JP2002259251A - Method and system for distributing information among group members by using semantic information network, transmitting terminal and receiving terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To confirm a dynamic relative distance among group members without needing an intermediator and also to selectively transmit and receive information only to/from the opposite party conforming to a particular condition. SOLUTION: When 'Masahiko' being a group member transmits a notification request event including his own location information to a semantic information network 10, the mobile terminal 31 of 'Shotaro' which has received the notification request event obtains a farness or nearness result value outside an area from its own location information and the location information of 'Masahiko' included in the notification request event. The mobile terminal 31 transmits the farness or nearness result value outside the area and its own location information as a notification request event response message to the mobile terminal 33 of 'Masahiko'. The mobile terminal 33 of 'Masahiko' obtains a farness or nearness evaluation value outside the area from the location information of 'Shotaro' included in the received notification request event response message. The mobile terminal 33 displays the location of the opposite party based on the farness or nearness evaluation value.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to semantic information for specifying content that meets the interests of end users from content distributed on a network, or for specifying the optimal consumer to which a content provider should distribute content. The present invention relates to a method for distributing information between group members using a network and an operation system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 36 shows a mechanism of a group member information distribution service realized by a conventional group member information distribution system. In this conventional information distribution system between group members, group members 1 to 5
Terminals 101 to 105 and a server 200 of a group manager (intermediary) are connected via a communication network such as the Internet 500.

[0003] The conventional information distribution service between group members is realized by distributing information among a plurality of group members registered in advance. Specific examples of the intermediary include a broker, a portal site, and a directory server.

[0004] Here, a group refers to a group of friends having a common taste or hobby, and members of the group recognize each other as members of the group. Examples of groups include play friends, clubs, and circles.

Here, the group manager prepares resources for realizing services on the network, manages information receiving addresses of each group member as a list, and receives information for receiving information from the group members. By preparing an address and associating it with the list, and transferring the information received at the reception address to the information receiving address of each group member in the list, one member in the group can be transferred to another member in the group. Allows information to be broadcast.

This conventional method for distributing information between group members will be described with reference to FIG. The numbers in parentheses in FIG. 36 indicate the order in which information is transmitted or the order in which processing is performed.

(1) The group members 1 to 5
Using the group member applications 1 to 105, the information receiving address is changed to the group manager server 20.
Send to 0. In the server 200 of the group administrator, the received information receiving address is stored, and the reception address is set to the terminals 101 to 101 of the group members 1 to 5.
5 respectively. The terminals 101 to 105 that have been provided with the reception address from the group manager store the reception address.

(2) When a certain group member has information to be transmitted to another group member in the group, the information is transmitted to the reception address provided from the server 200 of the group administrator. . In FIG. 36,
The case where the group member 1 has transmitted information to the server 200 of the group administrator is shown.

(3) Next, the server 200 of the group manager receiving the information from the group member 1 receives the information from the group member 1 for the information receiving addresses of the registered group members 2 to 5. Transfer information.

According to the method described above, according to the conventional information distribution system between group members, information distribution from the group member 1 to the group members 2 to 5 is realized. However, in this conventional information distribution system between group members, it is not possible to perform selective distribution such that each group member distributes information only to some of the other group members. Also, it is not possible to distribute information only to group members that meet specific conditions.

In the conventional information distribution system between group members as shown in FIG. 36, information can be distributed between moving group members by using the terminals 101 to 105 as mobile terminals such as portable telephones. . In such a system for distributing information between group members using mobile terminals, each mobile terminal is provided with position information obtaining means such as a GPS receiver to obtain position information, and the position information is obtained by a group manager serving as an intermediary. By transmitting the information to the server, the positional relationship between the group members can be specified.
However, even in such a case, it is not possible to perform selective distribution such as transmitting information only to group members located close to their current position. Also, when realizing such a group member information distribution system,
It is necessary to have a group administrator who is an intermediary.

[0012]

The above-mentioned conventional information distribution system between group members has the following problems. (1) An intermediary is needed to realize an information distribution system between group members that can specify the positional relationship between group members. (2) When distributing information among a plurality of group members registered in advance, real-time information distribution cannot be performed because an intermediary is required. (3) The necessity of the presence of an intermediary causes an intermediary fee to be generated or an advertisement to be provided by the intermediary. (4) Since the presence of an intermediary is required, a load on a server operated by the intermediary is concentrated with an increase in the number of group members using the information distribution service between group members, and the real-time information distribution is further reduced. In addition, an expensive large-scale server machine is required. (5) Information exchanged between group members is centrally managed by an intermediary, and danger distribution when a server used by the intermediary is intruded is not performed. In addition, when the reliability of the confidential information management of the mediator is low, there is concern about disclosing the privacy information to the mediator itself. (6) The group members must follow the management policy (policy) of the inter-group member information distribution service specified by the mediator with respect to the format of the information exchanged. (7) It is not possible to selectively transmit and receive information, such as distributing information only to a specific one of the group members.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems of the related art, and does not require an intermediary, and can confirm a dynamic relative distance between group members and specify a specific distance. Solving each of the above problems by enabling the operation of an information distribution service between group members using a network that can selectively transmit and receive information only to those who meet the conditions, especially real-time information It is an object of the present invention to realize a method and a support system for distributing information between group members, which enable distribution, enable information transmission according to a policy of group members, and improve security of confidential information of group members.

[0014]

In order to achieve the above object, a method for distributing information between group members according to the present invention comprises a transmitting terminal for transmitting data as an event, and selectively receiving the data transmitted as an event. In order to perform the distribution of information among a plurality of group members registered in advance using a semantic information network including a receiving terminal to which a filter including an event type and an acquisition condition is set, A method for distributing information between group members using an information network, wherein the mobile terminal of the group member sets a reception condition for receiving notification information in the semantic information network as a filter, and the mobile terminal of the group member Of the notification information that you want to notify other group members, Transmitting a notification request event including destination information to a semantic information network; and a mobile terminal of a group member set with a receiving condition for receiving the notification information transmits the notification request transmitted as an event to the semantic information network. Received from the network, the position information of the mobile terminal of another group member included in the received notification request, and the current position information of its own to determine the distance to other group members, based on the preset area definition Performing the out-of-service perspective evaluation, and setting the result as an out-of-service perspective result value, and the mobile terminal of the group member receiving the notification request event transmits the notification request event including the out-of-service perspective result value and its own location information Sending a response message to the reply destination specified by the reply destination information included in the received notification request event And step, the mobile terminal of the group member receiving the notification request event response message, the location information of the mobile terminal of the other group members included in the notification request event response message,
Obtaining a distance from another group member from the current position information of the user, performing an out-of-service perspective evaluation based on a preset area definition, and setting the result as an out-of-service perspective evaluation value, and the notification request event The notification request event response message, wherein the mobile terminal of the group member that has received the response message has received a return message including the out-of-service result value, the out-of-service perspective evaluation value, and notification information that is information to be notified to other group members. Transmitting the notification information including the notification information to be notified to the reply destination specified by the reply destination information included in the notification request event response message; When both the perspective result value and the obtained out-of-area perspective evaluation value indicate the area, Displaying the position of another group member that has transmitted the notification request event response message based on the out-of-service perspective evaluation value; and the mobile terminal of the group member that has received the return message is included in the received return message. If both the out-of-service perspective result value and the out-of-service perspective evaluation value indicate the service area, the position of another group member that transmitted the return message is displayed based on the out-of-service perspective result value and included in the return message. Displaying the notified notification information.

According to the present invention, without the need for an intermediary,
It is possible to operate a group member information distribution service using a network that can check the dynamic relative distance between group members and selectively transmit and receive information only to those who meet specific conditions. In addition, real-time information distribution and information transmission based on a policy of a group member can be performed, and the security of confidential information of the group member can be improved.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Before describing the present invention, a distributed network system which is a prerequisite of the present invention and has enhanced message characteristics of information to be transmitted will be described.

As a distributed type network system, a system using Napster is known, and as a network system with enhanced dispersibility, Gnut is used.
One using lla is known.

First, a network system using Napster will be described. The Napster user sends a search request to the Napster server that stores the information of the file published by each Napster user, and the Napster server sends information such as the IP address of the Napster user who owns the searched file. Reply. The actual exchange of files is performed by the user who has obtained the IP address directly accessing the Napster user who owns the target file without going through a Napster server.

