Abstract: A theme parsing system that determines the thematic context of input discourse is disclosed. Each word used in a language carries thematic information that conveys the importance of the meaning and content of the discourse. The theme parsing system discriminates words and phrases of the input discourse, identifying the type of importance or meaning, the impact on different parts of the discourse, and the overall contribution to the content of the discourse. The thematic conext of the discourse is determined in accordance with predetermined theme assessment criteria that is a function of the strategic importance of the discriminated words. The predetermined thematic assessment criteria defines which of the discriminated words are to be selected for each thematic analysis unit.

Abstract: A content processing system determines the content of input discourse. The content processing system includes a lexicon, which contains definitional characteristics for words and terms, and a knowledge catalog. The knowledge catalog provides independent and parallel static ontologies to accurately represent a broad coverage of concepts that define knowledge. The knowledge catalog also includes a dynamic level for expanding concepts in the static ontologies. A theme parsing system determines the thematic context of input discourse including identifying the topics of the discourse, generating summarized versions of the discourse, and identifying the key content of the discourse. A knowledge catalog processor processes the extracted content for use with the knowledge catalog. A theme vector processor identifies the most important themes in the input discourse, and maps these themes into the knowledge catalog.

Abstract: A computerized query optimizer for use with a database system having an ordered set of records. The optimizer employs a scanner and an evaluator. A query is composed as ranges of record values related by logical operators. The query is converted to a Boolean tree in canonical form. The tree is optimized to express the ranges as a set of disjoint semi-open ranges. The scanner reads a next record from the database. The evaluator, using the query, delivers a logical true or false condition for the record. In addition, the evaluator also delivers an interval of values having the same logical condition as the logical condition of the record. If this logical condition is false, the scanner skips over records having values of the interval, otherwise, if the logical condition is true, records having values of the interval are selected.

Abstract: A compressor receives a plurality of characters in a character string, and encodes the input character string to generate an encoded string. The encoding preserves the original binary order of the input character strings in the encoded strings. A predicted character is generated for each character based on prior character sequences in the character string. In one embodiment, a hash based predictive technique is used to generate the predicted characters. A correct order indicating token is generated for an input character if a predicted character, corresponding to the input character, is the input character. The compressor stores the order indicating token in the encoded string to represent the character. However, if an input character has a binary representation greater than a binary representation of a corresponding predicted character, then a failure greater than token and the input character are stored in the encoded string to represent the input character.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for use in a digital video delivery system is provided. A digital representation of an audio-visual work, such as an MPEG file, is parsed to produce a tag file. The tag file includes information about each of the frames in the audio-visual work. During the performance of the audio-visual work, data from the digital representation is sent from a video pump to a decoder. Seek operations are performed by causing the video pump to stop transmitting data from the current position in the digital representation, and to start transmitting data from a new position in the digital representation. The information in the tag file is inspected to determine the new position from which to start transmitting data. To ensure that the data stream transmitted by the video pump maintains compliance with the applicable video format, prefix data that includes appropriate header information is transmitted by said video pump prior to transmitting data from the new position.

Abstract: A system and method for indexing a multimedia stream to provide information regarding the content of the stream is disclosed. The present invention brings a new technology of representing, creating, and using additional information for the video stream, called video index, making possible the content-based retrieval to ease the video services. The present invention defines a portable and extensible multimedia file format for storing the media index including the video index, the media index file frame (MIFF), and provides a complete access toolkit for MIFF.

Abstract: The present invention provides the capability to use customized procedures to manipulate and control objects in graphic implementations. It provides externalizes much of the underlying object manipulation functionality. A customized procedure is executed at various "trigger" points including: the expiration of a specified period of time; the opening or closing of a window; or, when input from a mouse input device is received. There are several different types of mouse events: mouse button down; mouse move with button down; mouse move with no button down; and mouse button up. A graphic object associated with a customized procedure that is triggered by a mouse event is called a "button object." The customized procedure associated with a button object has four parameters: buttonobj, hitobj, win, and eventinfo. The buttonobj parameter refers to the graphic object having a button procedure that is currently being executed.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing transparent, real time reconstruction of corrupted data from a redundant array of storage units in a manner that imposes no performance degradation for reconstruction of such corrupted data and that does not tie up system resources. The present invention is particularly suited to applications in which data is retrieved from storage equipment in approximately equally sized parcels. Each parcel is divided into "N" blocks of data. An "N+1st" parity block for each parcel is derived based on the content of the "N" blocks of data. The "N" blocks of data and the parity block for each parcel are stored in stripes of blocks in a redundancy group consisting of "N+1" data storage units. Data is read from the storage units an entire stripe at a time. To read a stripe, a read request is concurrently sent to each storage unit in the redundancy group, requesting the block of data in that storage unit that corresponds to the stripe being read.

Abstract: The present invention is a method and apparatus for processing errors in a computer system. The present invention scans information, generates an error unit for each error detected, provides an intuitive interface for communication of errors, and facilitates correction of errors. A data processing computer system of the present invention provides a proofreading capability for addressing errors such as spelling, grammar, usage, punctuation, broken words, doubled words, and capitalization. An error unit is created for each error detected during the proofreading scan of a document. An error unit uniquely identifies each error detected. Further, an error unit retains other information about an error including the error type, location, length, and correction status. The error unit is used to create a list of errors, or Error List. The Error List provides the ability to view errors in one location, and facilitates the error correction and proofreading process. Errors can be addressed in any order.

