Abstract:
A system for notification and management of item disposal is useful to provide a passive means of detecting the disposal of an item, association of disposal characteristics with the item, creation of disposal events with user based criteria, and support for subscription to notifications based upon the disposal events. In the present invention, the disposal of an item with a particular set of characteristics can generate notification to a subscriber regarding handling of the item. The present invention can include meta-data describing relative priority or other relevant information for a particular event to a subscriber associated with the item. The notification of the present invention can be via E-mail, pagers, personal digital assistants, or the like.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD  
       [0001]     The present invention relates to notification and management of item disposal and particularly to functions in the basic input/output system (BIOS) and OS that allow a user to associate data about said item with the item so that when the disposal of the item is detected, a subscriber is notified regarding subsequent actions required as a result of the disposal of the item.  
       BACKGROUND OF RELATED ART  
       [0002]     In the current art relating to the notification and management of item disposal, the significance surrounding the disposal of items is often neglected. Existing mechanisms that attempt to track the disposal of items require manual intervention and are thus error prone, and/or are often associated with environments where processing involves the handling of hazardous or high value items. Presently, most of the current art notification and management systems for item disposal rely on reactive behavior and simply signal that an anomaly has occurred. Also, the current art is not proactive and does not allow for a flexible means of managing disposal items.  
       SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION  
       [0003]     The present invention provides a method and system for notification and management of item disposal using an operating system (OS) and particularly to functions in the basic input/output system (BIOS) and OS that allow a user to more efficiently manage the disposal of certain items that may be hazardous to the environment or to people, or to initiate actions associated with such disposal. When an item is discarded, a user can implement various means with the present invention to detect not only that the item has been discarded, but also associate with the item additional meta-information about the item, such as its mass, composition, hazardous substance attributes, decomposition properties, and the like. A “disposal event” of the present invention is the act of throwing an item away, detecting and identifying the item being discarded, and taking some action based on that knowledge. This “disposal event” allows a user to establish a rich set of data around which an intelligent and autonomic set of notifications can be constructed. An individual item&#39;s disposal can have multiple characteristics which would need to be considered at the time of disposal. Any one or more of these characteristics, when taken together, may be of interest to an observer/processing agent. Conditional notification based upon the characteristics of the disposed item is possible. There can be multiple notification events generated from the disposal of a single item, based upon satisfaction of characteristic-based criteria. One can also associate meta-data describing the importance which a particular event has to various subscribers. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0004]     The present invention will be better understood and its numerous objects and advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following drawings, in conjunction with the accompanying specification, in which:  
         [0005]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a generalized data processing system on which the present invention for notification and management of item disposal may be practiced;  
         [0006]      FIG. 2  is a generalized view of an E-mail distribution system in a Web or Internet that may be used in the practice of this invention;  
         [0007]      FIG. 3  is an illustrative diagram of an interactive display interface used for the writing of a notification E-mail document indicating requirements for item disposal of the present invention;  
         [0008]      FIG. 4  is an illustrative flowchart describing the setting up of the functions for notification and management of item disposal of the present invention; and  
         [0009]      FIG. 5  is a flowchart of an illustrative run of the program set up according to  FIG. 4 . 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
       [0010]     Referring to  FIG. 1 , a typical data processing system is shown which may function as the computer network terminal or Web station used conventionally as any of the sending or receiving Web stations for electronic mail transmission or other transmission of the notification of the present invention; the system shown is also illustrative of any of the server computers used for the Web E-mail distribution to be described in greater detail with respect to  FIG. 2 .  