In the case of a network system using Gnutella, the terminal of the Gnutella user is:
The state of the connected partner terminal is periodically checked, and messages and file search requests are relayed. The search results are returned to the person who made the search request, and the subsequent file transfer is performed directly between the users, similar to Napster. As a result, a network is constructed without using a server.

[0020] Of these network systems,
The system using Napster does not achieve the object of the present invention because it requires a server corresponding to an intermediary which is a problem of the present invention.

In a network system using Gnutella, a search request for a message or a file is made without using a server, but the information to be transmitted is merely a file search request, and a user who confirms this response transfers the file. Is performed between users, and is not suitable for a form that requires one-to-many exchange such as an auction or a reverse auction.

There is a semantic information network system described below as a distributed network system in which the message of the information to be transmitted is enhanced, and the present invention is based on the use of such a semantic information network system.

First, a semantic information network (Semantic I
An outline of an nformation-Oriented Network (hereinafter, referred to as a SION) will be described. The SION is a network that can deliver an event to a destination based on semantic information. FIG. 1 shows a conceptual model of the SION. In FIG. 1, each terminal 2 has semantic information (Semantic
Information: SI) is registered for ION1.
On the other hand, the terminal 2 that transmits the event sends an event composed of semantic information (Semantic information) and data (Data) shown in FIG. Here,
The semantic information describes characteristics of data included in the event, and is positioned as meta information of the data. For example, the semantic information is as follows:-Deliver the data to "Tokyo residents". -Deliver the data to "People interested in classics". -Deliver the data to "people who have a communication environment of 1 Mbps or more".・ Deliver the data to "people who are traveling on Mejiro Street". Deliver the data to "content providers with content that matches the keyword (eg, travel)". Is used.

The SION dynamically determines an object (terminal, person, software, etc.) to which data should be delivered based on the semantic information as described above, and delivers the data to the specified target person. It is an autonomous decentralized meta-network that can make notifications. By using this SION, it is possible to directly propose own information only to users who are appropriate for the information provider to provide without using a broker. In this case, a business model that enables peer-to-peer information proposals with a broker-independent type (non-broker model) is called a patronage model (or a patronage-type information proposal model or non-broker model). Call. Similarly, a real-time information search that allows a user to directly search for desired information without using a search service (broker) is also possible. In addition, it is possible to apply to the following services and the like as a request-by-order information proposal service. (1) Manufacturing company: I want to send product information mainly to customers who are likely to be interested in their products. (2) Advertiser: I want to send a personalized advertisement for each customer. (3) Barter: I want to buy and sell or exchange products based on agreement between users.

What information is set in the data part of the event depends on the service. For example, various usage forms such as an entity of information, a reference to information (URL, distributed object identifier, etc.), a proxy (Jini proxy, etc.), and a mobile agent are possible.

Next, the details of the SION will be described.

<SION Architecture> First, SIO
N network architecture will be described. FIG. 3 shows a network model of the SION. Here, for convenience of explanation, the terminal 2 is replaced with the transmitting terminal 21 of the event sender.
And the receiving terminal 22 of the event receiver. The event receiver uses the reception terminal 22 to receive the semantic information (the type of the received event and the acquisition condition) of the event desired to be received by the SIO as metadata.
Register with N1. This is called a filter. On the other hand, the event sender uses the transmission terminal 21 to
By sending an event to 1, the SION is incentived. This event is composed of semantic information and data describing characteristics of the event, as shown in FIG. FIG. 4 shows the definition of the semantic information. The semantic information is event metadata and is an instance of a semantic information type (event type).

The SION 1 is an autonomous distributed collation network for collating (filtering) an event sent by an event sender with a filter registered by an event recipient. As a result of matching, the filter that passed the event (reacted to the event)
n) Then, the receiving terminal 22 of the corresponding event receiver autonomously starts. With this mechanism, it becomes possible to search and find the target terminal 2 in a scalable and real-time manner from an unspecified number of terminals 2.

Next, the event type will be described.
FIG. 5 shows an example of defining an event type that is a template of an event. As shown in FIG. 5, the event type includes an event type name (Event type name) and a condition name (in FIG. 5, “Service” and “CPU power” correspond to each other), and a data type for each condition name ( St
A conditional expression (corresponding to == or> =) is defined. The event type name is a name for uniquely identifying the event type.

Note that the parent type of the event type can be inherited.

As shown in FIG. 6, an event is created according to the data structure of the event type. An event is composed of an event type name, a combination of condition name and condition value, and
It consists of a data section. If the condition name, condition expression, and condition value defined in the event do not match the event type, an error will occur. However, the condition names used in the event may be a subset of the event type.

FIG. 7 shows a definition example of a filter. The filter accepts the event type name (Event type nam
e), attribute name (in FIG. 7, "CPU power" or "Ag
e ") and an attribute value (equivalent to 200 and 25 in FIG. 7). Only events belonging to the event type defined by the event type name to be accepted are subjected to filtering. Can have multiple event type names defined,
By specifying a wild card (*. *), It is possible to target all events. If the attribute name defined by the filter does not exist in the condition name of the event type defined by the event type name to be accepted, an error occurs. However, a subset of the event type may be used.

Next, the configuration of the SION 1 will be described. FIG.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a SION1. As shown in FIG. 8, SION1 is a semantic information switch (Semantic Informa).
Option-Switch, shown as SI-SW in the drawing, Semantic Information -Router, shown as SI-R in the drawing, Semantic Information Gateway (Semant
ic Information-Gateway, which is shown as SI-GW in the drawing).

The semantic information switch (SI-SW) collates the semantic information registered as a filter with the semantic information given to the event, and as a result, activates a switching mechanism for activating the terminal 2 of the event receiver that fired. provide. The semantic information switch (SI-SW) and each terminal 2 are connected in a star configuration.

The semantic information router (SI-R) selects an event route between the semantic information switches,
And transfers the event sent from the to the semantic information switch to another semantic information switch. This is achieved by dynamic event routing based on semantic information.

The semantic information gateway (SI-GW)
Transfer events between event places. Here, the event place is a minimum unit (ontology domain) that guarantees a common semantic information space. In the event place, the uniqueness of the ontology system such as the name, concept, vocabulary, meaning, and association of the event type is guaranteed, and the semantic information is described based on the common ontology. Basically, the event sent from the terminal 2 of the event sender is distributed only in the event place, but the semantic information gateway (SI-
Through the GW), it is possible to exchange events between event places having different ontology systems. At this time, the semantic information gateway (SI-G
W) performs the ontology conversion of the event, and then transfers the event to a different event place.

<Operation mechanism and interface specification>
As an example of a method of implementing the SION1, an implementation method using a distributed object technology will be described. Here, SI-SWsS
The IR and the SI-GW are implemented as distributed objects called an event place object (EPO), a shared link object (SLO), and a federation agent (FA), respectively. The operation mechanism and control interface of the ION 1 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. In addition, SION-MT (Managem)
ENT Tool) or the ION interface, the ION1 network interface can be used. Also, using MT, EPO
Withdrawal, increase / decrease, dynamic change of physical link information, PO migration (dynamic change of EPO to which PO is bound),
It is easy to collect the firing rate, collect statistical information on popular coastal information and popular information.

Startup and Initialization of Event Place Factory (FIG. 9 (1)) First, the SION operator starts an event place factory (EPF) on an arbitrary host, and then starts the EPF.
Is initialized. At this time, a host name capable of generating an event place (EP) and a storage location of an executable file of the EP are given to the EPF. These are called EP generation information.

A request for generating an event place (FIG. 9)
(2)) Next, the EP operator requests the EPF to generate an EP. At this time, an EP name and an EP attribute are given.
Here, the EP attribute indicates whether the generated EP is used for a purpose-built model or an inquiry model, and indicates the direction of the flow of the event.

Generation of Event Place (FIG. 9 (3)) Next, the EPF that has received the EP generation request generates an EP. Specifically, at this time, an event place management object (EPMO) for managing the EP is generated. That is, the processing request to the EP is EPMO
This is the same as the processing request to. The EPF returns the identifier of the generated EP (that is, EPMO) to the generation request source. The EPMO is generated for a dynamically determined host from among the hosts capable of generating an EP specified in (1) of FIG. As a method of determining the host to which EPMO is to be started, the destination to be started is determined cyclically.
It is possible to select a method such as deciding according to the traffic or explicitly specifying the boot destination host.

An event place initialization request (FIG. 9)
(4)) Next, the EP operator requests EPMO to initialize the EP. At this time, a single event place object or a multiple event place object is designated. When a multiple event place object is specified, it is necessary to provide physical link information (topology) of the event place object (EPO) together. Here, the physical link information of the EPO expresses which other EPO knows which other EPO exists.

