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Showing papers on "Proxy (statistics) published in 2000"


Patent
21 Mar 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, a system and method for networked exchange is described, which consists of an internal proxy, an exchange processor, a database in communication with the internal proxy; an external proxy in communicating with the external proxy; and, a communications network connected to the external proxies.
Abstract: A system and method for networked exchange are disclosed. A system for networked exchange comprises an internal proxy; an exchange processor in communication with the internal proxy; a database in communication with the internal proxy; an external proxy in communication with the internal proxy; and, a communications network connected to the external proxy. A method for networked exchange comprises 8 steps. Those steps are (1) specifying a mode of operations for an exchange; (2) identifying a financial instrument for the exchange; (3) listing information about the financial instrument; (4) accessing of the listing by a potential purchaser; (5) accessing the network-based exchange by the potential purchaser; (6) processing information generated by the potential purchaser, the information comprising a negotiation; (7) concluding the negotiation; and, (8) clearing the concluded negotiation.

622 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is feasible to approximate both household wealth and expenditures in rural African settings without dramatically lengthening questionnaires that have a primary focus on health outcomes.
Abstract: STUDY OBJECTIVE To test the validity of proxy measures of household wealth and income that can be readily implemented in health surveys in rural Africa. DESIGN Data are drawn from four different integrated household surveys. The assumptions underlying the choice of wealth proxy are described, and correlations with the true value are assessed in two different settings. The expenditure proxy is developed and then tested for replicability in two independent datasets representing the same population. SETTING Rural areas of Mali, Malawi, and Cote d9Ivoire (two national surveys). PARTICIPANTS Random sample of rural households in each setting (n=275, 707, 910, and 856, respectively). MAIN RESULTS In both Mali and Malawi, the wealth proxy correlated highly ( r ⩾0.74) with the more complex monetary value method. For rural areas of Cote d9Ivoire, it was possible to generate a list of just 10 expenditure items, the values of which when summed correlated highly with expenditures on all items combined ( r =0.74, development dataset, r =0.72, validation dataset). Total household expenditure is an accepted alternative to household income in developing country settings. CONCLUSIONS It is feasible to approximate both household wealth and expenditures in rural African settings without dramatically lengthening questionnaires that have a primary focus on health outcomes.

444 citations


01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: This paper used a real options approach to evaluate the performance of proxy variables for a firm's investment opportunity set and found that the market-to-book assets ratio is the best variable to proxy for investment opportunities.
Abstract: We use a real options approach to evaluate the performance of proxy variables for a firm’s investment opportunity set. The results show that the market-to-book assets ratio is the best variable to proxy for investment opportunities. It has the highest information content with respect to investment opportunities and it is least affected by other factors. Although both the market-to-book equity and the earnings-price ratios are related to investment opportunities, they do not contain information that is not already contained in the market-to-book assets ratio. Consistent with this finding, a common factor constructed from several proxy variables does not improve the performance of the market-to-book assets ratio. Firm’s capital expenditures appear to be a poor proxy for the investment opportunity set. JEL Classification: G31, D92, L72, C52

317 citations


01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: This paper constructs a simple and efficient strong non-designated proxy signature scheme and applies it to multi-proxy signature when plural delegations of multiple original signers exist, and shows that self- proxy signature can be applied to partially blind signatures.
Abstract: Proxy signature is a signature scheme that an original signer delegates his/her signing capability to a proxy signer, and then the proxy signer creates a signature on behalf of the original signer. In this paper we show various attack scenarios against previous proxy signature schemes, which shows that proxy signature schemes should be designed very carefully. Based on these weaknesses, we provide new classifications of proxy signatures; strong vs. weak proxy signatures, designated vs. non-designated proxy signatures, and self-proxy signatures. We construct a simple and efficient strong non-designated proxy signature scheme and apply it to multi-proxy signature when plural delegations of multiple original signers exist. We also show that self-proxy signature can be applied to partially blind signatures.

316 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A new type of proxy signature scheme is presented called the proxy multi-signature scheme in which a proxy signer can generate a proxy signature on behalf of two or more original signers.
Abstract: Proxy signature schemes allow a proxy signer to generate a proxy signature on behalf of an original signer. However, since in previous proxy signature schemes a proxy signature is created on behalf of only one original signer, these schemes are referred to as proxy mono-signature schemes. A new type of proxy signature scheme is presented called the proxy multi-signature scheme in which a proxy signer can generate a proxy signature on behalf of two or more original signers.

