Abstract: A method for providing optimal performance in an electronic device comprises at least one resource characterization that includes resource requirements for executing a requested process. An allocation manager may then compare the resource requirements for the requested process to the currently-available device resources. The allocation manager may then authorize or deny the requested process depending upon whether the currently-available resources are sufficient to adequately service the resource requirements of the requested process.

Abstract: A fault tolerant software environment, in which various program components (e.g., portions of computer programs, applications, etc) are objectized into entities represented by “codons.” This allows for improper syntax to occur, enabling, for example, combinatorial operations such as genetic programming. The present invention also contemplates such features as the ability to probabilistically execute individual codons, to switch between treating information as executable code or as data (or passing over it), provides that the individual codons can be tagged so that additional information can be associated with them, and provides for tagging of the stack.

Abstract: A portable thread environment comprising: an application programming interface configured to support multiple application program tasks with each task comprised of one or more threads; host adaptation logic for communicatively interfacing the tasks and threads with a host processing environment; and a scheduler configured to determine an execution order of the one or more threads based on one or more execution variables.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for controlling stored jobs, in a system of networked MFPs, includes an MFP with a printer for printing stored jobs. A storage device is connected to the printer for storing jobs. A user interface device is connected to the MFP with a printer for selecting job storage options wherein one of the options includes a job retention expiration date. Job retention expiration dates are individualized or selected from a default expiration selection group including 30, 60, 90, 180 days and never. Additionally, the user interface device further includes a date tracker connected to the network for keeping track of the current date. In a further aspect of the invention, the user interface device includes notices to the user of job retention expiration dates as occurring and automatic deletion of retained jobs on the selected expiration date.

Abstract: Backup logical port service is provided by associating permanent virtual circuit (PVC) descriptions of a primary management information base (MIB) for a primary physical circuit with a service name that is also associated with a backup management information base and corresponding backup physical circuit. Switching from primary to backup service results in the PVC builds in the MIB for the primary circuit being established in the MIB for the backup circuit through association with the service name, rather than having an independently built set of PVCs in the backup MIB that may be error prone. Additionally, the backup service may be a full backup of all PVCs built to the primary service or a partial backup. Backup service may be configured and triggered by a terminal in communication with the management server, including client devices of customers accessing the management server through the Internet.

Abstract: A distributed computing system having a plurality of computers different from each other in performance, load, and type, uniformly manages local priority schemes adapted in the respective computers by utilizing the concept of “urgency” or “time limit”. Each of the computers includes a priority level conversion procedure for performing a conversion between an urgency level and a priority level of processing in accordance with the performance and the load of the computer, and a priority level changing procedure for changing a priority level of a program, which executes the processing, in accordance with a priority level indicated by the priority level conversion procedure.

Abstract: A method for controlling a table containing a list of active objects. The table is accessed by one or more threads in a multi-threaded computing environment. The method comprising the steps of mutex locking the table with a first thread when activating an object provided that the table is not locked by a second thread, and creating an entry for the object in the table when the entry does not exist in the table, wherein the entry includes a reference count. The method further comprises the steps of incrementing the reference count of the object if the table is locked by the second thread, and unlocking the table from the mutex lock after incrementing the reference count whether or not the object is completely activated. A system configured to perform steps similar to the above described steps is also provided.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a system and method for allocating and forecasting computational effort from a plurality of service components among a plurality of workloads. Preferably, processing power or other computational service is allocated among the workloads or tasks so as to optimize overall system efficiency and avoid processing bottlenecks. The inventive mechanism may be advantageously applied to the migration or movement of data between different levels of a hierarchical RAID storage system, between various storage systems, and/or between a storage system and a host device of a data processing system.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for managing signal-processing resources of a multimedia platform that is designed for applying signal-processing operations to multimedia signals defines multimedia functions each capable of monitoring the operation of a set of multimedia platform signal-processing resources, puts them in contact, adapts the contents of the signal-processing resource set depending on the multimedia signal to be processed, and uses the multimedia functions to apply the signal-processing operations to the multimedia signals.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for increasing the degree of parallelism without incurring overhead costs associated with inter-nodal communication for performing parallel operations. One aspect of the invention is to distribute-phase partition-pairs of a parallel partition-wise operation on a pair of objects among the nodes of a database system. The -phase partition-pairs that are distributed to each node are further partitioned to form a new set of-phase partition-pairs. One -phase partition-pair from the set of new-phase partition-pairs is assigned to each slave process that is on a given node. In addition, a target object may be partitioned by applying an appropriate hash function to the tuples of the target object. The parallel operation is performed by broadcasting each tuple from a source table only to the group of slave processes that is working on the static partition to which the tuple is mapped.

Abstract: A method and system that prepares a task for being swapped out from processor utilization that is executing on a computer with multiple processors that each support multiple streams. The task has one or more teams of threads, where each team represents threads executing on a single processor. The task designates, for each stream, one stream that is executing a thread as a team master stream. The task designates one stream that is executing a thread as a task master stream. For each team master stream, the task notifies the operating system that the team is ready to be swapped out when each other thread of the team has saved its state and has quit its stream. Finally, for the task master stream, the task notifies the operating system that the task is ready to be swapped when it has saved its state and each of the other teams have notified the operating system that that team is ready to be swapped out.