         [0011]     A central processing unit (CPU)  10 , may be one of the commercial microprocessors in personal computers available from International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), or Dell Corporation; when the system shown is used as a server computer at the Web distribution site, to be subsequently described, then a workstation is preferably used, e.g. RISC System/6000™ (RS/6000) series available from IBM. The CPU  10  is interconnected to various other components by system bus  12 . An operating system  41  runs on a CPU  10 , provides control and is used to coordinate the functions of the various components of  FIG. 1 . Operating system  41  may be one of any commercially available operating systems, such as IBM&#39;s AIX 5L™ operating system; Microsoft&#39;s Windows XP™; or Windows2000™, as well as other UNIX and AIX, or custom operating systems. Application programs  40 , controlled by the system, are moved into and out of the main memory Random Access Memory (RAM)  14 . These programs include the programs of the present invention for notification and management responsive to disposal of an identified item by associating data about said item with the item, defining a disposal procedure, detecting disposal of the item, carrying out the defined disposal procedure in response to said detection, and taking subsequent actions required by the disposal event. Such notification can be via electronic means, such as E-mail, and can include notification by pagers, personal digital assistants, or the like. Where the computer system shown functions as the receiving Web station, then any conventional Web browser application program, such as Microsoft&#39;s Internet Explorer™, will be available for accessing E-mail from the Web and for sending E-mail to the Web from the network station. A Read Only Memory (ROM)  16  is connected to CPU  10  via bus  12  and includes the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) that controls the basic computer functions. RAM  14 , I/O adapter  18  and communications adapter  34  are also interconnected to system bus  12 . I/O adapter  18  communicates with the disk storage device  20 . Communications adapter  34  interconnects bus  12  with the outside network enabling the computer system to communicate with other such computers over the Web or Internet. The latter two terms are meant to be generally interchangeable and are so used in the present description of the distribution network. I/O devices are also connected to system bus  12  via user interface adapter  22  and display adapter  36 . Keyboard  24  and mouse  26  are all interconnected to bus  12  through user interface adapter  22 . It is through such input devices that the user at a receiving station may interactively relate to the Web in order to access Web documents. Display adapter  36  includes a frame buffer  39 , which is a storage device that holds a representation of each pixel on the display screen  38 . Images may be stored in frame buffer  39  for display on monitor  38  through various components, such as a digital to analog converter (not shown) and the like. By using the aforementioned I/O devices, a user is capable of inputting information to the system through the keyboard  24  or mouse  26  and receiving output information from the system via display  38 .  
         [0012]     Before going further into the details of specific embodiments, it will be helpful to understand from a more general perspective the various elements and methods that may be related to the present invention. Since a major aspect of the present invention is directed to E-mail or like documents transmitted over networks, an understanding of networks and their operating principles would be helpful. We will not go into great detail in describing the networks to which the present invention is applicable. Reference has also been made to the applicability of the present invention to a global network, such as the Internet or Web. For details on Internet nodes, objects and links, reference is made to the text,  Mastering the Internet , G. H. Cady et al., published by Sybex Inc., Alameda, Calif., 1996. The Internet or Web is a global network of a heterogeneous mix of computer technologies and operating systems. Higher level objects are linked to the lower level objects in the hierarchy through a variety of network server computers. E-mail is distributed through such a network.  
         [0013]     A generalized diagram of a portion of the Web for illustration of the electronic (e.g., E-mail) distribution system of the present invention is shown in  FIG. 2 . The computer controlled display terminal  11  has a display  57  upon which E-mail documents  56  or other similar notification documents may be created by a sending system and displayed. Terminals  11  and  15  may be implemented by the computer system set up in  FIG. 1 , and connection  58  ( FIG. 2 ) is the network connection shown in  FIG. 1 . For purposes of the present embodiment, terminal  11  serves as a Web display station for the sending of E-mail or like notification documents via the display interfaces to be described with respect to  FIGS. 3 through 5  via Web browser programs. Reference may be made to the above-mentioned  Mastering the Internet , pp. 136-147, for typical connections between local display stations to the Web via network servers, any of which may be used to implement the system on which this invention is used. In the typical set up shown, terminals are connected via, for example, host dial connections (not shown) to server  45  provided by a Web Service Provider that in turn accesses the Web  50  via connection  51  to a Web access server  53  and connection  61 . For the purpose of this embodiment, detection of a disposed item occurs on sending system&#39;s terminal  11  and notification documents or E-mail  56  are automatically generated and sent over the Web  50  to receiving terminals  15 ,  19 , or  21 , which can be subscribers and/or governmental agencies related to item disposal.  