191 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
10 Apr 2000
TL;DR: This work presents an on-line algorithm that effectively captures and maintains an accurate popularity profile of Web objects requested through a caching proxy that is superior to a host of recently-proposed and widely-used algorithms using extensive trace-driven simulations and a variety of performance metrics.
Abstract: Web caching aims at reducing network traffic, server load and user-perceived retrieval delays by replicating popular content on proxy caches that are strategically placed within the network. While key to effective cache utilization, popularity information (e.g. relative access frequencies of objects requested through a proxy) is seldom incorporated directly in cache replacement algorithms. Rather other properties of the request stream (e.g. temporal locality and content size), which are easier to capture in an online fashion, are used to indirectly infer popularity information, and hence drive cache replacement policies. Recent studies suggest that the correlation between these secondary properties and popularity is weakening due in part to the prevalence of efficient client and proxy caches. This trend points to the need for proxy cache replacement algorithms that directly capture popularity information. We present an on-line algorithm that effectively captures and maintains an accurate popularity profile of Web objects requested through a caching proxy. We propose a novel cache replacement policy that uses such information to generalize the well-known greedy dual-size algorithm, and show the superiority of our proposed algorithm by comparing it to a host of recently-proposed and widely-used algorithms using extensive trace-driven simulations and a variety of performance metrics.

184 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Use of proxies in representative surveys on disability introduces systematic biases, affecting national disability estimates.
Abstract: OBJECTIVES: These studies examined whether differences between self-reports and proxy reports of disabilities reflect proxy response biases or only respondent selection factors. METHODS: The data were from the National Health Interview Survey on Disability (1994-1995, phases 1 and 2). In study 1, reports of disabilities were regressed on respondent status, self vs proxy, and demographic factors. In study 2, the ratios of the proportions of self-reports and proxy reports of disabilities were regressed on independent lay ratings of observability of these disabilities and their "interactional" nature. In study 3, the disability reports for people who differed in respondent status in one phase but self-reported the same disability in the other phase were compared. RESULTS: In study 1, proxies under-reported disabilities for people aged 18 to 64 years but overreported for people 65 years or older. In study 2, the observability and interactional scores accounted for more than 60% of the variance of self and proxy differences in an inverse relationship, study 3 confirmed the basic findings of study 1. CONCLUSIONS: Use of proxies in representative surveys on disability introduces systematic biases, affecting national disability estimates.

163 citations


Patent
28 Jun 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a method of enabling a proxy to participate in a secure communication between a client and a set of servers, without the first server's knowledge or participation.
Abstract: A method of enabling a proxy to participate in a secure communication between a client and a set of servers. The method begins by establishing a first secure session between the client and the proxy. Upon verifying the first secure session, the method continues by establishing a second secure session between the client and the proxy. In the second secure session, the client requests the proxy to act as a conduit to a first server. Thereafter, the client and the first server negotiate a first session master secret. Using the first secure session, this first session master secret is then provided by the client to the proxy to enable the proxy to participate in secure communications between the client and the first server. After receiving the first session master secret, the proxy generates cryptographic information that enables it to provide a given service (e.g., transcoding) on the client's behalf and without the first server's knowledge or participation. If data from a second server is required during the processing of a given client request to the first server, the proxy issues a request to the client to tunnel back through the proxy to the second server using the same protocol.

146 citations


Patent
15 Nov 2000
TL;DR: In this article, a method for securely processing recurrent consumer transactions is presented, in which a request for transaction approval is received from a merchant, the request including a merchant identifier and a user's proxy financial account information.
Abstract: In a communications network-based system, a method for securely processing recurrent consumer transactions. Merchant-specific proxy financial account information is provided to a user and maintained in a database, the proxy financial account information valid for transactions at a single merchant only. A request for transaction approval is received from a merchant, the request including a merchant identifier and a user's proxy financial account information. The database is queried to determine if the proxy financial account is valid for the merchant seeking transaction approval. The proxy financial account information may include a credit card account number and/or a proxy billing address linked to a financial account. A merchant identifier string, identifying the authorized merchant, may be encoded in the credit card number and/or proxy billing address. A communications network-based system and software program for implementing the present invention are also disclosed.