Abstract: In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a computer incorporating a multitasking operating system such as a UNIX-based OS, wherein recursively invokable function calling statements and flow control statements in a procedure-oriented high-level programming language are incorporated as shell external commands stored in a directory of a file system with an active path. With this arrangement, programming can be achieved simply by combining some of the external commands, so that highly sophisticated programming comparable to C programming can be achieved without the use of flow control statements incorporated in a shell. Since the flow control statements and the function calling statements are incorporated as the shell external commands, a loop and a conditional branch are executed by daughter processes individually generated.

Abstract: An apparatus, system and method for active scheduling of event-driven long running processes are provided. The apparatus, system and method receive update information indicating a change in status of a subject of the active scheduling. Based on this changed status and stored scheduling rules, an adapted schedule is generated to accommodate the change in status. The adapted schedule is further modified based on historical information to compensate for historically predicted events that may conflict with events in the adapted schedule.

Abstract: The present invention provides a representation and encapsulation of active computing environments. In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention a “compute capsule” is implemented. Each compute capsule serves to represent and encapsulate an active computing environment. An active computing environment comprises one or more active processes and their associated state information. The associated state information is information in a form that can be understood by any computer and tells the computer exactly what the processes in the capsule are doing at any given time. In this way, the compute capsule is a host-independent encapsulation that can be suspended on one computer, moved to a new computer, and re-started on the new computer where the new computer is binary compatible.

Abstract: A method and system for profiling network flows at a measurement point within a computer network is provided. The method includes measuring network flows having invariant features at a measurement point located within routing infrastructure of the computer network to obtain flow statistics. The method also includes aggregating the flow statistics to obtain a traffic profile of the network flows at the measurement point. The method and system utilize the natural hierarchy in the Internet addressing scheme to provide a means for making tractable measurements of network traffic in high-speed networks. Moreover, the method and system adapt dynamically to the changing underlying traffic characteristics to maintain a maximum memory footprint for the profiles. The method and system adapt by adjusting the level of aggregation of the traffic endpoints along a scale from Interface to fully specified network address.

Abstract: To facilitate inter-processor communication between multiple processors in a computer system and to enable the accessing of a dual port memory, or other system resources, without requiring the memory or the data/address bus to be locked, the present invention provides a semaphore unit that preferably incorporates a shared mailbox architecture that, in combination with a set of hardware semaphore registers, enables inter-process communication among the multi-processors. Cooperative multitasking may be accomplished through the use of shared mailbox communication protocols while a preemptive multitasking may be accomplished through the use of hardware semaphore registers.

Abstract: Method, computer program product, and apparatus for efficiently dispatching threads in a multi-threaded communication library which become runnable by completion of an event. Each thread has a thread-specific structure containing a “ready flag” and a POSIX thread condition variable unique to that thread. Each message is assigned a “handle”. When a thread waits for a message, thread-specific structure is attached to the message handle being waited on, and the thread is enqueued, waiting for its condition variable to be signaled. When a message completes, the message matching logic sets the ready flag to READY, and causes the queue to be examined. The queue manager scans the queue of waiting threads, and sends a thread awakening condition signal to one of the threads with its ready flag set to READY. The queue manager can implement any desired policy, including First-In-First-Out (FIFO), Last-In-First-Out (LIFO), or some other thread priority scheduling policy.

Abstract: An object code expansion profiler equips a program for execution profiling by preprocessing the object code files of the program so as to add profiling monitoring code to the beginning of all or substantially all functions. The preprocessing includes, for each function, the steps of grouping the function's instructions into basic blocks, counting the number of cycles required to execute the instructions of the basic block, and inserting special monitoring code with the basic block. The special monitoring code is executed each time the basic block is executed, and updates the profiling information to reflect the number of cycles required to execute the basic block. Special handling is provided for profiling calls to the Operating System (OS). The resultant profiling information is converted into a call graph image most useful for human users.

Abstract: In a cluster system including a plurality of operating systems operating on one computer, computer resources can be updated for and reallocated to each operating system. When the operating systems are used as active or standby operating systems, a multiple operating system management controller monitors the state of each operating system. At a failure of an active operating system, the controller allocates a larger part of computer resources to another operating system in a normal state and assigns the operating system as a new active operating system. Regardless of the failure, the computer system can be operated without changing processing capability thereof. The controller can monitor load of each operating system to allocate computer resources to the operating system according to the load.

Abstract: A method is provided that enables native code, dynamically compiled from platform-independent code by one task of a multitasking virtual machine, to be used by other tasks. The system interprets the platform-independent code of a method for a threshold number of interpretations, and then produces class initialization dependent (CID) native code. The runtime of the system guarantees that a task uses CID code of a method only when all of the classes of an initialized set associated with the CID code have been initialized by the task, and otherwise, interprets the platform-independent code of the method. This allows the compiler to avoid generating class initialization barriers for classes from the initialized set. After a threshold number of failures to execute the CID code of a method, task re-entrant code is generated to replace the interpretation of its platform-independent code.