PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem, wherein it is impossible for an electronic content information provider to provide commercially secure and effective method, for a configurable general-purpose electronic commercial transaction/distribution control system. SOLUTION: In this system, having at least one protected processing environment for safely controlling at least one portion of decoding of digital information, a secure content distribution method comprises a process for encapsulating digital information in one or more digital containers; a process for encrypting at least a portion of digital information; a process for associating at least partially secure control information for managing interactions with encrypted digital information and/or digital container; a process for delivering one or more digital containers to a digital information user; and a process for using a protected processing environment, for safely controlling at least a portion of the decoding of the digital information. COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a423264.pdf

Systems and Methods for Secure Transaction Management and Electronic Rights Protection

This survey characterizes an emerging research area, sometimes called coordination theory, that focuses on the interdisciplinary study of coordination. Research in this area uses and extends ideas about coordination from disciplines such as computer science, organization theory, operations research, economics, linguistics, and psychology.A key insight of the framework presented here is that coordination can be seen as the process of managing dependencies among activities. Further progress, therefore, should be possible by characterizing different kinds of dependencies and identifying the coordination processes that can be used to manage them. A variety of processes are analyzed from this perspective, and commonalities across disciplines are identified. Processes analyzed include those for managing shared resources, producer/consumer relationships, simultaneity constraints, and task/subtask dependencies.Section 3 summarizes ways of applying a coordination perspective in three different domains:(1) understanding the effects of information technology on human organizations and markets, (2) designing cooperative work tools, and (3) designing distributed and parallel computer systems. In the final section, elements of a research agenda in this new area are briefly outlined.

/pdf/the-interdisciplinary-study-of-coordination-22jsxamy1h.pdf

The interdisciplinary study of coordination

Groupware reflects a change in emphasis from using the computer to solve problems to using the computer to facilitate human interaction. This article describes categories and examples of groupware and discusses some underlying research and development issues. GROVE, a novel group editor, is explained in some detail as a salient groupware example

/pdf/groupware-some-issues-and-experiences-3o63d5bi23.pdf

Groupware: some issues and experiences

AspectJ? is a simple and practical aspect-oriented extension to Java?. With just a few new constructs, AspectJ provides support for modular implementation of a range of crosscutting concerns. In AspectJ's dynamic join point model, join points are well-defined points in the execution of the program; pointcuts are collections of join points; advice are special method-like constructs that can be attached to pointcuts; and aspects are modular units of crosscutting implementation, comprising pointcuts, advice, and ordinary Java member declarations. AspectJ code is compiled into standard Java bytecode. Simple extensions to existing Java development environments make it possible to browse the crosscutting structure of aspects in the same kind of way as one browses the inheritance structure of classes. Several examples show that AspectJ is powerful, and that programs written using it are easy to understand.

/pdf/an-overview-of-aspectj-159di7yz43.pdf

An Overview of AspectJ

Ubiquitous computing is the method of enhancing computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, but making them effectively invisible to the user. Since we started this work at Xerox PARC in 1988, a number of researchers around the world have begun to work in the ubiquitous computing framework. This paper explains what is new and different about the computer science in ubiquitous computing. It starts with a brief overview of ubiquitous computing, and then elaborates through a series of examples drawn from various subdisciplines of computer science: hardware components (e.g. chips), network protocols, interaction substrates (e.g. software for screens and pens), applications, privacy, and computational methods. Ubiquitous computing offers a framework for new and exciting research across the spectrum of computer science.

/pdf/some-computer-science-issues-in-ubiquitous-computing-59kpy3d30s.pdf

Some computer science issues in ubiquitous computing

A system and method for prospecting digital information is provided. A home evergreen index for a home subject area within a corpus of digital information is maintained and includes topic models matched to the corpus. A frontier evergreen index for a frontier subject area within the corpus topically distinct from the home subject area is identified. Quality assessments for frontier articles from the corpus identified by the topic models of the frontier evergreen index are obtained. The frontier articles with positive quality assessments are reclassified against the topic models in the home evergreen index. The frontier articles are provided in a display with home articles previously classified against the topic models in the home evergreen index.