136 citations


Patent
31 Mar 2000
TL;DR: In this article, policy rules are disseminated on a network and are received by one or more devices on the network, each device is configured with a proxy agent that translates the policy data into a format that is meaningful to the device.
Abstract: Policy rules are disseminated on a network and are received by one or more devices on the network. Each device is configured with a proxy agent that translates the policy data into a format that is meaningful to the device. The agent translates the policy rules into an access list that generates permit and deny filters that determine the access that the device is allowed on the network.

133 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A secure, nonrepudiable and known signers threshold proxy signature scheme which remedies the weakness of the Sun's scheme is proposed.
Abstract: In the (t;n) proxy signature scheme, the signature, originally signed by a signer, can be signed by t or more proxy signers out of a proxy group of n members. Recently, an efficient nonrepudiable threshold proxy signature scheme with known signers was proposed by H.-M. Sun. Sun's scheme has two advantages. One is nonrepudiation. The proxy group cannot deny that having signed the proxy signature. Any verifier can identify the proxy group as a real signer. The other is identifiable signers. The verifier is able to identify the actual signers in the proxy group. Also, the signers cannot deny that having generated the proxy signature. In this article, we present a cryptanalysis of the Sun's scheme. Further, we propose a secure, nonrepudiable and known signers threshold proxy signature scheme which remedies the weakness of the Sun's scheme.

Patent
17 Apr 2000
TL;DR: In this article, a method and system for representing and implementing a concept between two functional domains (e.g., programming languages) by using a proxy component in a first domain to wrap a component of a second domain, where the proxy component has a semantic usability in the first domain closely corresponding to the semantic usability of the underlying component from the second domain is presented.
Abstract: A method and system for representing and implementing a concept between two functional domains (e.g., programming languages) by using a proxy component in a first domain to wrap a component of a second domain, where the proxy component has a semantic usability in the first domain closely corresponding to the semantic usability of the underlying component from the second domain. Further, provided is a method and system for automatically generating such a proxy component. Such proxy components may be used to gradually transform a digital entity (e.g., a software application) from a first digital domain to a second digital domain. Further, such proxy components may be generated using models that transform a component of a first domain to a component (e.g., a proxy component) of a second domain.

Patent
07 Aug 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, a distributed network communication system implements a series of token exchange transactions similar to those used when passing browser cookies between an Internet server and a browser client, but instead of instigating a cookie exchange transaction from the Internet server to store information relevant to the server, according to this aspect of the present invention the proxy cookie is stored on the client side at the behest of the web proxy.
Abstract: A distributed network communication system implements a series of token exchange transactions similar to those used when passing browser cookies between an Internet server and a browser client. Rather than instigating a cookie exchange transaction from the Internet server to store information relevant to the server, according to this aspect of the present invention the proxy cookie is stored on the client side at the behest of the web proxy (20). To the browser client (10), the proxy cookie appears to be identical to any regular browser cookie; however, whenever the browser client (10) presents a request for information to the proxy (20) which is to be passed on to the Internet server (30), the proxy (20) strips the proxy cookie from the request and uses it to identify the originator of the request. Based on this, the proxy (20) can customize and personalize the client's information request as appropriate and pass it on to the Internet server (30).

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The appropriateness of using self-reports or proxy responses in their analysis of quality of life and broader issues concerning the use of proxies and consumer:proxy agreement are examined.

Patent
18 Jan 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe a transparent proxy that uses a combination of standard-format HTTP commands, embedding auxiliary information in URLs and other techniques to redirect an initial client request to one or more policy modules, such as a login server or an identity broker or an access control server.
Abstract: Methods, signals, devices, and systems are provided for using proxy servers to transparently forward messages between clients and origin servers if, and only if, doing so does not violate network policies. In some systems, a transparent proxy uses a combination of standard-format HTTP commands, embedding auxiliary information in URLs and other tools and techniques to redirect an initial client request to one or more policy modules, such as a login server or an identity broker or an access control server. The policy module authenticates the request, and uses HTTP redirection to have the client transmit authorization data to the proxy. The proxy extracts the authorization data, directs the client to use a corresponding cookie, and subsequently provides the implicitly requested proxy services to the client in response to the client's subsequently providing the authorization data in a cookie. This is accomplished without requiring installation of any invention-specific software or hardware on either the client or the origin server, and also works with proxy servers that are known to the client. Unless the client request violates network policy, a person using the client will generally perceive no reduction of services, and will instead benefit from the proxy's caching and/or other performance enhancements.