For example, as shown in FIG.
32 is EPO1 • 31, EPO3 • 33, EPO4 •
Knows the existence of EPO3, but EPO33
・ It expresses that only 32 existences are known. As described above, the multiple EPO aims at improving the scalability by distributing the load of the event matching process in the EP.

The EPMO is used to select an EPO from the host list capable of generating an EP specified in (1) of FIG.
Is dynamically determined, and EPO is generated there. At this time, each EPO has one filter factory (FF) and one statistical information collection object (S
O) are always generated accompanying them, and these correspond to SI-SW. Further, a shared link object (SLO) is generated accompanying each EPO according to the number of physical links. For example, three S for EPO2 · 32
LO is generated (SLO2,1, SLO2,3, SLO in the figure)
These correspond to SI-R. E
The method of determining the activation destination of the PO is the same as that of the EPMO, but it is also possible to fix the EPO to be used for each event type. The EPMO generates an event type factory (ETF) in the EP. Within the EP, a unified event type namespace is guaranteed by the ETF.

Request for Session Establishment for Event Transmission to Event Place (FIG. 9 (5)) Next, a request is made to the EP to establish a session. EPMO
Is a proxy object (PO) for each session request
Generate The session identifier, which is the identifier of the PO, is returned to the request source.

It should be noted that the EPMO uses the PO
Is instructed which EPO to use (to bind with which EPO). This instruction is for multiple EPO
However, the method of determining the EPO to be bound is the same as that of the EPMO. When a session establishment request is made to the EP, it is necessary to specify whether the session is a session for event transmission or a session for event reception. In this example, a session for event transmission is specified.

Registration of Event Type (FIG. 9 (6)) Next, registration of an event type is requested to the PO. At this time, the PO requests the ETF to generate an event type object (ETO). Further, the event type is stored in the generated ETO. On the other hand, an event type registration can be requested from the EP. At this time,
EPMO requests the ETF to generate an ETO, and stores the event type in the generated ETO. Generally, an event sender registers an event type via a PO. On the other hand, the EP operator registers an event type in the EP. Note that registering an event type with the same name will result in an error.

Request for establishing a session for receiving an event with respect to an event place (FIG. 9 (7)) Next, a request is made to the EP to establish a session for receiving an event. At this time, the requester of the session establishment (event receiving object) sets the identifier of the event receiving object, which is the event notification destination, and the event notification method (firing type, look-in type) as parameters. Give as.

Subsequently, the EPMO generates a PO for each session request. The session identifier is returned to the request source. The EPMO instructs the PO to use the EPO when the PO is generated. This instruction is required in multiple EPO, but the method of determining the EPO to be bound is the same as that of EPMO.

Request for generation of filter object (FIG. 9)
(8)) Next, request the PO to generate a filter object (FO). At this time, the PO requests the FF to generate the FO. At this time, the FF attached to the EPO bound to the PO is used. The identifier of the generated FO is returned to the FO generation request source via the PO.

Setting of Filter Value (FIG. 9 (9)) Next, the PO is requested to set a filter value in the FO using the FO identifier as a parameter. Note that the event type name stored in the filter object (that is, the event type name to be filtered)
It is possible to selectively request the ETO to check whether the data structure (filter value) of the FO is correct, using the key as a key. If not, an error occurs. However, when a wild card is specified, this check processing is not performed at all.

Filter Registration (FIG. 9 (10)) Next, after setting a filter value in the FO, a filter registration is requested to the PO using the filter identifier of F as a parameter. At this time, the filter identifier is returned to the registration request source. With this as a trigger, it becomes possible to receive events. Note that a plurality of filters can be registered through one PO. (For this, a plurality of different FOs are registered as filters through one PO, or the same FO is registered as a filter a plurality of times. However, all filters registered for one PO have an “OR relationship”.

Event Transmission (FIG. 9A) Next, the event sender transmits an event to the PO. At this time, the PO can selectively request the ETO to check whether the data structure of the event is correct, using the event type name stored in the event as a key. When this check process is selected, if it is correct, the process proceeds to the next process (FIG. 9B), and if it is not correct, an error occurs.

Event collation request (FIG. 9B) Next, the PO transfers the event to the EPO. At this time,
EPO creates a thread. Note that a thread is generated for each event, and each thread performs multiplex processing of the event.

Matching with Filter (FIG. 9C) Next, the thread (EPO) performs filtering processing by matching the event with the filter. These include exact, partial, and weighted matches,
Can be specified when setting the filter value.

Starting of a proxy object (FIG. 9)
(D)) Next, as a result of matching with the filter, when the event passes the filter, the corresponding PO is activated and receives this event. At this time, the PO can selectively register the received event type, value, event ID, and the like in the SO. From this information, the SO can measure the firing rate of the event (for each event type and each event) and the highly reputed events that are prevalent in the EP.

Activation of event reception object (FIG. 9)
(E) Next, the PO activates the event receiving object and passes the event to the event receiving object. This corresponds to the firing type (interrupt type) event notification.

Look-in type event notification (FIG. 9)
(F) On the other hand, instead of the PO activating the event receiving object, the event receiving object itself can also take out the event spooled in the PO corresponding to the event receiving object. This corresponds to a look-in type event notification. There are various triggers for activating the event receiving object depending on the service form. As a typical example, a case in which an end user makes a content proposal request to the event receiving object is considered.

<Filter Management Method> Next, a filter management method in each EPO will be described.

First, a session for receiving an event is established. At this time, one PO is generated for each session request, and this PO is bound to any one EPO. Each EPO is accompanied by one FF. As a result, the EPO used by the PO is uniquely determined, and all subsequent processing is performed via the PO (event receiving session).

Next, an FO is generated, and a filter value (a type of an event to be received and an acquisition condition thereof) is set for the FO. Subsequently, a filter is registered using the FO identifier as a parameter. At this time, the FO identifier is stored in each filter. Each EPO manages the filters registered via the PO based on the following rules.

First, using the FO identifier stored in the filter, reference is made to the “type of event to be received” set in the FO. Subsequently, the filters are classified for each type of event to be received, and the filters classified for each event type are further classified and managed for each PO.

Referring to FIG. 11 regarding this management rule,
A case where a filter is registered via PO1 will be described. Here, it is assumed that “event type X” is set as the type of the event to be received in the FO specified at the time of filter registration. At this time, EPO
Corresponds to the filter 1 in FIG. 11, and similarly, the filter registered via the PO2 corresponds to the filter 2. In each PO, a plurality of filters can be registered. However, the registered filters have an “OR relationship”.

First, the event of the event type X is EP
When it arrives at O, matching with filter 1 is performed. As a result, when the filter 1 fires, the PO1 is activated.
Next, matching with filter 2 is performed, and as a result, when filter 2 fires, PO2 is activated. At this time, since the filters 2 and 3 have an “OR relationship”, the matching with the filter 3 is not performed. By using such a filter management method, each E for one event
The number of times of the collation processing at the PO can be basically made equal to or less than the number of POs (the number of reception sessions).

<Event Routing Method> Next, an event routing method will be described.

The EPO (SI-SW) accommodates event senders and receivers (entities such as terminals) in a star form via a session. Furthermore, EPO (SI-SW)
Matches the filter registered by the event receiver (event receiving object) with the event sent by the event sender, and as a result, notifies the event only to the event receiver corresponding to the fired filter (matching event reception (Delivery of the event only to the person).

For this reason, when the number of event senders (the number of events) and the number of event recipients (the number of filters) increase, the processing capacity of the EPO becomes saturated in proportion thereto. Therefore, the SION architecture provides a multiple EPO as a means for realizing an EP with high scalability. Multiple EPO refers to the number of EPOs
The purpose of the present invention is to achieve a high scalability of EP from the following two viewpoints.

The first point is load distribution and autonomous distribution. This is to distribute the load of event filtering processing by distributing event senders and receivers to a plurality of EPOs, so as to prevent a bottleneck factor accompanying processing concentration. . Further, each EPO achieves distributed coordination by a mechanism that can operate autonomously without being affected by other EPOs.

The second point is reduction of network traffic and optimization of the filtering process. This is EP
This is to minimize the amount of communication by not transferring unnecessary events between Os, and to reduce unnecessary filtering processing.

