Patent ID: 6871321

Claim:
A computer-implemented system for managing a collection of mutually dependent information contents that are networked over the Web, said system comprising: a collection of Web documents, which are a content net, that comes with computer-executable representations of dependency relationships among elements of the Web documents; means for automatically propagating updates that are introduced in elements of the Web documents to all elements of the Web documents that depend on the updated elements; a dependency structure analysis module operable to given a set of updated activated elements, identify its update candidate set, which contains all active elements, or corresponding content variables, which depend on at least one of the active elements in the given set, and determine at least one of the presence and absence of cyclic dependencies among active elements in the Web documents in the content net; a module operable to, given an update candidate set, recursively update elements in the update candidate set; a station as at least one of a collection of ports and a port complex for interchanging information over the Web, said station being a browser-based presentation of a Web document representing information contents in a content net; a station net, which is a collection of said stations that are networked over the Web and which is accessible to human users in the Web environment, wherein each said station in the collection is derived from a Web document representing information contents in a designated content net; wherein said station comprises: internal reference ports operable to receive information from sources within said station net containing said station; external reference ports operable to receive information from applications including database applications outside said station net; initial ports operable to send information to other ports within said station net containing said station; and a local port operable to keep information within said station for local use.