Abstract: The invention relates to a method of automatically modelling a relationship between a configurable product and a plurality of components of the configurable product as a bill of materials, wherein the configurable product and the plurality of components are related to one another by a plurality of selection conditions. The method comprising: providing a processor device; generating in demand planning a plurality of characteristic value combinations representing the plurality of selection conditions, modelling the bill of materials using the characteristic value combinations, and using the bill of material to control the supply of the product.

Abstract: A device, such as a personal digital assistant, Internet enabled phone, handheld computer, laptop computer or desktop computer, being capable of running business applications online or offline and of synchronizing data related to such applications with a central computer system. The device also being able to receive deployed software and install it and to deinstall unwanted software automatically.

Abstract: A security system for providing monitoring of objects and persons is described. Person identifiers are assigned to, and generally carried by, the persons, where each person identifier is associated with at least one user role. Similarly, object identifiers are assigned to the objects, where each object identifier is assigned to at least one object class. An identification interrogator identifies the object and person identifiers within an area, and a rule generator determines rules defining which persons of which user roles, together with which objects of which object classes are, allowed and/or required within the area.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for processing a user interaction with an application, such as a browser-based application. A user interaction with the browser-based application is detected at a software framework. The browser-based application is executing in a browser at a local computer system. The user interaction is processed at the software framework, where processing includes determining whether the user interaction can be handled locally or requires access to a resource at a remote computer system. The user interaction is processed based on a result of the determination. A data item representative of the user interaction can be created at the software framework and stored at a data store. The data item can later be retrieved and the user interaction represented by the data item reprocessed at the software framework to replay the user interaction.

Abstract: An XML client abstraction layer for providing an XML page description as an abstraction of an HTML page at design time. A style sheet XSLT translator is used to derive the run time code from the XML page. Additional features or improvements may be added through an XML parser.

Abstract: A method that includes, in a network, in each of a plurality of compute nodes, maintaining a local store of services, the local store of services including at least a service name, a service functionality and statistics defining a historical performance of the service on each compute node, receiving a request for a service from a client syste, and compiling a list of compute nodes matching the service request, the list having service names ranked according to the service functionality and the statistics for each compute node.

Abstract: An information kiosk including a display, such as, for example, a touch screen, and having access to situational information is integrated with a radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor. The RFID sensor reads the RFID tag of a user, accesses user information corresponding to the RFID tag, and customizes an interface to the user based on the user information and the situational information. The interface is then output to the user using the display of the information kiosk. The information kiosk may communicate with a private branch exchange (PBX) switch to permit use of a contact information center (CIC) or a voice portal. The user information may be stored as a user profile in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, accessed by the information kiosk. By combining the user information with event or location information stored in the information kiosk, the information kiosk presents customized information to each user, including maps, directions, and recommended sites or events.

Abstract: Computer-assisted procedure (501/502) to communicate data in a transportation system (90) that physically transports objects (800) from first to second locations (10, 20). The objects (800) have write/read memory tags (300). Prior to communicating data is separated into meta-data M and content-data C. Communicated are: C on the tags (300), M through a computer network, and type-data T (representing M) on the tags. System computers (901, 902, 900) perform complementary methods for forwarding (501) and retrieving (502). To forward (501) data from the first location (10), a first computer (901) queries (510) an exchange computer (901) with M for T according to a predefined T-to-M table, writes T to the tags (300), and writes C to the tags (300). To retrieve (502) data at the second location (20) where the objects arrive, a second computer (902) reads T from the (300), queries (550) the exchange computer (900) with T for M according to the same table, and reads (560) C from the tags (300).

Abstract: In a process of developing software applications from software components, the validity of component interactions is automatically validated by a program that determines a permission statement for any given utilization of a server component (305) by a client component (307). In a predefined structure (211–272), descriptors (211–219) are assigned (231–239) to components (301–309), descriptors (220–225) are assigned (241–255) to descriptors (211–224), some descriptors (223) have declarations to components (305), and some descriptors (217) have declarations to descriptors (223). The permission statement is true when 4 predefined conditions are all in compliance. The conditions are defined in relation to a common descriptor (225), to client (217) and server (223) intermediate descriptors, and to first (261) and second (262) declarations.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for managing a maintenance plan of a machine. The method may include analyzing data, retrieved from a plurality of sources, that makes up a maintenance plan for the machine or any of its components. The method may also include displaying the analysis in a consolidated view to a user. The embodiments may be implemented using a workbench, which is an analytical tool, implementable by processor software, hardware, or a combination thereof. Exemplary applications include aircraft maintenance.