In FIG. 10, for EPO3.33,
It is assumed that a filter of event type X is registered as a type of an event to be received. Here, when an event of event type X is sent to EPO4, it is necessary to transfer this event to EPO3 via EPO2. At this time, the event must not be transferred to EPO1 in which the filter of the event type X is not registered. What controls such event routing between EPOs is a shared link object (SLO), which corresponds to the SI-R described above.

The details of the SI-R will be described below.

First, at the time of initializing an EP, an SLO is generated accompanying each EPO based on physical link information (EPO topology). For example, in FIG.
, Three SLOs are generated. These correspond to SLO2,1, SLO2,3, SLO2,4 in the figure. This S
LOi, j establishes a shared link (SLi, j) for transferring events from EPOj to EPOj. That is, as shown in FIGS. 9 and 12, SLOi, j is ELOi, j.
By establishing an event receiving session with POj, and establishing an event transmitting session with EPOi, a shared link SLi, j, which is a logical link for event transfer, is established. , Means the establishment of a session by SLO at the time of initialization of the EP, and does not include the filter registration processing).

After the initialization of the EP, the event receiver sets the E
It is possible to establish a session to P and register a filter via the session. At this time, an event path is set according to the established shared link. For example, in FIG. 12, an event receiver (Event
When the receiver 3 registers a filter for performing event type X event reception in the EPO 3 via the PO 3, the PO 3 registers the event type X filter in the EPO 3 and notifies the SLO 3, j ( Here, SLO3,2) is notified, and SLO3,2 is SL3,2.
Is used to register a filter of event type X for EPO2. This is performed via the PO of the receiving session assigned to SLO3,2, as described above. Similarly, this PO indicates to that effect that SLO2,3
Is notified to other SLO2, j except for. SLO2, j
(J ≠ 3) registers the filter in EPO using SL2, j. The process is repeated in the same manner until all EPOs are set to the path for the event X.

A series of paths established for the event type X is called an event path. this is,
The filter registration via PO3 is a trigger, and the event path setting request for each event type sequentially and autonomously propagates to all EPOs. That is,
Each EPO needs to recognize only the adjacent EPO.
For this reason, it is possible to establish the event path with a simple and unified autonomous logic as compared with the event path setting / management method by centralized management and broadcast of the event path.

FIG. 13 shows the registration status of the filter in the EPO 1 at this time. As a result of the event receiver 3 registering the filter via PO3, filter 1 becomes EPO1.
Will be registered. Setting an event path refers to registering a filter for event transfer in a series of EPOs based on shared link information. Also,
In the filter registered by the SLO, only the event type name to be received is set, and the acquisition condition is not set.
Filter only the event type name.

In this situation, the event receiver 2 has a P
Via O2, filter the event type X to EPO
When the event path is registered in EPO2, the setting of the new event path spreads to all EPOs as described above. As a result, the filter 2 is registered in EPO1, and the filter is registered every time an event path setting request is made. Will be done.

At this time, when an event of the event type X is sent to the EPO1, the filter 1 fires and the SLO
2,1 is activated. SLO2,1 reports this event as EPO
SLO3,2 is activated by sending to SLO2. Further, the event is transferred to EPO3 via SLO3,2. To prevent infinite transfer of events between SL2,3 and SL3,2, the event is
As one of the control information, a maximum of two identifiers of the passed EPO are stored in the latest order.

As described above, since the filter 1 and the filter 2 have an OR relationship, when the filter 1 fires, the filter 1 and the filter 2 are not collated. Therefore, even though the filter 1 exists, it is possible to prevent the redundant overhead of the filtering process caused by newly registering the filter 2 from occurring at all. This means that when an event path is set, there is no need to rebuild all event paths including the existing event path, and a simple and unified event path autonomous setting becomes possible. .

If there is a session established by the event receiver in EPO1 and a filter registration via the session (corresponding to the filter 3 of POn), after all the filtering processes corresponding to SLO are completed, Is performed. That is, the event transfer processing to another EPO is performed with priority, and then,
The collation processing in own EPO is started.

A further effect of the event routing method described above is that it is not necessary to reconstruct an event path when canceling filter registration. For example, when the event receiver 3 cancels the registration of the registered filter via the PO 3, the cancellation request sequentially and autonomously spreads, similarly to the case of the registration. As a result, in EPO1,
Only the registration of the filter 1 will be cancelled, but the filter 2 survives (hereinafter, the filter 2 forwards the event instead of the filter 1). Event path consistency is guaranteed.

By using such an autonomous distributed routing control method, it is possible to easily realize interconnection and distributed coordination of EPO. Accordingly, a transition from a small network to a large network, a transition from a local network to a global network, and the like can be smoothly performed. Also,
Global networking with a bottom-up approach can be easily achieved with common logic.

FIGS. 14 to 17 are diagrams for explaining the SI-R in the physical link having the ring type coupling.

For example, as shown in FIG. 15, in a physical link having a ring-type connection, EPO2 is EPO1,
It expresses that you know the existence of EPO3. As described above, the multiple EPO aims at improving the scalability by distributing the load of the event matching process in the EP.

The EPMO is selected from the list of hosts capable of generating an EP specified in (1) of FIG.
The host that generates O is dynamically determined, and EPO is generated there. At this time, each EPO is always accompanied by one filter factory (FF) and one statistical information collection object (SO), and these are generated by the SI-S
W. Further, one shared link object (SLO) is generated for each EPO according to the physical link. For example, SLO2 and SLO3 in the figure are generated for EPO2. This corresponds to SI-R. The method of determining the activation destination of EPO is the same as that of EPMO, but it is also possible to fix the EPO used for each event type. Note that the EPMO generates an event type factory (ETF) in the EP. E
Within P, a unified event type namespace is guaranteed by the ETF.

The details of the SI-R will be described below.

First, at the time of EP initialization, an SLO is generated accompanying each EPO based on physical link information (EPO topology). For example, in FIG.
SLO2,3 is generated for O2. This SLOi, j
Establishes a shared link (SLi, j) for transferring events from EPOj to EPOi. That is, FIG.
As shown in FIG. 16 and FIG. 16, SLOi, j establishes an event reception session with EPOj, while
By establishing an event transmission session for i, a shared link SLi, j, which is a logical link for event transfer, is established.
This means that the session is established by the SLO when the EP is initialized, and does not include the filter registration process.) As a result, a unidirectional ring-shaped shared link SLi, j is established.

After the initialization of the EP, the event receiver
It is possible to establish a session to P and register a filter via the session. At this time, an event path is set according to the established shared link. For example, in FIG. 16, the event receiver (Event
It is assumed that the Receiver 3 registers a filter for receiving an event of the event type X via the PO 3 in the EPO 3. At this time, the PO3 registers the event type X filter in the EPO3 and notifies the SLO to that effect.
Notify 3,1. At this time, SLO3,1 is given as a parameter that the source of the filter registration request is EPO3. SLO3,1 uses SL3,1 to register an event type X filter for EPO1. This is performed via the PO of the receiving session assigned to SLO3,1, as described above. Similarly,
This PO notifies the SLOs 1 and 2 of that fact.
SLO1,2 registers a filter in EPO2 using SL1,2. The process is repeated in the same manner until all EPOs are set to the path for the event X. Note that this processing is performed by a filter registration request source (here, EP
This is repeated until immediately before O3). That is, SLO2,3
Does not register the filter in EPO3.

FIG. 17 shows the filter registration status in EPO1 at this time. As a result of the event receiver 3 registering the filter via PO3, filter 1 becomes EPO1.
Will be registered. Setting an event path refers to registering a filter for event transfer in a series of EPOs based on shared link information. In addition,
In the filter registered by the SLO, only the event type name to be received is set, and the acquisition condition is not set.
Filter only the event type name.

In this situation, the event receiver 2 receives the P
Via O2, filter the event type X to EPO
When the event path is registered in EPO2, the setting of the new event path spreads to all EPOs as described above. As a result, the filter 2 is registered in EPO1, and the filter is registered every time an event path setting request is made. Will be done.

At this time, when an event of the event type X is sent to the EPO1, the filter 1 fires and the SLO
3,1 is activated. SLO3,1 reports the event as EPO
SLO2,3 is activated by sending to SLO3. Further, the event is transferred to EPO2 via SLO2,3. In order to prevent the event from going infinitely, the event is one of the control information.
The identifier of the EPO in which the event has occurred is held, and when the event circulates and returns to the event-originating EPO (SLO), the event is discarded.

Next, an event routing method different from the above-described event routing method will be described. This routing method uses shared links (logical links).
Are established in the same manner as in the method described above.
This event routing method differs from the method described above in that no event path is established, and SLOi, j
At the same time as establishing the shared link SLi, j. At this time, a wild card is specified as a type of an event to be received in the registered filter. As a result, all events are set as transfer targets, and an event path for each event type is not established.