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this article, the authors test whether the observed patterns in stock returns after quarterly earnings announcements are related to the proportion of firm shares held by institutional investors, a variable used by prior research to proxy for investor sophistication.
Abstract: This study tests whether the observed patterns in stock returns after quarterly earnings announcements are related to the proportion of firm shares held by institutional investors, a variable used by prior research to proxy for investor sophistication. Our findings show that the institutional holdings variable is negatively correlated with the observed post-announcement abnormal returns. Our findings also show that traditional proxies for transaction costs (i.e., trading volume, stock price) as well as firm size have little incremental power to explain post announcement abnormal returns when institutional holdings is an explanatory variable. If institutional ownership is a valid proxy for investor sophistication, these findings suggest that the trading activity of unsophisticated investors underlies the predictability of stock returns after earnings announcements. However, tests evaluating the validity of institutional holdings as a proxy for investor sophistication yield only mixed results. This calls for caution in interpreting our findings.

Patent
Steven D. Ims1
22 Mar 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a method for automatically transforming software components written for stand-alone execution such that they can be executed as client/server components in a distributed network computing model.
Abstract: A method, system, and computer program product for automatically transforming software components written for stand-alone execution such that they can be executed as client/server components in a distributed network computing model. A proxy is programmatically generated when the component is requested at run-time, where the proxy has an identical interface to the actual component. This enables the remote proxy to reflect the most up-to-date version of the component, which is especially advantageous if code component interfaces are being changed over time. Furthermore, this technique enables the proxy to access the most current version of the component. (Alternatively, already-existing proxy code may be retrieved, where the proxy has been created by a developer.) Run-time information may be used to select the component to be accessed. A generic client application and generic server application pair is defined, which functions to route information between an arbitrary remote proxy and an arbitrary remote (actual) component.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Examination of subjects' self-reported quality of life and assessments of their QOL made by proxies who were either a first degree relative, or were acting in a supportive role similar to that of a family member endorse the use of standardised approaches such as ComQol for proxy-based measures of QOL.
Abstract: The purpose of this investigation was to examine concurrence between subjects' self-reported quality of life (QOL) and assessments of their QOL made by proxies who were either a first degree relative, or were acting in a supportive role similar to that of a family member. Two studies were conducted. The first study, using ComQol-A4 (Cummins, 1993), examined the degree of concurrence between nondisabled subjects' QOL and ratings made on their behalf by proxies who were either a parent or a sibling (N = 78 subject/proxy pairs). The second study utilised ComQol-ID4 (Cummins, 1993), and examined agreement between QOL ratings made by subjects with mild intellectual disability and proxies who were either parents or support workers (N = 24 subject/proxy pairs). In both studies the effects on agreement of variables including subject/proxy living arrangements, gender similarity, and proxy gender and empathy were examined. In contrast to previous research utilising non-standardised approaches to QOL assessment, res...

Proceedings ArticleDOI
06 Nov 2000
TL;DR: This paper addresses the problem of distributing the computational load caused by object transcoding throughout a collaborative proxy system organized in a hierarchical net system and evaluates through simulation the impact of load distribution and caching policies on users' response time.
Abstract: Content transformation (or transc oding) proxies ha ve been recen tly proposed to tailor Web con tentto device characteristics of Web clients. In this paper, we address the problem of distributing the computational load caused by object transcoding throughout a collaborative proxy system organized in a hierarchical net w ork.We evaluate through simulation the impact of load distribution and caching policies on users' response time. We nd that the simple global policy that captures the proxy load information along the request path can provide reasonably good load sharing, and that, to e ectiv ely share the load, it is necessary to provide the edge proxies a mechanism to push up some transcoding load. On the caching policy, we examine policies that allow di erent versions of an object to be cached. Our study shows that the demand based caching policy which has the transcoding proxy cac he the transcoded version performs better than the coverage based caching policy that caches the more detailed version and the anticip atorycaching policy that caches both of these v ersions.

Proceedings Article
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: A media-characteristic-weighted replacement policy is proposed to improve the cache hit ratio of mixed media including continuous and noncontinuous media and a network-condition- and media-quality-adaptive resource-management mechanism is introduced to dynamically re-allocate cache resource for different types of media according to their request patterns.

