Abstract: By providing an apparatus unit replacement assisting method, in which, upon receipt of a request from a first user to replace a first unit comprising part of an apparatus with a second unit, the second unit is offered to the first user at a price after the deduction of the trade-in price of the first unit, and maintenance is performed on the first unit taken from the first user for trade-in, so that the first unit in maintenance status is offered to a second user who wishes replacement with the first unit at a price lower than the price of the first unit when newly purchased, it is possible to reduce the cost incurred when replacing a unit in a CT apparatus or the like on the part of the user, such as a hospital, and facilitate the management of the production line of the apparatus and the dispatch of service persons on the part of the manufacturer while making a contribution to environmental improvement.

Abstract: A novel order processing in a shop side computer that carries out online sales of goods and the like is realized by this invention. In the shop side computer, upon receiving an order request from a customer terminal, content information of the customer order is registered, and an identification number of the customer order and a shop code are transmitted to a settlement system. Next, upon receiving the identification number of the customer order and an operation key from the settlement system, the content information of the customer order is read out according to the identification number of the customer order, and the content information of the customer order, the operation key, and the shop authentication information are transmitted to the settlement system. After that, upon receiving information indicating that the acceptance of the customer order is possible from the settlement system, information indicating the acceptance of the order is stored for the customer order.

Abstract: An internet advertising system and method that enables a third party professional to manage the creation, publication, and display of advertisements on internet media venues owned or controlled by entities other than the seller and other than the third party professional in a form automatically modified to comply with the media venues' presentation rules, which may include design or style standards for “look and feel,” editorial standards, and distribution factors. Self-serve, menu driven interfaces are provided for third party professionals to target internet media venues, and for internet media venues to enter their presentation rules. An ad modification engine processes or customizes the advertisement for publication and display on each internet media venue in compliance with the media venue's presentation rules.

Abstract: A method, software and apparatus are provided which enable promotion of products and services in a deterministic manner free of conflicting actions modifying raw ranking data based on merchants interests. For this purpose, an information consolidator is provided to obtain search results for a plurality of sources including directly from merchants. When a shopper enters a set of key words in an entry field in an on-screen form for a web server to obtain a list of items (products and/or services) of interest to the shopper, the documents describing the items can be prioritized by the information provided by the information source based on the web sites owner's priorities. The information consolidator receives ranking information taking the highest ranked products and obtains the product information for the most highly ranked products. The information consolidator then reranks the products using a preferred ranking algorithm to remove information sources biases in this ranking of the products.