Abstract: A computer-aided database system having an application layer in which, independently of one another, applications for registering data objects of various data object types into a database associated with a respective application can be executed, wherein there are a record layer which is encapsulated with respect to the application layer and in which a number of record writers each having a dynamic interface is implemented; by a table in which a data object type has a respective associated record writer, with the respective addressed application in the application layer, in response to a registration operation, producing information about the data object which is to be registered and about the registration in the form of a reference of prescribed structure, and with the record writer associated by means of the table being designed to access the reference and hence the information via the interface; and by a record registrar for permanently storing record object data, transferred by a record writer and comprisi

Abstract: A system being monitored generates alerts directed at participants as events to be resolved occur. As a participant resolves an alerted event, the system logs the steps taken by the participant to resolve the event and stores the event resolution log associated with the event. From that event resolution log, a template for a workflow process can be automatically generated. When similar events occur again, the participant for those future events can be provided with the prior stored event resolution log and/or automatically generated templates for a workflow processes corresponding to the stored event resolution log. Iterative generation and editing of templates can be provided for, wherein subsequent event resolutions for similar events are used to modify the workflow process templates developed from previous event resolutions. Events can include conditions being met in data stored by the system or events representing the lack of occurrence of expected events.

Abstract: A compression and decompression method and apparatus comprising at least one data source providing a stream of data to at least one data destination, employing at least one pattern classifier processing the stream of data of the at least one data source into a single stream of messages and generating at least one pattern event, a message encoder and a message decoder changing an internal state in response to the at least one pattern event.

Abstract: A method based on an integrative relaxation principle is proposed for plant occupancy planning in the process industry, for which a relaxation that simplifies the resource problem is formed and the relaxed problem is solved, and conflicts contained in the solution of the relaxation problem are solved by precedence relationships between operations and the selection of resources.

Abstract: In an HTTP client-server system, an HTTP client requests an HTML document containing a persistent display element and using components available to the HTTP client for processing HTML documents, processes the requested HTML document including instantiating an instance of the persistent display element, whereby the persistent display element instance maintains a connection to an event source. When an event is received from the event source over the connection to the persistent display element instance, the received event is processed to form a change of at least a portion of a display of the HTTP client, which is displayed on the display of the HTTP client.

Abstract: Methods and data processing apparatus, including computer program products, providing and implementing an integration framework for service providers, where a persistent object identifier object is used to provide a general reference to a persistent object of a service provider. A service provider has a service provider client, a service provider backend, and a service provider repository for storing service provider persistent objects. The service provider provides to its objects the services of storage of persistent objects in the service provider repository; visualization of objects in the service provider client, and access to objects in the service provider backend. The framework has a client framework and a backend framework. The client framework communicates directly with the backend framework, and the backend framework performs non-visual operations on the service provider backend.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method of modelling a bill of materials for a configurable product in a managed supply chain and a modeller apparatus for modelling a bill of materials for a configurable product in a managed supply chain. The method comprises: storing data relating to the product, wherein the data includes at least one product characteristic specifying a plurality of component products of the product and an additional characteristic specifying a selection condition relating to the at least one product characteristic, combining the at least one product characteristic and the additional characteristic to generate a characteristic value combination, using the characteristic value combination to model the bill of materials, and using the bill of materials to control the supply of the product. The invention further relates to a computer system, a user terminal and a program storage device readable by a processing apparatus.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention include architectures and methods for automated management of invoices. Embodiments of the present invention may include techniques for receiving and unifying invoice data, retrieving information about each invoice, verifying each invoice and resolving invoice exceptions. The present invention includes software components for efficiently processing invoices. In other embodiments, the present invention includes methods of processing an invoice.

Abstract: A multi-modal method for application swapping. An embodiment of a method includes, in response to a first key stroke, displaying a plurality of graphical icons corresponding to running applications, in response to a mouse input, selecting one of the graphical icons, and displaying the running application corresponding to the selected icon. The method enables a user to quickly and easily swap between currently running applications using a keyboard and a mouse.

Abstract: A method and system for identifying multiple questionnaire pages. An embodiment of a method includes receiving a set of coordinates from a capture device, the set of coordinates indicating shapes made on multiple pages of a questionnaire without the use of a graphical user interface, and mapping each shape to a questionnaire answer on a different page. The method enables a processor to accurately and quickly determine which answers were entered on each questionnaire page attached to the capture device, without relying on the user to do so. Exemplary applications include a field survey and inventory.