By specifying a wild card in the semantic information as described above, ring-shaped shared link SL
Since the event circulates in i and j, the event can be delivered to all EPOs.

<Federation Method> Next, the federation method will be described with reference to FIG. The federation agent (FA) is an agent that establishes a federation between event places, and corresponds to the above-described SI-GW. For example, an event place (Event Place) A is an event place (Event Place)
Place) A case where a federation is established for B is considered. First, an FA belonging to event place A registers a filter for event place B. At this time, the event sender belonging to the event place B sends an event, and as a result, when this filter fires, the FA autonomously starts. This can regard the FA as one event recipient belonging to event place B. Next, the FA retransmits the acquired event to the event place A to which the FA belongs. this is,
FA can be considered as one event sender belonging to event place A.

As described above, the federation between event places can be easily realized by using the FA having both roles. That is, it is possible to realize the federation between the event places with the same control logic as that of the single event place. Using this mechanism,
By interconnecting the event places, which are one basic configuration unit, a global collation network can be constructed by a bottom-up approach, and sharing of events across event places can be realized. Note that event place A and event place B
Have different ontologies, the FA belonging to the event place A converts the event acquired from the event place B into the ontology of the event place A, and then sends the event to the event place A.

In the case of performing event transfer across different ontology systems, ontology conversion is required.
As a conventional technique for performing this conversion, when a standard ontology is defined and an event is transferred to another event place, a method of transferring the event after temporarily converting the event to a format conforming to the standard ontology, and a method of transferring the event There are methods such as preparing an ontology conversion table for the number of combinations in advance.

However, the conventional method lacks flexibility to cope with dynamic federation of event places (dynamic start and release of federation). Therefore, in the present invention, as shown in FIG.
Holds only the difference (conversion information) from the ontology information of the adjacent event place in the ontology conversion table. In other words, this is a method in which each FA stores the conversion information in a distributed manner, and assures the consistency of the ontology system as a whole. This makes it possible to easily cope with dynamic federation between event places, but on the other hand, every time an event crosses an event place, an ontology conversion process occurs. It has the feature that processing overhead increases.

<Community and Evolved Network> Next, a community service, which is one of the killer services of SION1, will be described. An entity in a community service is an autonomous decentralized operation entity that can dynamically determine an activity mode by repeating learning, evolution, degeneration, and disappearance based on its own policy. Communities provide an efficient forum for such entities to communicate. In other words, entities in the community dynamically search for and identify entities that should communicate with themselves or that affect their behavior.
It is possible to discover / specify and interact with the specified entity.

This community can handle entities with the following characteristics in particular.

(1) There is an extremely large number of entities in a community with an extremely small granularity (an unspecified number of entities).

(2) The attribute of the entity changes in real time. Typical entity attributes include location information, time, and the like.

(3) The behavior of the entities in the community is not regular, and it is difficult to predict the behavior.

(4) Participation in the community, departure from the community, disappearance, duplication, etc. occur frequently and irregularly.

(5) The entities in the community are:
It is necessary to meet each other in real time based on policies, attributes, scenarios, and the like.

It is not easy in terms of performance to manage an entity having such characteristics by a server or a mediator (broker) and to search and discover each other in real time. S
The ION1 EP is positioned as an execution environment of a community having such characteristics. That is, the community is a meta execution environment of the EP, and provides a place of communication with a higher level of abstraction than directly using the EP. By using the EP in the execution environment of the community, all the entities in the community can directly find the entity to communicate with without going through the broker. This is because communication of entities in the community is implemented as sending and receiving events in the EP.

FIG. 19 shows a conceptual model of a community. A user agent (UA) and an information and service providing agent (ISA) correspond to entities in a community. The UA is an agent that behaves autonomously as a user's agent.
It dynamically determines its own behavior according to location information, situation, tendency, etc., and interacts with ISAs and other U
Search for A and interact with them. An ISA is an agent that acts autonomously as an agent of an information provider or a service provider.
Search for UAs and other ISAs to interact with.
That is, a user suitable for providing his / her information is searched for and specified.

On the other hand, the community agent (Com
A) is an agent that manages the community. The EP operator sets the SION-
Controls and operates the SION via MT. Therefore, C
The omA can be considered as an agent of the EP operator. Basically, the operational policy of the community is defined by ComA. For example, UA, ISA
Authorization, such as joining, leaving, extinction, duplication, etc. to the community for such entities, understanding and controlling the information distributed within the community (such as deleting unsuitable events), statistical information within the community (trend information, reputable information Etc.) based on their own management policies.

Further, in order to achieve the guarantee of high scalability and reliability of the community, SION control such as increase / decrease, withdrawal, and migration of EPs and EPOs is executed according to the load status and the fault status. That is, by combining ION1 and ComA, ION1 learns from the autonomous decentralized network,
It evolves into an evolutionary network that can grow and evolve.
In this way, the ComA controls the behavior of the entities in the community and plays a role in self-organizing SION1. Further, the collaboration between the communities enables the sharing of information between the communities. For example, among the information distributed in the community A, only the top 10 most popular can be distributed to the community B. The processing flow is shown below.

First, the ComA of the community B instructs the FA of the event place B to “distribute only the top 10 most popular information among the information distributed in the community A to the community B”. I do.

Next, the FA inquires of the event place A about the top ten event types. In response to this, the event place A inquires the subordinate statistical information collection object (SO) and sends the result to the FA.
Return to.

Next, the FA creates an ontology conversion table based on the acquired event type, and sets a filter for the event place A. Hereafter, F
A can receive the event from the event place A.

Next, the FA converts the event obtained from the event place A into an ontology based on the ontology conversion table, and sends the event to the event place B.

According to the embodiment described above, the following two effects can be obtained.

First, the SIO is placed on the distributed object environment.
N network environments can be easily constructed.

Second, by allowing the service application to participate in the community as an entity,
It is possible to easily send out an event or to pick up a necessary event, so that mutual communication can be achieved.

As described above, the following effects can be obtained with the SION.

An event that has been distributed only in another event place can be taken into its own event place by a federation mechanism between event places via the FA. Conversely, by sending an event to another event place, it is possible to advertise the event distributed in the own event place. in this way,
Events can be shared between different event places, and interoperability between event places taking into account the ontology makes it possible to construct a global autonomous decentralized collation network based on a bottom-up approach.

The multiple EPO mechanism makes it possible to distribute the load of the filtering process to a plurality of EPOs, and the autonomously operating event routing mechanism between EPOs makes it possible to minimize network traffic. Become. This results in E
The total throughput of P can be scalably improved.

It becomes possible to directly search for and find an entity suitable for itself without going through a broker. For example, an information provider can specify a user who is suitable for the information provided by himself without knowing the existence of the user. Similarly, the user can search for and find an information provider suitable for his / her taste without knowing the existence of the information provider. That is, the user and the information provider are equivalent to each other. As a result, information can be transmitted in real time according to the own policy without relying on a specific broker. Further, when the number of entities to be searched is enormous or when the entities frequently enter and leave the search target domain, the search technique based on the non-broker model is particularly effective.

In the SION, the end point of the semantic information is a network. On the other hand, in a method of performing a peer-to-peer connection between terminals, the terminal of the semantic information is the terminal, so that the contents of the terminal are disclosed to the outside. Therefore, SION can realize higher security and privacy protection than the latter method.

Next, an embodiment of the present invention using a semantic information network system having the above contents will be described.

FIG. 20 is a system diagram for explaining a group member information distribution service provided by the group member information distribution system according to one embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a description will be given using an example in which information is transmitted and received among five registered group members (Shotaro, Masahiro, Masahiko, Masami, Masanosuke) which are a part of members forming a club. .

In the information distribution system between group members according to the present embodiment, the mobile terminals 31 to 35 of the group members are connected via the semantic information network 10. In the present embodiment, the semantic information network 1 in FIG.
0 is realized using the above-described event place, but the method of realizing the semantic information network 10 is not limited to this.

The mobile terminals 31 to 35 of the group members are:
A filter including an event type and an acquisition condition is set in order to function as a transmission terminal that transmits the notification information as an event to the semantic information network 10 and selectively receive the notification information transmitted as the event. It also functions as a receiving terminal.

