Abstract: A method for determining a master ring for an optical communications network having nodes arranged in a plurality of interconnected ring structures. (A master ring is a ring structure which contains every node in the network exactly once, and which also respects the node ordering of every individual ring.) An efficient solution to the master ring problem is provided by advantageously limiting the enumeration process based on the consistency of the enumeration of individual rings with each other. Illustratively, an intersection graph of the network is generated; one or more of the rings is chosen and possible openings of each of these rings are enumerated; and a limited number of possible openings of one or more other (i.e., non-chosen) rings are enumerated such that the enumeration of the possible openings of the other (i.e., non-chosen) rings are consistent therewith.

Abstract: A method for determining a master ring for an optical communications network having nodes arranged in a plurality of interconnected ring structures. (A master ring is a ring structure which contains every node in the network exactly once, and which also respects the node ordering of every individual ring.) An efficient solution to the master ring problem is provided by advantageously limiting the enumeration process based on the consistency of the enumeration of individual rings with each other. Illustratively, an intersection graph of the network is generated; one or more of the rings is chosen and possible openings of each of these rings are enumerated; and a limited number of possible openings of one or more other (i.e., non-chosen) rings are enumerated such that the enumeration of the possible openings of the other (i.e., non-chosen) rings are consistent therewith.

Abstract: A platform for supporting negotiation between parties to achieve an outcome, the platform comprising: a party goal program unit for: defining respective party's goal programs in respect of said outcome, said goal program comprising a plurality of objective functions and constraints associated with respective objective functions, for associating each of said objective functions with one of a plurality of levels of importance, and for assigning to objective functions within each level a respective importance weighting, said party goal program unit comprising a party input unit for allowing a party to provide data for a respective goal program, a goal program unifier, associated with said party goal program unit for receiving goal programs of respective parties, and carrying out unification of said goal programs by considering said objective functions objectivewise and levelwise with associated constraints in the respective goal programs to determine whether two goal programs have a common field of interest from

Abstract: A video on demand computer system includes a plurality of storage media each storing a plurality of videos. The storage media are disks attached to a computer system. The computer system plays the videos on demand by reading out the videos from the disks as data steams to play selected ones of the videos for users responsive to received user performance requests. The computer system is programmed to monitor the numbers of videos being performed for each of the disks. Based on the monitoring function performed by the computer system, the computer system performs a load balancing function by transferring the performance of a video in progress from one of the disks to another disk having a copy of the video in progress. The computer system periodically performs a reassignment function to transfer videos between the disks to optimize load balancing based on the user performance requests for each of the videos.