Patent
Thomas D. Erickson1, Peter K. Malkin2
30 Nov 2000
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a method for providing an electronic environment for facilitating user interaction with a business, which displays an abstract graphical proxy for the environment and provides the consumer with interactive business facilities.
Abstract: The present invention relates to a method for providing an electronic environment for facilitating user interaction with a business. The method displays an abstract graphical proxy for the environment, displays an abstract graphical proxy for at least one consumer within the environment, and provides the consumer with interactive business facilities. The environment is a marketplace structured by the business. The environment includes a chat application. The chat application includes one of private chat and public chat. The environment comprises interactive applets. Each consumer proxy is individualized according to consumer input or each consumer proxy is individualized according to consumer activity.

Patent
06 Dec 2000
TL;DR: In this article, a proxy server is selected based on a proxy selection table generally maintained by each client, which redirects requests to a given proxy server in an array of proxy servers, based on the address of the requested resource and the recent history of client request patterns.
Abstract: A method and apparatus are disclosed for selecting a proxy server that stores a web resource from an array of proxies in a network. A disclosed proxy selector reduces the latency and bandwidth utilization required to obtain Web resources. A given proxy server is selected based on a proxy selection table generally maintained by each client. The proxy selection table redirects requests to a given proxy server in an array of proxy servers, based on the address of the requested resource and the recent history of client request patterns. The proxy selection table can encode the assignment of heavy file types and heavy domains to individual proxy servers. When a client requests a web resource, the proxy selection table is accessed to redirect the request to the appropriate proxy server. If the resource type is a heavy type, the request is redirected to one or more proxy servers responsible for heavy file types. If the resource is provided by a heavy domain, the request is redirected to the proxy server responsible for that domain. If the resource type is not a heavy type or provided by a heavy domain, a hash function is applied to only the domain part of the URL to identify a proxy server from which to obtain the desired resource.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A longitudinal analysis suggests that the use of proxy rather than patient responses could lead to different conclusions concerning radiation therapy's effect on QOL, and several methods for evaluating the accuracy of proxy measures are presented.
Abstract: In studies of the effect of cancer treatment in the advanced disease setting, researchers have attempted to avoid missing data for quality of life (QOL) assessments by either substituting proxy for patient assessments from the outset or by interspersing proxy measures when patients are unable to respond. Although poor agreement between patient and proxy assessments has been amply demonstrated in the literature, interest in using proxy measures persists. Completion of the Spitzer QL-Index by a small sample of patients with brain metastases and family member proxies provided data for evaluating the ability to substitute proxy for patient QOL assessments. These data cannot address treatment efficacy due to the modest sample size. Rather, the analyses serve to alert researchers to the important distinction (in a clinical trial setting) between agreement and the use of the proxy as a surrogate. We present several methods for evaluating the accuracy of proxy measures and for identifying other sources of error and bias that may vary with time or with treatment arm. Lin's concordance correlation coefficient suggests that proxies are generally a poor substitute for capturing a patient's perspective of his/her QOL. A longitudinal analysis suggests that the use of proxy rather than patient responses could lead to different conclusions concerning radiation therapy's effect on QOL.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2000
TL;DR: The author shows that Sun and Chen's scheme suffers from weaknesses and consequently proposes a new time-stamped proxy signature scheme which doesn't suffer from the same weaknesses.
Abstract: A proxy signature scheme is a method which allows an original signer to delegate his signing power to a proxy signer. Most proxy signature schemes use a warrant appearing in the signature verification equation to declare the valid delegation period. However, the declaration in the warrant is useless because no-one can know the exact time when the proxy signer signed a message. To avoid the proxy signer abusing the signing capability, the original signer may hope to know the identity of who received the proxy signature from the proxy signer. Recently Sun and Chen proposed the concept of time-stamped proxy signatures with traceable receivers to solve these two problems. A time-stamped proxy signature scheme with traceable receivers is a proxy signature scheme which can ascertain whether a proxy signature is created during the delegation period, and can trace who actually received the proxy signatures from the proxy signer. The author shows that Sun and Chen's scheme suffers from weaknesses and consequently proposes a new time-stamped proxy signature scheme which doesn't suffer from the same weaknesses.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the impact of the 1992 SEC reforms that enhanced the ability of shareholders to communicate during a proxy contest was assessed, finding that the mean percentage of total outstanding votes cast in favor of an issue proposal declined significantly post-reform.
Abstract: This article assesses the impact of the 1992 SEC reforms that enhanced the ability of share-holders to communicate during a proxy contest. Utilizing a sample of 361 shareholder-sponsored corporate governance issue proposals from 1991 to 1995, the article finds that the mean percentage of total outstanding votes cast in favor of an issue proposal declined sig-nificantly post-reform. As explanation, the article furnishes evidence that certain sponsors interested in their own private agenda rather than general shareholder welfare exploited more fully the proxy mechanism post-reform; controlling for the composition of sponsors, the proxy reforms generated no significant change in the for-vote outcome of issue proposals. The article concludes instead that the reforms resulted in a shift in the composition of issue proposals targets toward companies relatively less vulnerable to such proposals pre-reform.

