Abstract: This invention introduces a new concept called virtual construct intervals (VCI), where each predicate interval is decomposed into one or more of these construct intervals. These VCIs strictly cover the predicate interval. Namely, every attribute value covered by the predicate interval is also covered by at least one of the decomposed VCIs, and vice versa. Each construct interval has a unique ID or interval coordinate and a set of endpoints. A construct interval is considered activated when a predicate interval using it in its decomposition is added to the system. The predicate ID is then inserted into the ID lists associated with the decomposed VCIs. To facilitate fast search, a bitmap vector is used to indicate the activation of VCIs that cover an event value. The challenge is to find an appropriate set of construct intervals to make predicate decomposition simple and, more importantly, to build efficient bitmap indexes.

Abstract: An arrangement for providing gracefully degraded services on the Internet under overloaded conditions, involving tagging user request to indicate the status of said request and providing appropriate level of degraded services gracefully responsive to said tagging information.

Abstract: An arrangement for providing gracefully degraded services on the Internet under overloaded conditions, involving tagging user request to indicate the status of said request and providing appropriate level of degraded services gracefully responsive to said tagging information.

Abstract: A system and method for billing one or more participating parties for client access to the internet is disclosed including the steps of identifying at least one of the one or more participating parties as being responsible for the billing, allocating a share of the billing to each responsible participating party based on a predetermined function and computing a billing amount for each of the responsible participating parties based on a function of the share and a client bandwidth usage.