Overview
Aries Systems maintains a substantial electronic presence on the World Wide Web (WWW), offering high performance access to medical reference databases, including the MEDLINE database from the National Library of Medicine (other databases will be made available over the course of the coming year).

Aries' proven Knowledge Finder® search technology lies at the heart of these WWW services. Knowledge Finder, perhaps one of the most effective medical literature search systems available today, supports natural language queries and provides relevance-ranked search results. Through use of Aries' proprietary CHAMP (Clustered Host, Asymmetric MultiProcessor) search server technology, performance and response times are maintained at truly impressive and effective levels. In some cases this performance is an order of magnitude better than other services offering WWW access to MEDLINE.

For both the casual and professional user of these databases, ease, power and speed of use are the factors that make the difference - the difference that Knowledge Finder on the Web offers.

To make Knowledge Finder as widely available as possible on the WWW, Aries is offering innovative partnership opportunities for qualifying institutions and organizations that maintain substantial, medically-focused Web sites. These partnerships offer the Knowledge Web partner minimal or modest cost access to Aries' medical reference databases, thereby significantly enhancing the value of their site to themselves and their site visitors.

The Knowledge Web Partnership
A Knowledge Web Partnership may be established at either the Gold or Platinum levels.

Features of Gold and Platinum Partnerships
Both Gold and Platinum Partnerships provide for the following:

• Aries will provide to the Partner a free access path to Aries' Knowledge Web MEDLINE search services, at a usage level of one (1) Concurrent User. This means that any number of individuals can use the search service, but no more than one search session may be active at a single point in time.
• Access to the service will be through a Web page link, located in the top portion of the Partner's Web site home page (i.e., the portion of the page that first appears when the page is displayed on a client browser. Clicking on this link will send a search screen page request to Aries' Knowledge Web server. The link identity will occupy approximately two (2) square inches on the Partner's home page, substantially as shown.

• Use of the Knowledge Web Advanced Mode search interface. In addition to the free-text fuzzy logic searching, this interface supports:

  • Boolean logic searching, with AND, OR and NOT operators (including nested parenthesization).
  • Use of fuzzy or exact word matching.
  • Selection of Relevance or Recency sorting of search results.
  • Search time range selection (Unabridged MEDLINE, 1966-present, Platinum Partnerships)
  • Choice of number of entries in each search results summary page.
• If more than one client attempts to access the search service at the same time, a Web page will be sent to the client, indicating that they can either try again later, or register as a direct subscriber to Aries search service.
• Usage reporting will assist the Partner in assessing the effectiveness of the Knowledge Web Partnership. Reports will be supplied to the Partner, upon request, identifying the frequency in any month of:

  • The total number of search sessions
  • The aggregate duration of the sessions
  • The number of times that the concurrent user limit was reached
• The Partner may elect (optionally) that the MEDLINE access be limited to a particular class of clients. This authorization control would be implemented on the Partner's Web server, activated when the Knowledge Web link is activated on the Partner's home page. This will allow the Partner to offer preferential access to particular individuals or groups, to whom the Partner would issue the appropriate username and password.
• Each Web page transmitted from Aries' Knowledge Web site may incorporate an independent commercial sponsorship message. All maintenance and logistics associated with such sponsorship will handled by Aries.
• Aries pays all costs of maintaining and operating the Knowledge Web search service.

Additional Features of Platinum Partnerships
In addition to the above features and benefits, a Platinum-level Partnership offers:

• The opportunity to purchase additional Concurrent User access, at whatever level the Partner deems appropriate. Additional Concurrent User access is offered on an annual subscription basis, at rates (see below) based on the number of additional Concurrent Users required.
• The opportunity to purchase "pre-emptive" commercial sponsorship on Knowledge Web search services pages sent to clients. This sponsorship is available at 50% of Aries' standard rates for commercial message presentation.
• Access to other Knowledge Web medical reference databases, at Aries' standard commercial rates.
• The link interface will ensure that the client may only use the search service link if the link is physically activated from the Partner's Home Page. This will assure that the Partner's Home Page is visited by the client before linking to the search service. If the client attempts to link directly to the search service (through a bookmark, for example), Knowledge Web will return a message asking the client to first visit the Partner's site. This message will include an explicit link back to the Partner's home page.

Partnership Eligibility Criteria
In order to qualify for the Gold Knowledge Web Partnership, the Partner must:

• Maintain a permanent Web server site, directly connected to the Internet, at a speed of no less than 56Kbps (thousand bits/second), with a registered domain name.
• Operate the Web site primarily focused on medicine/biomedicine (i.e., at least 75% of the site content, including the home page) must address medicine/biomedicine.
• Submit a Partnership application, approval of which is at Aries' sole discretion.
• Log at least 1,000 home page hits per day.
• Provide a top-of-home-page link to Knowledge Web searching, with a minimum 2 square inch identity (style and content to be mutually agreed upon) including the Knowledge Finder identity.
• Agree to actively promote the presence of the Partner's Web site as part of the Partner's overall organizational business and marketing strategy.

In order to qualify for the Platinum Knowledge Web Partnership, the Partner must further:

• Purchase one or more additional Concurrent User licenses.

Technical Implementation
Aries provides the partner with the HTML link to be associated with the link graphic. This link identifies the Knowledge Web script that will present the search page to the user, and the Partner's username and password.

When the link is activated, the partnership login script is executed, and tests to see if the username and password are valid (and the account active), and also whether the referring URL matches the Partner's home page. Appropriate error message are returned to the client if necessary.

A test is then made to see if an available Concurrent User license is available. If so, the search session begins, and continues until the idle timeout limit is reached. Access is to the Advanced MEDLINE Web page only.

If no Concurrent User licenses are available, a Web page is sent to the client indicating that they can try again later (with a link back to the Partner's home page), or that they can register and subscribe for direct, personal access at Aries' web site.

Participation Costs and Terms

Concurrent User Annual Subscription Rates

1. Costs for Concurrent User licenses are:

2. All Partnership accounts incur a nominal, non-refundable $250 per year account setup/maintenance charge.

3. All Partnership agreements are offered on a one-year term basis. Either party may terminate the agreement at the end of any term.

4. Aries Systems Corporation shall retain sole right of determination of features to be provided through the Partnership services.

Disclaimer
The information provided in this document is subject to change without notice. Aries Systems Corporation assumes no responsibility or liability for damages or claims resulting from such changes.