Patent
John R. Hind1, Brad B. Topol1
06 Apr 2000
TL;DR: In this article, a reverse proxy intercepts all of the communications from one or more remote users and routes the communication to the local web server, where the reverse proxy then routes the response to the request to the proxy servlet.
Abstract: A computer network, method, apparatus or program product utilizing a local web server, a reverse proxy and an internet hosting web server to allow one or more remote users to access information on the local web server by accessing a proxy servlet residing at the internet hosting web server, wherein the reverse proxy initiates a connection with the proxy servlet. The proxy servlet intercepts all of the communications from one or more remote users and routes the communication to the local web server. The reverse proxy then routes the response to the request to the proxy servlet.

Patent
20 Dec 2000
TL;DR: In this article, a method for dynamic proxy reconfiguration which is implemented in plural network servers is described. But it is not suitable for use with other servers where proxy servers may be present.
Abstract: A method directed to a dynamic proxy reconfiguration which is implemented in plural network servers. The invention is directed to a computer-executable program for use in proxy network servers which enables each proxy server to dynamically sell its unused capacity to other web sites for specific periods of time. The invention has particular utility in connection with World Wide Web servers, but can be used with other servers where proxy servers may be present.

Patent
24 Aug 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, a Media Gateway proxy receives a message and parses the message, which contains an attribute, sub-command, and a destination address, and transmits the message to the destination Media Gateway.
Abstract: A Media Gateway proxy receives a message and parses the message. The message contains an attribute, sub-command, and a destination address. The proxy stores the message and the attributes. Each of the attributes corresponds to a selected one of a plurality of Media Gateways. Each of the gateways has an address. The proxy finds in the memory the address of the selected Media Gateway using the destination address and the attribute. The proxy then forms a message using said sub-command, said address, and said attribute and transmits the message to the destination Media Gateway.

Patent
13 Jun 2000
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a proxy class dynamically generated at runtime that implements a list of interfaces specified at runtime such that a method invocation through an interface on an instance of the class is encoded and dispatched uniformly to an object that performs the invocation of the requested method.
Abstract: In an object-oriented data processing system, methods and systems in accordance with the present invention provide a proxy class dynamically generated at runtime that implements a list of interfaces specified at runtime such that a method invocation through an interface on an instance of the class is encoded and dispatched uniformly to an object that performs the invocation of the requested method. The generation of the proxy class at runtime and the specification at runtime of the list of interfaces implemented by the proxy class allow the interfaces to be used to be chosen at runtime before generation of the proxy class. Since the proxy class does not need to be created before compile time, the interface list implemented by the proxy class does not need to be known at the time the source code is written.

Patent
23 Mar 2000
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose to attenuate POP checks at proxy servers located across the network by intercepting each POP check packet at a proxy server that is nominally local to where the user is located.
Abstract: Traffic handling load on network servers is moderated by attenuating POP checks at proxy servers located across the network. Attenuation of POP checks is accomplished by intercepting each POP check packet at a proxy server that is nominally local to where the user is located. The proxy server permits a given user's initial POP check to proceed on through the network to the mail server. Thereafter, though, the proxy server only permits that user's received POP checks to proceed onward according to a predetermined algorithm, e.g., at intervals of no less than fifteen minutes. Overly frequent POP checks by a user are responded to by the proxy server (rather than the mail server itself) with a response indicating that the user that he has no mail (despite not knowing deterministically whether that is a true statement). Additionally the proxy server may buffer and delay the POP transactions to effectively allow only a predetermined rate of POP checks. Bandwidth loading on the network is managed by pushing e-mail message traffic out to the edges of the network at times when bandwidth demand is low. To accomplish this, a user's e-mail is cached at the proxy server nearest to his presumed location. This decentralizes the e-mail storage away from the mail server and spreads it out over the network at the various proxy servers. This cache action is preferably done when there is a lull in network traffic (e.g., at night). This has the effect of decentralizing the bandwidth demand on the overall network since the e-mail messages have a shorter distance to travel when retrieved by the user from the cache location at the proxy server.