Each group member (Shotaro, Masahiro, Masahiko,
Masami and Masanosuke) are mobile terminals 3 such as PCs used respectively.
In 1-35, install an event place factory generating mechanism described above by installing middleware such as a CORBA-compliant ORB, and generate an event place in its own terminal, or access an event place on another network node. It is assumed that a session has been established and connected to the semantic information network 10. Further, it is assumed that an event type as shown in FIG. 21 is registered in the semantic information network 10 as an example.

Each of the mobile terminals 31 to 35 has a GPS
(Global Positioning System
m) Position information acquisition means such as a receiver is provided, so that current position information can be collected.

The event type shown in FIG. 21 is defined such that “group member notification” is defined as an event type name, and “group name”, “password”, and “receipt condition” are defined as event property names. I do. In these event properties, “string type” is defined as an event property value.

Here, the “group name” is an event property indicating the name of the group to which information is to be distributed, and the “password” is a password for confirming that the member is a member of the group. The “reception condition” is an event property indicating a condition of information desired to be received.

Next, a method for distributing information between group members according to the present embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG.
The numbers in parentheses in 0 indicate the order in which information is transmitted or the order of processing to be executed. Hereinafter, the operation of the present embodiment will be described in the order of these numbers.

(1) First, each group member uses the group member application program to display group registration information, own member registration information, and other member information from an application screen as shown in FIG. 22 or FIG. Enter the area definition information to specify the distance outside the service area, within the service area, and further within the service area (not necessarily "near" and "far", but also multi-stage settings such as "medium"), and group members Prepare to send and receive messages between
FIG. 22 shows an example in which "Shotaro" has input group registration information, own member registration information, and area definition information. FIG.
This is an example in which own member registration information and area definition information are input.

Here, the area definition is a definition that can be arbitrarily determined by each member, and how to recognize the distance between two members is independent of each other. For example, as shown in FIG. 24, the distance between “Shotaro” and “Masahiko” is 0.8 km.
In the case of, according to the area definition set by “Shotaro”, it is recognized that “Masahiko is near”, whereas according to the area definition set by “Masahiko”, “Shotaro is far” In some cases, they will be recognized differently.

[0130] Each of the mobile terminals 31 to 35 to which the group registration information, the own member registration information, and the area definition information have been input as described above is obtained by the position information acquisition means provided in each of the mobile terminals 31 to 35. Start collecting location information.

(2) Next, each group member uses a group member application program or the like of the mobile terminals 31 to 35 to input a notification message and the notification content from an application screen as shown in FIGS. 25 and 26. Type,
Select the receiving conditions and mutual notification format. FIG. 25 shows an example of a screen when “Shotaro” selects a notification message and selects a notification content type, a receiving condition, and a mutual notification mode. FIG. FIG. 9 shows an example of a screen when an input and a notification content type, a receiving condition, and a mutual notification mode are selected. Here, the notification contents and the options of the receiving conditions in FIGS. 25 and 26 are examples, and the selection of the receiving conditions is not limited to one.

At this time, when the group member application program establishes a session for receiving an event, it generates a filter object and sets filter values as shown in FIGS. 27 and 28 in this filter object. FIG. 27 shows the mobile terminal 31 of “Shotaro”
FIG. 28 is an example of a filter set by the group member application of the mobile terminal 33 of “Masahiko”. In FIG. 20, the filters to be set are indicated by black circles.

In the case of “Shotaro”, since two receiving conditions of “invite” and “wait” are input, FIG.
As shown in FIG. 27B, two filters are set. In the case of “Masahiko”, the information to be received is not specified because “do
“n't care” is set as the receiving condition.

(3) Each group member application that has set the filter generates an event as shown in FIGS. 29 and 30 and transmits it to the semantic information network 10. FIG. 29 is a diagram illustrating an example of an event generated by the group member application of the mobile terminal 31 of “Shotaro”. FIG. 30 is an example of an event generated by the group member application of the mobile terminal 33 of “Masahiko”. FIG. This event includes the position information obtained by the position information receiving means provided in each mobile terminal, and the information of the reply destination when replying to the group member that transmitted the event.

In the semantic information network 10, the event transmitted to the semantic information network 10 by the group member application of the mobile terminals 31 to 33 is collated with the filter set by the group member application, and the filter value is set. Events that match the indicated conditions are forwarded to the person who set the filter. Here, the notification content of the event is compared with the reception condition of the filter.

The event place used by the group member application of one group member and the event place used by the group member application of another group member use the event place federation function as described above to provide information. This event is eventually transferred to the event place used by the target group member application via several event places. The group member applications of the mobile terminals 32, 34, and 35 of "Masahiro", "Masami", and "Masanosuke" also receive events that match the filter conditions, but are omitted in FIG. 20 for simplicity of description. I do. FIG. 20 shows a case in which “Shotaro” and “Masahiko” finally receive an event group when each group member sends a notification message, focusing on “Shotaro” and “Masahiko”. For simplicity, the following description focuses on sending and receiving notification messages of "Shotaro" and "Masahiko".

In the following description, a notification message transmitted and received between "Shotaro" and "Masahiko" will be described with reference to the sequence chart of FIG. FIG. 31 shows a case where a notification is issued from “Masahiko” in the flow between “Shotaro” and “Masahiko”.

(4) In the mobile terminal 31 of “Shotaro” that has received the notification request event from “Masahiko”, the group member application uses the position information of “Masahiko” included in the received notification request event and its own position. The distance to “Masahiko” is obtained from the position information obtained by the information acquisition means, and the out-of-service distance is determined based on the already set area definition, and the result is set as the out-of-service distance result.

Here, a description will be given assuming that the distance between “Masahiko” and “Shotaro” is 0.8 km as shown in FIG. Therefore, in the mobile terminal 31 of “Shotaro”, information of “close (in range)” is obtained as the out-of-service distance result.

[0140] Then, the mobile terminal 31 of "Shotaro" specifies the reply destination based on the reply destination information included in the received notification request event, and sends the out-of-range perspective result value and its own position to the specified event source. Reply as a notification request event response message containing information. The notification request event response message transmitted from “Shotaro” to “Masahiko” in this way is shown in FIG.

FIG. 32A shows an example of a notification request event response message in which “Masahiko” replies to “Shotaro” after “Shotaro” receives a “waiting” message from “Shotaro”. FIG.

(5) Next, the application for group members of the mobile terminal 33 of “Masahiko” that transmitted the notification request event to “Shotaro” waits for a reply to the notification request event for a predetermined period. The notification request event response message (FIG. 33 (b)) from "Shotaro" is received.

Next, the application for group members of the mobile terminal 33 of “Masahiko”, when the out-of-area far-field result included in the received notification request event response message is within the service area, includes the result in the notification request event response message. Calculates the distance from the location information of "Shotaro" and its own location information, evaluates the out-of-service distance from the already set area definition, and sends the message based on the reply destination information in the notification request event response message A return message as shown in FIG. 33B is returned to the original member "Shotaro".

FIG. 33A shows a setting example of a return message in which “Shotaro” receives a response from “Masahiko” and then replies to “Masahiko”.

Here, the distance between “Masahiko” and “Shotaro” has been described as being 0.8 km as shown in FIG. 24. , "Distant (within range)" is obtained.

Here, the difference between the out-of-service perspective result and the out-of-service perspective evaluation will be described.

The out-of-service perspective result is a perspective judgment value of the distance between the group member that has transmitted the notification request event and the group member that has received the notification request event, based on the area definition set by the group member that has received the notification request event. is there. That is, in the example illustrated in FIG. 31, the distance determination value is a distance determination value between “Shotaro” and “Shohiko” based on the area definition set on the “Shotaro” side.

The out-of-service perspective evaluation is based on the area definition set by the group member that has transmitted the notification request event, and determines the distance between the group member that has transmitted the notification request event and the group member that has received the notification request event. Value. That is, in the example shown in FIG. 31, “Shotaro” and “Shohiko” based on the area definition set on the “Shohiko” side
Is a perspective determination value of the distance between.

(6) Then, the mobile terminal 33 of “Masahiko” specifies the partner member based on the registration information included in the received notification request event response message, and according to the out-of-service perspective evaluation value as shown in FIG. Display on the application screen.

The application for group members of the mobile terminal 33 of “Masahiko” displays “Shotaro” when the out-of-service perspective result included in the notification request event response message received from “Shotaro” is out of service. Do not display on application screen.