System and method for prospecting digital information

One of the products of engineering, besides constructed artifacts, is design documentation. To understand how design participants use documentation, designers and typical documentation users were interviewed and protocols were taken of them both creating and using design documentation. The protocols were taken from realistic projects of preliminary design for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC). The studies of document creation and use revealed three important issues: (1) design participants not only look up design facts; they frequently access documents to obtain information about the rationale for design decisions; (2) the design rationale that they see often is missing from the documents; and (3) design requirements change frequently over a project life cycle so that design documents are often inconsistent and out of date. Recognizing these documentation issues in design practice, a new approach was developed in which documents are no longer static records, but rather interactive design models supporting a case. The feasibility of the approach was demonstrated by constructing a running system and testing it with designers on realistic problems. The costs and benefits of creating and using documentation of design rationale also were analyzed. In particular, the active documents approach was evaluated for a routine, preliminary design in domains where community practice is widely shared and largely standardized. The approach depends on the feasibility of creating a parametric design model for the design domain.

Improving design and documentation by using partially automated synthesis

The acquisition of expert knowledge is fundamental to t,he cre;ltion of expert syst,ems The conventional ~pp1oach to building expert syst,ems assumes that the knowlcdgc exists, and that iL is feasible to find 2x1 cxpert who has the knowledge and can articulat,e it in rollaboraLion with a knowlcdgc engineer This al title considers i.he practice of knowledge enginerling when t,hesc asslm~ptions can not bc strictly jusi,ified It tllaws on our cxpcricnccs in the design of VLSI design methods, and in the prototyping of an expert assistant fol VI31 design WC suggest. rncthods for expanding the practice of knowledge engineering when applied to fields t.hat ale fragmrnt,ed and undergoing rapid evolution We ouf,line how the expanded practice can shape and accelerate the process of knowlcdgc generation and refinement Ollr examples also clarify some of (.he una~ ticulatcd present pl ad.ice of knowledge cnginccring Thanks cspccially to Daniel Boblow for helping us to discover, refine, and al ticulate many of these ideas We are also grateful to John Se+ Brown, Douglas Lcnat, C:hrist.opher Tong, and Michael Williams for their t.horough reviews of drafts of this article Thanks also to the n~emhe~s of t,he KBVLSI project: Alan Bell, IIarry Uarrow, Daniel Hohrow, ilarold Brown, Phil Gerring, Gordon Foystel, Cordon Novak, Christopher Tong, and Narindcr Singh, who have participated in the knowlcdgc cnginccl ing and expel t systems aspec1.s of t.he I.“oject The synergist.ic cornhinxf,ion of their contributions to the project, merging idcns from a wide variety of viewpoints, has given us all a sense of excitcmcnt and common pul pose Thanks to the Xerox CTorporation for providing the intellectual and computat.ional environment, in which this work could Ix done This research is hcing rondllcted as pal t of the KBVLSI project, in collaboraCon with the Hcuristir Programming Project at Stanfold University The Stanfold component of the research is funded by the Defense Adva uced Research PI oje(%s Agency A STRONG MOTIVATION

/pdf/towards-the-principled-engineering-of-knowledge-2imcief8ik.pdf

Towards the principled engineering of knowledge

A computer-implemented method for providing multi-core and multi-level topical organization in social indexes is provided. A corpus of articles is accessed. Each article includes online textual materials. A finite state pattern is provided for a topic that filters the articles as candidate articles, which are potentially on-topic. Similarity-based representations for on-topic and off-topic core meanings of the topic are provided. An aggregate score for each of the candidate articles is determined using the similarity-based representations to indicate whether the candidate article is sufficiently on-topic. The candidate articles are presented ordered by their aggregate scores. In a further embodiment, a hierarchy of topics is provided and used to guide the presentation of articles from subtopics, with considerations of fairness of subtopic coverage, elimination of similarity-duplicates in articles, and article freshness.

System And Method For Providing Multi-Core And Multi-Level Topical Organization In Social Indexes

A method, system and software for permitting use of digital works having rights associated therewith in a system having repositories configured to enable use of the digital work in accordance with the rights, including associating a transfer right with a digital work, the transfer right specifying that the digital work is transferred from a first repository to a second repository; transferring the digital work from the first repository to the second repository in accordance with the transfer right; and in response to the transferring, step updating transfer right information in respect of the digital work.

Mark J. Stefik

Papers

System and method for prospecting digital information

Improving design and documentation by using partially automated synthesis

Towards the principled engineering of knowledge

System And Method For Providing Multi-Core And Multi-Level Topical Organization In Social Indexes

System and method for enforcing usage rights associated with digital content