         [0014]     In  FIG. 3  there is illustrated an E-mail notification document  35  created by a sending system or terminal as shown in  FIG. 2 , e.g. E-mail on sending terminal  11 . The sending terminal automatically creates the notification message  35  in response to receiving a disposal event. The disposal event includes meta-data associated with item being disposed of and can be used to construct the content of the notification E-mail. The actions associated with the disposal of an item are also shown in  FIG. 3 . Two classes of meta-data are given in a notification message, including disposal characteristics associated with the disposal item, and event notification criteria based on said disposal characteristics. Disposal characteristic meta-data can include material composition (e.g., aluminum, plastic, glass), recycling factors (e.g., recycling classification: type 2 plastic), safe disposal information (e.g., motor oil, batteries, medical waste), environmental impact (e.g., odor, toxic fumes), rate of decay, chemical interactions, and additional factors such as mass, size, and color. The event notification criteria meta-data can include whom to notify for a given disposal event, sets of discrete characteristics which allow a user definable weighting for determination of whether one or more notifications are triggered, characteristic classification code plus arbitrary weighting, notification specific message data (e.g., plain text, information specific to a given event processor), (sub)set of disposal characteristic meta-data. The sending terminal  11  handshakes with a receiving terminal  21  and delivers the notification message  35  that contains information regarding the item being disposed of and the requirements related to the disposal event. In  FIG. 3 , an example of an E-mail based notification is shown where the item being disposed of is animal waste that is dangerous to the environment because of its odor, biohazardous characteristic, and has a rate of decay of between 2 hours and 6 hours. The message notifies the subscriber that the item disposed of is chicken waste and should be handled carefully. The subscriber is able to receive this information immediately and act upon it before the hazardous waste decays completely.  
         [0015]      FIG. 4  is a flowchart showing the development of a process according to the present invention for notification and management of item disposal. Means are provided for associating data about an item with the item, step  80 . Means are provided for defining a disposal procedure, step  81 . Means are provided for detecting disposal of the item, step  82 . Means are provided for performing meta-data based notification(s) to subscribers based upon the disposal event, step  83 . Means are provided for carrying out the defined disposal procedure in response to said detection, step  84 . Means are provided for taking subsequent actions required by disposal event, step  85 . Such subsequent actions could include an additional notification, such as one sent to a governmental agency regarding the disposal event when relevant for their involvement in waste disposal efforts of the item. Environmental agencies may benefit from the present invention in conjunction with recycling and waste management efforts.  
         [0016]     A simplified run of the process set up in  FIG. 4  will now be described with respect to the flowchart of  FIG. 5 . First, meta-data concerning the item being disposed of can be associated with said item, step  90 . A disposal procedure is then defined, step  91 . Multiple taxonomies could be used to classify to any granularity desired the meta-data regarding each of the aspects of the disposal characteristics. When the item is disposed of, step  92 , detection of the disposed item occurs, step  93 . RF tags, bar codes, pattern recognition, or similar means can be used to detect and identify the item or class of item being disposed. For example, RF tags can be attached to each item of interest, and would be detected by an RF detection device attached to the waste receptacles in such a way that all items pass by or through the detector as they are discarded. A determination is made as to whether the disposed item has particular meta-data describing the importance of the disposal event to each subscriber, step  94 . If No, the process ends. If Yes, a notification is generated and sent to the subscriber regarding the handling of said item, step  95 . The act of detection initiates the disposal event, and could be embodied by a device on the internet or home network communicating with a notification system which passes the disposal event information with associated meta-data on to the subscriber. Multiple notifications can be generated and sent to various subscribers based upon the disposal of one or more items. The notification can be sent via E-mail for example. The use of bar codes or pattern recognition operates in a similar way to the use of RF tags. While bar codes are often tied to inventory replenishment systems, their applicability could also be extended for use in the notification system of the present invention. However, the detection mechanism of the bar code technology is less effective than an RF tag or pattern recognition based systems and can be more easily bypassed. In any event, the defined disposal procedure is then carried out in response to said detection, step  96 . Other subsequent actions are then taken as required by the disposal event, step  97 . It should be noted that special events can be generated if detection of a disposal occurs, but the specific item identification and/or mapping to its associated meta-data fails. This could occur as a result of a failure in the physical detection device, loss of bar code or RF tag, or failure in the pattern recognition system, or upon disposal of an item that has not been catalogued properly.  
         [0017]     One of the preferred implementations of the present invention is an application program  41  made up of programming steps or instructions resident in RAM  14 ,  FIG. 1 , during computer operations. Until required by the computer system, the program instructions may be stored in another readable medium, e.g. disk drive  20 , or in a removable memory such as an optical disk for use in a CD ROM computer input or in a floppy disk for use in a floppy disk drive computer input. One skilled in the art should appreciate that the processes controlling the present invention are capable of being distributed in the form of computer readable media of a variety of forms.  
         [0018]     Although certain preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that many changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the scope and intent of the appended claims.