When the application for group members of the mobile terminal 31 of “Shotaro” that has transmitted the notification request event response message to “Masahiko” receives the return message from “Masahiko”, the out-of-service area included in the return message is received. When the perspective evaluation is within the service area, the partner member is specified based on the registration information included in the return message, and the application screen as shown in FIG. 35 is displayed according to the forwarded out-of-service perspective result value in the return message. indicate.

Also, the application for group members of the mobile terminal 31 of “Shotaro” does not display “Masahiko” on the application screen when the out-of-service perspective included in the return message received from “Masahiko” is out of service. .

In FIG. 34, "Masahiko" is not displayed on the "Masahiko" screen because the distance is out of the service area. Also,
In FIG. 35, the reason that "Shonosuke" is not displayed on the screen of "Shotaro" is because the receiving conditions do not match.

In the example of "Shotaro" and "Masahiko" described above, the out-of-service perspective result and the out-of-service perspective evaluation are both within the service area.
3, the other party is displayed. However, if any one of the out-of-service perspective result and the out-of-service perspective evaluation is out of service between the two group members, the other party is not displayed on either mobile terminal. This is because one group member shows that they are within range,
It is unfair to not display it to the other group members because they are out of range. In other words, it is unfair that the other party can know the existence of the other party but cannot know the existence of the other party.

Further, according to the information distribution system between group members of the present embodiment, the distance between each group member at the time when the notification event is transmitted is displayed based on the area definition defined in each mobile terminal. Is done. However, since the mobile terminals 31 to 35 are movable, the positional relationship between the group members changes every moment. For this reason, the group member application of each group member transmits an event to which new position information is added when the amount of change in its position exceeds a certain value. This event transmission has the effect of updating each other's member display over time on the own application screen and generally on a plurality of partner application screens according to the flows of (3) to (6), and accompanying the movement of each group member. The positional relationship that changes with time appears on the application screen of each of the group members. Also, (if either group member moves out of the service area, it will not be displayed on each other's screen).

In FIG. 26, when “Masahiko” changes the notification content from “Invitation” to “Notification”, “Shotaro”
May not receive the event of “Masahiko” from the receiving condition, and the old positional relationship may remain on both application screens. Therefore, in order to solve such a case, the application for the group member “Masahiko” sets the position information to a huge value (the distance is intentionally out of the service area) in FIG. 30 before sending the “notification” event. Dispatched event. This event transmission has the effect of deleting each other's member display from the own application screen and generally from a plurality of partner application screens by the flow of (3) to (5), and a new member list is always maintained.

Further, in FIG. 26, when “Masahiko” changes the receiving condition from “Anything” to “Invite”, “Shotaro” is changed from the notification content to “Masahiko” by canceling the setting of the filter corresponding to “Anything”. The event may not be sent, and the old positional relationship may remain on both application screens. To solve such a case, the application for “Mashiko” group members must be Before setting the filter,
Sends an event with “don't care” that makes the location information huge and does not limit the content of the notification (does not match the receiving conditions), and furthermore, the current notification content of “Masahiko”
An event corresponding to (new notification content when the notification content is changed at the same time as the receiving condition) is transmitted. In the event sending of these two events, the former deletes the member display of "Masahiko" from the application screens of all the other group members once according to the flow of (3) to (5), and the latter displays
The mutual member display based on the current notification content is restored by the flow of (6), and as a whole, only the mutual member display based on the old filter is deleted, and the new member list is always maintained.

As described above, according to the information distribution system between group members according to the present embodiment, each group member displays on the group member application screen another group within the service area according to the area definition set by itself. Of the members, if there is no notification message, the positional relationship that changes from time to time is displayed with all the members if there is a notification message, and only the members who meet the notification conditions and reception conditions with each other. If you need to get acquainted with the movement, you can also communicate your intention with a notification message. Therefore, for example, to increase the density of communication within the group, such as calling the contacts of display members near each other and to act together, or to reduce the chance of unnecessary calls to confirm the position of each other , You can stop mutual notification and protect your privacy.

[0159]

As described above, the present invention has the following effects. (1) An information distribution system between group members that can specify a positional relationship between group members can be realized without an intermediary. (2) Real-time information distribution can be performed. (3) Information distribution based on the group member's policy becomes possible. (4) The security of privacy and confidential information of group members is improved. (5) There is no load bottleneck due to the absence of an intermediary. (6) No brokerage fee is charged. (7) It is possible to selectively transmit and receive information, such as distributing information only to a specific one of the group members.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of an event.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a model of a semantic information network.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the definition of semantic information.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a definition example of an event type.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of an event.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a definition example of a filter.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a configuration of a semantic information network.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation mechanism and a control interface of the semantic information network.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing a physical link.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing a filter management method.

FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram showing an event routing method.

FIG. 13 is an explanatory diagram showing a registration status of a filter.

FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation mechanism and a control interface of the semantic information network.

FIG. 15 is an explanatory diagram showing physical links.

FIG. 16 is an explanatory diagram showing an event routing method.

FIG. 17 is an explanatory diagram showing a registration state of a filter.

FIG. 18 is an explanatory diagram showing a federation method.

FIG. 19 is an explanatory diagram showing a community model.

FIG. 20 is a diagram showing an information distribution system between group members according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

21 is a semantic information network 10 shown in FIG.
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of an event type registered in the.

FIG. 22 is a diagram illustrating an application screen (an example of “Shotaro”) on a mobile terminal when a group member registers as a member in the group.

FIG. 23 is a diagram showing an application screen (an example of “Masahiko”) on the mobile terminal when a group member registers as a member in the group.

FIG. 24 is a diagram for explaining a difference in mutual recognition between group members regarding a distance.

FIG. 25 is a diagram showing an application screen (an example of “Shotaro”) on a group member terminal when a group member makes settings related to notification and notification message.

FIG. 26 is a diagram showing an application screen (an example of “Masahiko”) on the group member terminal when a group member makes settings relating to notification and notification message.

FIG. 27 is a diagram illustrating an example of a filter condition (an example of “Shotaro”) set in a semantic information network so that a group member accepts a notification request.

FIG. 28 is a diagram illustrating an example of a filter condition (an example of “Masahiko”) set in a semantic information network so that a group member accepts a notification request.

FIG. 29: A group member sends a notification request.
It is a figure showing an example of an event (an example of "Shotaro") transmitted to a semantic information network.

FIG. 30: A group member sends a notification request.
It is a figure showing an example of an event (an example of "Masahiko") transmitted to a semantic information network.

FIG. 31 is a diagram showing a representative flow between members (focusing on “Shotaro” and “Masahiko”).

FIG. 32 is a diagram illustrating an example of a notification request event response message (an example of “Shotaro” and “Masahiko”) that is directly returned to the event transmission source because a group member that has received the notification request event returns a result.

FIG. 33 is a diagram illustrating an example of a return message (an example of “Shotaro” and “Masahiko”) directly returned to the sender of the notification request event response message because the group member receiving the notification request event response message returns a result. is there.

FIG. 34 is a diagram showing an application screen (an example of “Masahiko”) on a group member terminal when a group member knows the status of another member.

FIG. 35 is a diagram showing an application screen (an example of “Shotaro”) on a group member terminal when a group member knows the status of another member.

FIG. 36 is a diagram for explaining a group member information distribution service by the conventional group member information distribution system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Semantic information network (SION) 2 Terminal 10 Semantic information network 21 Sending terminal 22 Receiving terminal 31-35 Group member mobile terminal 101-105 Group member terminal 200 Group manager (intermediary) server 500 Internet SI-SW Meaning Information Switch SI-R Semantic Information Router SI-GW Semantic Information Gateway EPO Event Place Object SLO Shared Link Object FA Federation Agent

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04Q 7/38 H04B 7/26 109M 7/20 H04Q 7/04 Z (72) Inventor Takanari Hoshiai Chiyoda, Tokyo 2-3-1 Otemachi-ku, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (72) Inventor Takamichi Sakai 2-3-1, Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (72) Keiichi Koyanagi, Inventor Tokyo (3-1) Osamu Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (72) Inventor Keiji Kanasugi 4-1-1, Kamiodanaka, Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture Inside Fujitsu Limited (72) Inventor Maeda Jun 1-1, Kamiodanaka, Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture F-term in Fujitsu Limited 5B075 KK07 ND16 PP02 PP13 PP30 PQ02 QM08 UU40 5K067 AA21 BB21 DD17 DD53 EE02 EE10 EE16 FF23 HH21 HH22 JJ52 JJ56

