Abstract: A system and method for executing applications written in a cooperative scheduling environment in a preemptive task scheduling environment, ensuring that the time sequence for the delivery of interrupts is not altered in the preemptive task scheduling environment, efficiently disabling all cooperative interrupts in response to a request from an application, efficiently scheduling all cooperative interrupts, and efficiently executing emulated instructions while preserving the integrity of the emulated instructions. The system and method utilize a process server to enforce the cooperative scheduling, a cooperative interrupt server and a holds queue to enforce the interrupt requirements, and special context data to ensure the compatibility of applications designed using an old instruction set architecture.

Abstract: A workflow system that automates the definition and execution of a procedure that can be carried out according to defined rules among agents. Agents may be individual users, work groups, organizations, or automatic systems. Automation is used to guarantee that all the individual activities are taken in the defined sequence, form, and time. The system separates the three basic elements necessary to perform a procedure--a co-ordination service, an organization service, and a transport service. The co-ordination service ensures proper sequence of the activities of the procedure. The organization services identifies a particular agent to perform a task within a procedure. The agent selection can be made when the procedure is defined, or it can be deferred until an instance using the procedure is performed. The transport service is used to move information between agents and an information service, which holds instance data, while processing an instance.

Abstract: A system and method for managing variable weight contexts in a multithreaded operating system. Each thread is allocated a standard thread state. In addition, each thread has an indicator of whether or not it has variable context in addition. The variable context indicator is used to access a flavor table that specifies the structure of the additional thread state information. The flavor table, in one embodiment, contains an indicator specifying whether the variable context data is to be saved and restored during a context switch. The standard thread state context is saved on a context and the variable context is saved only for those threads that use the context and only when the flavor table indicates that the variable context should be saved.