Abstract: A Universal NLS ("UNLS") paradigm is disclosed to test the integration of localized multi-national software application programs. A user prepares a UNLS test script using a plurality of UNLS operators. The UNLS operators identify non-ASCII and multibyte characters, as well as provide other functions. The UNLS test script created by the user is provided to a UNLS translator which translates the UNLS test script into any one of a number of desired target languages for a selected target computer platform. The UNLS translator translates the UNLS script by translating ASCII character strings in accordance with the UNLS operators. Each ASCII character in an identified string is translated to a predefined "problem" character in the target language. A maximal coverage lookup table maps ASCII characters to problem characters. A "problem" character is defined as a character in the target language which has historically presented a greater likelihood of error when used by a localized computer program.

Abstract: Each node in a data processing system contains at least one undo buffer and one least one redo buffer for insuring that any changes made to a section of a non-volatile storage medium, such as a disk, can be removed, if a transaction has not been committed, or can be recreated if the transaction has not been committed. The undo buffers each correspond to a different uncommitted transaction. The redo buffer contains the changes made to a copy of the section which is maintained in the memory.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method and apparatus for processing electronic mail in parallel. The present invention provides the ability to process mail objects in an electronic mail system in parallel. A message can be assigned to a queue. One or more processes can manage a plurality of messages in the queue. Each process can identify the next entry to be processed. Entries previously processed can be marked such that subsequent access is locked out. Mail objects and process information can be stored in a relational database system that provides the ability to perform locking at the record level. A process can be configured to perform a plurality of activities in a plurality of time periods. A guardian process can initiate or terminate other processes based on process information. Further, a guardian process examines system information periodically and identifies any need to initiate, restart, or stop one or more processes.

Abstract: The present invention provides a distributed log system where the logs are distributed on a per client basis. That is, the clients are partitioned into subsets. Each subset of clients is assigned a log, and the the redo records of those clients are maintained in that log. This reduces contention bottlenecks, because the number of clients writing to any one log is limited. Also, all of a client's changes are stored in a single log. During a recovery process, the changes for a block of data may be stored in different logs. For proper recovery, the changes must be applied to the database in the order in which they were originally made. The present invention provides a system for ordering the log entries in the correct order by using a "sequence number". Each page of data in the database has an associated sequence number. When a change is made to that page, the sequence number is incremented. The new sequence number is written to the log along with the change information.

Abstract: Dynamic optimization of a database access. During execution, based on the actual number of retrieved keys, or on the actual number of fetches (I/O operations) used to retrieve keys, a decision is made between alternative paths for completing the access. The invention features deciding not to retrieve records using the keys retrieved using a particular index if that retrieval could be expected to take longer than retrieving all records. A second index scan is begun during the first index scan, and a decision between alternative paths is made based on the number of keys retrieved during the second scan, or on the number of fetches incurred in the second scan. Scanning of an index is terminated if the number of retrieved keys exceeds a threshold corresponding to the point at which record retrieval using keys is likely to be more costly than full record retrieval. If all index scans are terminated, a full, sequential retrieval of all records is done.

Abstract: A data processing system maintains logs for system and media recovery. The logs contain state identifiers each uniquely identifying the state of a corresponding section of a storage medium, such as a disk. The state identifiers are assigned after changes have been made such that they can be determined from the information in the logs. One implementation involves assigning state identifiers in a known sequence, such as in a monotonically increasing sequence of integers beginning with zero.

Abstract: A physical database designer which is embodied in computer software that generates a physical database design. The designer follows a process which includes the steps of (a) entering a logical schema representing the database to be designed; (b) entering a hierarchial definition of the workload experienced by the database, which includes, for each level of a hierarchy of operations, a separate specification of workload; and (c) applying expert rules to the logical schema and the workload definition to generate the physical database design.

Abstract: The present invention describes a method and apparatus that forces all parts of an update transaction to commit automatically using a two-phase commit. The present invention uses the two-phase commit messages to negotiate a system commit number (SCN) that is then recorded on each of the nodes as the logical point in time that the distributed transaction committed. The two-phase commit scheme of the present invention consists of a "prepare" phase and a "commit" phase. The transaction in the distributed database environment involves multiple participants (databases). In the prepare phase, one of the N database participants is selected as the "commit point." The commit point includes the log into which the information is written that states the transaction has committed. The remaining N-1 participants enter a "prepare phase." In the prepare phase, the prepare participants lock their databases and enter a state in which they are ready to roll back or commit to the transaction.

Abstract: The semantics of the outer join operator are extended to permit the application of different predicates to the join tuples and the anti-join tuples. For un-nesting of nested query blocks, the anti-join tuples, for example, are associated with a count value of zero instead of a count value of null. An inner query block is un-nested from an outer query block by converting the inner query to a first un-nested query generating a temporary relation and converting the outer query block to a second un-nested query receiving the precomputed temporary relation.

Abstract: Design of indexes in a relational database management system is based on a workload analysis of all requests in a system. Each request is assigned a value of importance, and requests are broken into expressions, contexts and columns to facilitate identification of candidate indexes. Candidate indexes are compared to existing indexes to determine whether the existing indexes can be reused or modified. Candidate indexes are classified as hashed or sorted. Based on the index design, record placement is selected to be hashed, sorted or by default. Related indexes and tables are clustered and the clusters are sized to fit file areas. Cache buffers are also defined.