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A transmitting terminal for transmitting data as an event, and a receiving terminal on which a filter including an event type and an acquisition condition is set in order to selectively receive the data transmitted as an event. Using a semantic information network to be performed, distribute information between a plurality of group members registered in advance, a method for distributing information between group members using a semantic information network, wherein the mobile terminal of the group member, Setting a reception condition for receiving notification information in the semantic information network as a filter, wherein the mobile terminal of the group member notifies the other group members of the notification content of the notification information, the current position information of itself, and the reply. Sending a notification request event including destination information to the semantic information network; A mobile terminal of a group member, for which reception conditions for receiving knowledge information are set, receives the notification request transmitted as an event from the semantic information network, and mobile terminals of other group members included in the received notification request. Position information, the distance to the other group members from the current position information of the self, to evaluate the out-of-range perspective based on the preset area definition, and the result of the result as the out-of-range perspective result value; The mobile terminal of a group member receiving the notification request event specifies a notification request event response message including the out-of-service distance result value and its own location information by reply destination information included in the received notification request event. Transmitting to a reply destination; and a moving end of the group member receiving the notification request event response message. The position information of the mobile terminal of another group member included in the notification request event response message, and the distance to the other group member from the current position information of its own, based on the preset area definition Performing an out-of-service perspective evaluation and using the result as an out-of-service perspective evaluation value; and a mobile terminal of a group member receiving the notification request event response message, the out-of-service perspective result value, the out-of-service perspective evaluation value, and another group Transmitting a return message including notification information that is information to be notified to the member, including notification information to be notified to a reply destination specified by reply destination information included in the received notification request event response message; The mobile terminal of the group member receiving the event response message sends the notification request event response If both the out-of-service perspective result value included in the message and the obtained out-of-service perspective evaluation value indicate the service area, the position of another group member that has transmitted the notification request event response message is determined based on the out-of-service perspective evaluation value. The mobile terminal of the group member that has received the return message, if the out-of-service perspective result value and the out-of-service perspective evaluation value included in the received return message both indicate the service area, the return Displaying the position of another group member that transmitted the message based on the out-of-service perspective result value, and displaying the notification information included in the return message, between the group members using the semantic information network. Information distribution method. 2. A transmitting terminal for transmitting data as an event, and a receiving terminal on which a filter including an event type and an acquisition condition is set to selectively receive the data transmitted as an event. Using a semantic information network to be performed, distribute information between a plurality of group members registered in advance, a method for distributing information between group members using a semantic information network, wherein the mobile terminal of the group member, Transmitting to the semantic information network a notification request event including notification content of the notification information to be notified to another group member, current position information of itself, and return destination information; and another group receiving the notification request event. Of the group member that received the notification request event response message transmitted from the member's mobile terminal. The mobile terminal obtains the distance to the other group member from the location information of the mobile terminal of the other group member included in the notification request event response message and the current location information of the mobile terminal, and sets the distance to the preset area definition. Performing the out-of-service perspective evaluation based on the result, and setting the result as the out-of-service perspective evaluation value, and the mobile terminal of the group member receiving the notification request event response message, Transmitting a return message including notification information that is information to be notified to the group member, including notification information to be notified to the return destination specified by the return destination information included in the received notification request event response message, The mobile terminal of the group member receiving the notification request event response message If both the out-of-service perspective result value and the obtained out-of-service perspective evaluation value included in the response message indicate the service area, the location of another group member that transmitted the notification request event response message is referred to as the out-of-service perspective evaluation value. And displaying the information based on the group information. 3. A transmitting terminal for transmitting data as an event, and a receiving terminal for setting a filter including an event type and an acquisition condition in order to selectively receive the data transmitted as an event. Using a semantic information network to be performed, distribute information between a plurality of group members registered in advance, a method for distributing information between group members using a semantic information network, wherein the mobile terminal of the group member, Setting a receiving condition for receiving the notification information as a filter in the semantic information network; and a mobile terminal of a group member, for which the receiving condition for receiving the notification information is set, receives the notification request transmitted as an event. Transfer of other group members received from the information network and included in the received notification request A step of obtaining a distance to another group member from the terminal location information and the current location information of the terminal, performing an out-of-service perspective evaluation based on a preset area definition, and setting the result as an out-of-service perspective result value The mobile terminal of the group member that has received the notification request event specifies a notification request event response message including the out-of-service distance result value and its own location information based on return destination information included in the received notification request event. Transmitting to the reply destination, and the mobile terminal of the group member receiving the return message transmitted from the mobile terminal of another group member receiving the notification request event response message is included in the received return message. If both the out-of-service perspective result value and the out-of-service perspective evaluation value indicate the service area,
Displaying the position of another group member that transmitted the return message based on the out-of-service perspective value value and displaying the notification information included in the return message. Information distribution method between members. 4. A transmitting terminal for transmitting data as an event, and a receiving terminal for setting a filter including an event type and an acquisition condition for selectively receiving the data transmitted as an event. A group member information distribution system using a semantic information network, which distributes information among a plurality of group members registered in advance using a semantic information network to be notified. Notification content of information,
Sends a notification request event including its current position information and return destination information to the semantic information network, and receives a notification request event response message transmitted from a receiving terminal of another group member that has received the notification request event Then, the distance to the other group member is obtained from the position information of the receiving terminal of the other group member included in the notification request event response message and the current position information of the own terminal, and based on the preset area definition. The evaluation of out-of-service perspective is performed, and the result is used as the out-of-service perspective evaluation value.The return message including the out-of-service perspective result value and the notification information that is information to be notified to other out-of-service perspective evaluation values and other group members is received. Notification information to be notified to the reply destination specified by the reply destination information included in the notification request event response message If the out-of-service perspective result value and the obtained out-of-service perspective evaluation value included in the notification request event response message both indicate the service area, the other group that transmitted the notification request event response message A transmitting terminal of a group member that displays the position of the member based on the out-of-service perspective evaluation value, a receiving condition for receiving notification information is set, and the notification request transmitted as an event is received from the semantic information network, The distance to the other group member is obtained from the position information of the transmitting terminal of the other group member included in the received notification request and the current position information of the own terminal, and the out-of-service distance evaluation is performed based on a preset area definition. And the result is taken as the out-of-service perspective result value, and the notification request event including the out-of-service perspective result value and the own location information A response message is transmitted to the return destination specified by the return destination information included in the received notification request event, and a return message transmitted by a transmission terminal of another group member that has received the notification request event response message is received. If both the out-of-service perspective result value and the out-of-service perspective evaluation value included in the received return message indicate the service area, the position of another group member that transmitted the return message is determined based on the out-of-service perspective result value. A group member receiving terminal for displaying the notification information included in the return message and displaying the notification information included in the return message. 5. Transmitting data as an event to a semantic information network having a receiving terminal in which a filter including an event type and an acquisition condition is set in order to selectively receive the data transmitted as an event. The sending terminal that sends the notification information to be notified to other group members,
Sends a notification request event including its current position information and return destination information to the semantic information network, and receives a notification request event response message transmitted from a receiving terminal of another group member that has received the notification request event Then, the distance to the other group member is obtained from the position information of the receiving terminal of the other group member included in the notification request event response message and the current position information of the terminal itself, and based on the preset area definition. The evaluation of out-of-service perspective is performed, and the result is used as the out-of-service perspective evaluation value.The return message including the out-of-service perspective result value and the notification information that is information to be notified to other out-of-service perspective evaluation values and other group members is received. Notification information to be notified to the reply destination specified by the reply destination information included in the notification request event response message When the out-of-range perspective result value and the obtained out-of-range perspective evaluation value included in the notification request event response message both indicate the range, the other group that transmitted the notification request event response message A group member transmission terminal for displaying the position of the member based on the out-of-service perspective evaluation value. 6. A receiving terminal in which a filter including an event type and an acquisition condition is set in order to selectively receive data transmitted as an event from a transmitting terminal via a semantic information network. Receiving conditions for receiving information are set, a notification request transmitted as an event is received from the semantic information network, and the position information of the transmitting terminal of another group member included in the received notification request and its current The distance from the other group members is obtained from the position information, the out-of-service perspective is evaluated based on the preset area definition, and the result is used as the out-of-service perspective result value. The notification request event response message including the notification request event is transmitted to the reply destination specified by the reply destination information included in the received notification request event. Receiving the return message transmitted by the transmitting terminal of the other group member receiving the notification request event response message, and the out-of-service perspective result value and the out-of-service perspective evaluation value included in the received return message are both within the service area. If so, a receiving terminal of a group member that displays the position of another group member that has transmitted the return message based on the out-of-service perspective result value and displays notification information included in the return message.