Information sharing apparatus

• US 6,338,065 B1
• Filed: 04/23/1998
• Issued: 01/08/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Tanaka, Tsuyoshi, Munakata, Hideaki, Takahashi, Noriyasu
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain T.
• Assistant Examiner(s): FLEURANTIN, JEAN B
• Application Number:
  US09/064,746
• Time in Patent Office: 1,356 Days
• Field of Search: 707/8-10, 709/206, 709/303, 712/42, 345/506, 364/716.04, 382/302
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

The present invention provides an information sharing apparatus that realizes global information sharing based on partial information which is locally released by communication. The information sharing apparatus includes information management devices each of which has a pipe management system and communicates with each other to transmit information. The pipe management system includes a pipe management part that manages a set of pipes. Each pipe has detailed items and their weights to represent a relationship between two information management devices. The pipe management system further includes a pipe retrieving part that retrieves a pipe matching a request of the user from the set of pipes managed by the pipe management part and a pipe composing part that generates a new pipe by composing retrieved pipes. The pipe management system transmits user'"'"'s request to the other systems. Thereby pipes matching the request are composed to expand a pipe held by the system that originally transmitted the request.

Claims

1. An information sharing apparatus having a plurality of information management devices, the plural information management devices communicating with each other to receive or transmit information for sharing the information, comprising:

a pipe management part that manages a set of pieces of pipe information, each of the pieces of pipe information representing a bi-directional informational relationship between two of the plurality of information management devices;

a pipe retrieving part that retrieves a piece of pipe information matching a request of a user from the set of pieces of pipe information in the pipe management part; and

a pipe composing part that generates a new piece of pipe information by sequential and/or convolutional composition of a plurality of pieces of pipe information retrieved by the pipe retrieving part.

4. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein the pipe management part, the pipe retrieving part and the pipe composing part are provided to each of the plurality of information management devices, each pipe management part manages a set of pieces of pipe information related to corresponding information management device and each pipe retrieving part retrieves a piece of pipe information matching at least one of the request of the user and a request transmitted by another pipe retrieving part of another information management device from the set of pieces of pipe information managed by the corresponding pipe management part.

6. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a communication detecting part that detects communication between the plurality of information management devices;

a pipe generating part that generates a new piece of pipe information to be managed by the pipe management part based on the communication detected by the communication detecting part; and

a pipe updating part that updates the piece of pipe information managed by the pipe management part based on new communication detected by the communication detecting part.

7. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein the pipe composing part generates a new piece of pipe information by a sum operation of two pieces of pipe information.

8. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 7, wherein a piece of the pipe information is a bundle of a plurality of pipe elements each having a label indicating a unique name and given a weight and the pipe composing part generates a new piece of pipe information by a sum operation of the pipe elements of two pieces of the pipe information and for the pipe elements having the same label, a maximum value of their weights is selected as a weight of a new pipe element that is generated.

9. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein the pipe composing part generates a new piece of pipe information by a product operation of two pieces of the pipe information.

10. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 9, wherein a piece of the pipe information is a bundle of a plurality of pipe elements each having a label indicating a unique name and given a weight and the pipe composing part generates a new piece of pipe information by a product operation of the pipe elements of two pieces of the pipe information and for the pipe elements having the same label, a minimum value of their weights is selected as a weight of a new pipe element that is generated.

11. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein the pipe composing part generates a new piece of pipe information by a product operation of a first piece of pipe information and a second piece of pipe information and a sum operation of a piece of pipe information as a result of the product operation and a third piece of pipe information, and wherein the first piece of pipe information connects two of the plurality of information management devices, the second piece of pipe information connects two of the plurality of information management devices other than those connected by the first piece of pipe information and the third piece of pipe information connects one of the information management devices connected by the first piece of pipe information and one of the information management devices connected by the second piece of pipe information.

12. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a request handling part that returns a piece of pipe information generated by the pipe composing part matching the request of the user to an information management device of the user that originally transmitted the request and further transmits the request to another information management device, wherein a pipe management part of the information management device manages a set of pieces of pipe information connecting all information management devices matching the request by the user based on the returned piece of pipe information.

13. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a request handling part that returns a piece of pipe information generated by the pipe composing part matching the request of the user to an information management device of the user that originally transmitted the request and further transmits the request to another information management device, wherein a pipe management part of the information management device manages a set of pieces of pipe information connecting one of the plurality of information management devices matching the request by the user based on the returned piece of pipe information.

14. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 4, further comprising:

a request handling part that returns a piece of pipe information generated by the pipe composing part matching the request of the user to an information management device of the user that originally transmitted the request and further transmits the request to another information management device provided to each information management device, wherein a pipe management part of the information management device of the user that originally transmitted the request manages a set of pieces of pipe information connecting all information management devices matching the request by the user based on the returned piece of pipe information.

15. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 4, further comprising:

a request handling part that returns a piece of pipe information generated by the pipe composing part matching the request of the user to an information management device of the user that originally transmitted the request and further transmits the request to another information management device provided to each information management device, wherein a pipe management part of the information management device of the user that originally transmitted the request manages a set of pieces of pipe information connecting one of the plurality of information management devices matching the request by the user based on the returned piece of pipe information.

2. An information sharing apparatus having a plurality of information management devices, the plural information management devices communicating with each other to receive or transmit information for sharing the information, comprising:

a pipe management part that manages a set of pieces of pipe information, each of the pieces of pipe information representing a bi-directional informational relationship between two of the plurality of information management devices and a weight of the relationship;

a pipe retrieving part that retrieves a piece of pipe information matching a request of a user from the set of pieces of pipe information in the pipe management part; and

a pipe composing part that generates a new piece of pipe information by sequential and/or convolutional composition of a plurality of pieces of pipe information retrieved by the pipe retrieving part.

3. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 2, further comprising a pipe maintaining part that changes the degree of relationship of one of the pieces of pipe information managed by the pipe management part in accordance with frequency of access to the piece of pipe information.

5. The information sharing apparatus as set forth in claim 3, wherein the pipe management part, the pipe retrieving part, the pipe composing part and the pipe maintaining part are provided to each of the plurality of information management devices, each pipe management part manages a set of pieces of pipe information related to corresponding information management device and each pipe retrieving part retrieves a piece of pipe information matching at least one of the request of the user and a request transmitted by another pipe retrieving part of another information management device from the set of pieces of pipe information managed by the corresponding pipe management part.

16. An information sharing method using a plurality of information management devices, the plural information management devices, the plural information management devices communicating with each other to receive or transmit information for sharing the information, comprising the steps of:

managing a set of pieces of pipe information, each of the pieces of pipe information representing a bi-directional informational relationship between two of the plurality of information management devices;

retrieving a piece of pipe information matching a request of a user from the set of pieces of pipe information; and

generating a new piece of pipe information by sequential and/or convolutional composition of a plurality of retrieved pieces of pipe information.

17. An information sharing method using a plurality of information management devices, the plural information management devices communicating with each other to transmit information for sharing the information, comprising the steps of:

managing a set of pieces of pipe information, each of the pieces of pipe information representing a relationship between two of the plurality of information management devices and a weight of the relationship;

retrieving a piece of pipe information matching a request of a user from the set of pieces of pipe information; and

generating a new piece of pipe information by sequential and/or convolutional composition of a plurality of retrieved pieces of pipe information.

18. A storage medium readable by computer, the storage medium storing a program of instructions executable by the computer to perform a function for sharing information by using a plurality of information management devices, the plural information management devices communicating with each other to receive or transmit information for sharing the information, the function comprising the steps of:

managing a set of pieces of pipe information, each of the pieces of pipe information representing a bi-directional informational relationship between two of the plurality of information management devices;

retrieving a piece of pipe information matching a request of a user from the set of pieces of pipe information; and

generating a new piece of pipe information by sequential and/or convolutional composition of a plurality of retrieved pieces of pipe information.

19. A storage medium readable by computer, the storage medium storing a program of instruction executable by the computer to perform a function for sharing information by using a plurality of information management devices, the plural information management devices communicating with each other to receive or transmit information for sharing the information, the function comprising the steps of:

managing a set of pieces of pipe information, each of the pieces of pipe information representing a bi-directional informational relationship between two of the plurality of information management devices and a weight of the relationship;

retrieving a piece of pipe information matching a request of a user from the set of pieces of pipe information; and

generating a new piece of pipe information by sequential and/or convolutional composition of a plurality of retrieved pieces of pipe formation.