mapped I/O address referenced by an incoming memory mapped I/O operation used to initiate an I/O transaction is associated with a virtual host that initiated the incoming memory mapped I/O operation.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 25, 2005
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Richard Louis Arndt, Giora Biran, Harvey Gene Kiel, Vadim Makhervaks, Renato John Recio, Leah Shalev, Jaya Srikrishnan
Abstract: A mechanism is presented for merging e-mail messages into a collated file. An e-mail message and its associated responses may be accessed and collated based on a selected pattern for responses. The set of e-mails may be collated into a single document with the responses associated with the particular message to which the response is directed. Using pattern matching operations in an iterative fashion, a response may be associated with the message that elicited the response whether the original message or a previous response. The form of association may be user selectable.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
July 24, 2003
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: An apparatus, program product and method utilize distributed coordinating members to distribute member-specific state data to subscribing members in a distributed computing system. Member-specific state data is associated with different subjects, and coordinating members are configured to manage state data associated with particular subjects such that a reporting member that needs to report member-specific state data associated with a particular subject forwards that state data to a coordinating member associated with that subject. Once received, the coordinating member then distributes the member-specific state data to any members that have subscribed to receive state data associated with that subject.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
September 2, 2004
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: A system and method for determining the image resolution of a check image using MICR characters. The disclosed system includes an extracting system for extracting a magnetic ink code recognition (MICR) code line from the document image, wherein the extracting system provides coordinate values for each of a plurality of MICR characters in the MICR code line; a calculating system for calculating a set of resolution values based on the coordinate values of the MICR characters; and a statistical analysis system that calculates a representative resolution value from the set of resolution values.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
December 2, 2004
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Ravinder Prakash, Rodney G. Moon, Madhura A. Sathe, Clair F. Rohe
Abstract: A session is established between a user system and an existing version of a network application. Once the session is established, session information corresponding to the session is determined and then communicated to the user system. The session information typically includes a version identifier that identifies the existing version of the network application. Requests received during the same session are accompanied with the session information. The session information is used to route the requests to the existing version of the network application.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
May 15, 2003
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: A method of forming a diode having a capacitance below 0.1 pF and a breakdown voltage of at least 500V. The method including forming an anode of a first conductivity type and a cathode of a second conductivity type disposed below the anode. At least one of the cathode and anode have multiple, vertically abutting diffusion regions. Forming isolation regions such that the cathode and anode are disposed between and bounded by adjacent isolation regions.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
March 8, 2002
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: Disclosed as a system and method for providing enhanced security to processes running on a data processing system. The disclosed system and method selectively revokes execute privileges from memory pages being used for stacks of susceptible processes running on the data processing system. By selectively resetting execute privileges on a per page and per process basis, the system and method maintains system performance and provides enhanced security to processes running on the data processing system.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
November 8, 2000
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: A system and method for responding to requests for processing made by an integration broker to an application having a single threaded application programmer interface, comprising receiving a request for processing; determining whether the received request is event-triggered or call-triggered; sending the request to a slave process assigned to event-triggered requests, when the request is event-triggered; and sending the request to a slave process assigned to call-triggered requests, when the request is call-triggered.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
September 17, 2002
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: A task roster. A task roster can include a visual list of component tasks, the component tasks collectively forming a high-level task; a specified sequence in which the component tasks are to be performed; and, one or more visual status indicators, each visual status indicator having a corresponding component task, each visual status indicator further indicating whether the corresponding component task has been performed in the specified sequence. The task roster also can include a component task initiator configured to launch a selected component task in the visual list of component tasks upon a user-selection of the selected component task.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
October 1, 2001
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: A wizard user interface capable of being cancelled and later resumed without loss of data is disclosed. Canceling from the wizard prior to its completion will optionally cause data entered on any of the wizard's pages to be saved to a file and stored in non-volatile memory. Subsequent invocation of the same wizard user interface will optionally cause the data to be read from the file and repopulated into the wizard's pages to restore the cancelled wizard to its pre-cancellation state. The user interface accordingly permits data entry to be performed in phases, with the wizard being exited between phases.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
August 26, 2002
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: A method for extracting desired data from a digital database comprising the steps of specifying desired data elements to be extracted from an operational database, generating executable code from the identified data elements for extracting the identified data elements from the database, and executing the executable code thereby extracting the identified data elements from the database.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
December 21, 2004
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Abstract: The performance of a given task is optimized by utilizing an intelligent agent having a plurality of program modules suited to perform the computer task but having varied degrees of domain knowledge. Based upon an objective criteria that may be determined for a given situation, one or more of the program modules in the intelligent agent may be selected to perform the task, thereby optimizing the performance of the computer task for a wide variety of situations.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
June 19, 1998
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Joseph Phillip Bigus, Brian John Cragun, Helen Roxlo Delp
Abstract: A system for generating multimedia information including audio information, video information, or both is disclosed. The system includes an interface, a text converter, and a first multimedia dictionary. The interface is suitable for receiving a text-based message, such as an email message, from a transmission medium, such as the internet. The text converter is configured to receive the text-based message from the interface. The converter is adapted to decompose the words of the text-based message into their component diphthongs. The first multimedia dictionary receives a diphthong produced by the text converter and produces a set of digitized samples of multimedia information representative of the received diphthong. The system may include a second multimedia dictionary containing its own set of digitized samples. In this embodiment, the system is configured to determine the author of the text-based message and, in response, to select between the first and second multimedia dictionaries.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
December 14, 1999
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Jason Raymond Baumgartner, Nadeem Malik, Steven Leonard Roberts
Abstract: In a networked system having a protected central server network connected to one or more satellite servers, the central server includes master data, and each satellite system includes replicated data derived from the master data. A corruption of at least a portion of the replicated data in one of the satellite servers is determined. Responsive to determining the corruption, at least the corrupted portion of the replicated data is replaced in the satellite server with data derived from the master data of the central server.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
March 3, 2004
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Stephen Brady, Shu-Ping Chang, James S. Lipscomb
Abstract: A method and system for transmitting packets in a packet switching network. Packets received by a packet processor may be prioritized based on the urgency to process them. Packets that are urgent to be processed may be referred to as real-time packets. Packets that are not urgent to be processed may be referred to as non-real-time packets. Real-time packets have a higher priority to be processed than non-real-time packets. A real-time packet may either be discarded or transmitted into a real-time queue based upon its value priority, the minimum and maximum rates for that value priority and the current real-time queue congestion conditions. A non-real-time packet may either be discarded or transmitted into a non-real-time queue based upon its value priority, the minimum and maximum rates for that value priority and the current real-time and non-real-time queue congestion conditions.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
April 8, 2002
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Brahmanand Kumar Gorti, Marco Heddes, Clark Debs Jeffries, Andreas Kind, Michael Steven Siegel
Abstract: A method is disclosed for securing a heat sink against a central processing unit. The present invention teaches a heat sink securement device having a vertical retention arm that substantially encompasses a heat sink in a vertical direction, a horizontal retention arm that substantially encompasses a heat sink in a horizontal direction, and a tension arm coupled to the vertical and horizontal retention arms and pivotally coupled to the frame, the tension arm simultaneously adjusts a tension on the vertical retention arm and the horizontal retention arm in response to moving the tension arm. In certain embodiments, the retention arms are coupled to the tension arm via coupling member that is offset from pivot point of the tension arm. In other embodiments, the coupling member may include a different coupling member for the vertical and horizontal retention arms, both coupling members offset from the pivot point.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
December 28, 2005
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Richard M. Barina, Dean F. Herring, Paul A. Wormsbecher
Abstract: A system is provided for remotely configuring automatic reply message settings. The system comprises an email server configured to receive email messages addressed to an email address allocated for a user. The email server is configurable to generate an automatic reply message in response to receiving email messages addressed to the email address, to examine each received email message addressed to the email address for one or more specified conditions, and to execute one or more specified actions configuring settings for the automatic reply message when the one or more specified conditions are met by a received email message addressed to the email address.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 6, 2008
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Richard A. Bloomer, Jr., Manjunath B. Muttur
Abstract: A system and method of improved task switching in a data processing system. First, a first-level cache memory casts out an invalidated page table entry and an associated first page directory base address to a second-level cache memory. Then, the second-level cache memory determines if a task switch has occurred. If a task switch has not occurred, first-level cache memory sends the invalidated page table entry to a current running task directory. If a task switch has occurred, first-level cache memory loads from the second-level cache directory a collection of page table entries related to a new task to enable improved task switching without requiring access to a page table stored in main memory to retrieve the collection of page table entries.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
March 31, 2005
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Chris Dombrowski, Marcus Lathan Kornegay, Douglas Michael Pase
Abstract: A method (and structure) of linear algebra processing, including processing a matrix data of a triangular packed format matrix in at least one matrix subroutine designed to process matrix data in a full format, using a hybrid full-packed data structure that provides a rectangular data structure for the triangular packed data.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
September 29, 2003
Date of Patent:
June 10, 2008
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation
Inventors:
Fred Gehrung Gustavson, John A. Gunnels