50th week of 2010 patent applcation highlights part 51 |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20100318329 | DEVICE-LAYOUT GUIDING APPARATUS AND DEVICE-LAYOUT GUIDING METHOD - There are included a location-information management unit that manages location information of devices arranged in a spatial layout on a screen, a device-feature management unit that manages device features of the devices, a guide-information generation unit that reads the location information and the device features of the devices arranged in the spatial layout from the location-information management unit and the device-feature management unit respectively and generates device-layout guide information allowing for the device features of the devices based on the read location information and device features of the devices, and a monitor unit that guides and displays the device-layout guide information generated by the guide-information generation unit. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318330 | SYSTEM AND METHOD OF SIMULATING WITH RESPECT TO SPHEROID REFERENCE MODELS USING LOCAL SURFACE COORDINATES - Described are a method and system for describing a position of an entity in a three-dimensional coordinate system with respect to the reference model. The reference model is of a three-dimensional curved surface defined in the three-dimensional coordinate system. The three-dimensional curved surface is divided into a set of cells. Each cell is a subset of the three-dimensional curved surface and has a curved surface. A three-dimensional curvilinear coordinate system is defined for each cellin the set of cells. The three-dimensional curvilinear coordinate system for each cell has a curvilinear axis that extends along the curved surface of that cell. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318331 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF CALCULATING ELECTRON DYNAMICS USING SPIN-DEPENDENT QUANTUM TRAJECTORIES - Methods and systems for calculating electron or ion dynamics using spin-dependent quantum trajectories are disclosed. According to one exemplary embodiment of the present invention, electron or ion dynamics are obtained by solving a set of equations for electrons' motion using spin-dependent quantum trajectories calculated from electron current with one equation for each electron in the atomic structure of a material of interest. The set of equations is time-dependent Schrödinger or Dirac equations for the nonrelativistic and relativistic regime, respectively. The electron current contains a set of spin-dependent terms that guarantee Fermi-Dirac statistics are obeyed. Steady state solution of the set of equations for electrons' motion is a set of wave functions in a three-dimensional space and in time. The spin-dependent quantum trajectories for each of the electrons are updated at each solution cycle, and therefore, mean-field approximation is avoided. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318332 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR CONTACT SIMULATION USING LAYERED DEPTH IMAGES - A method for the interactive simulation of an intersection between at least two volumetric objects modelled using geometric primitives. The method first includes applying a Layered Depth Image (LDI) algorithm along a first display axis in order to determine a set of contact pixels. The method further includes: —calculating an intersection volume (V) from the contact pixels; —at each summit of the geometric primitives, calculating a partial derivative of the size of the intersection volume (V) relative to the coordinate of the summit along the projection axis; repeating the preceding steps for the two other orthogonal display axes in order to determine a vector containing the partial derivatives of the size of the volume relative to the coordinates of each of the summits; and—at each summit, associating a force f calculated from the partial derivatives. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318333 | Using symbolic evaluation to validate models that have incomplete information - An arrangement calculates a description of potential responses of a distributed system in response to at least one input stimulus. The distributed system including nodes whose operation is described by respective node behavior descriptions. The method involves applying symbolic evaluation to plural node behavior descriptions so as to produce plural response descriptions that describe responses of nodes, and combining at least the plural response descriptions so as to arrive at the description of potential responses of the distributed system. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318334 | DATA ANALYSIS APPARATUS, DATA ANALYSIS METHOD, AND PROGRAM - The data analysis apparatus ( | 2010-12-16 |
20100318335 | Method for Selecting an Optimized Tire Configuration for a Road Vehicle Such as a Racing Car or Motorcycle - A method for selecting, from a set of possible configurations, an optimized tire configuration for fitting a vehicle intended to run on a circuit following a predefined route, oriented in a single course direction (SU) and including bends. This method comprises: developing a physical model of the vehicle fitted with a first tire configuration; simulating the route course by the modeled vehicle, optimizing the speed of said vehicle; storing in memory the course time taken by the vehicle to cover the route at least once; comparing the course time to at least one reference time and producing a comparison result; and optionally selecting the first configuration at the optimized configuration as a function of the comparison result. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318336 | Method of modeling dynamic characteristics of a flight vehicle - The present invention models dynamic behavior of flight vehicles for simulation, analysis, and design. The present invention allows a user to define the complexity of a flight vehicle model, and such models may be simple rigid body models, models of medium complexity, or very complex models including high order dynamics comprising hundreds of structural flexibility modes and variables related to aero-elasticity, fuel sloshing, various types of effectors, tail-wags-dog dynamics, complex actuator models, load-torque feedback, wind gusts, and other parameters impacting flight vehicles. The present invention accommodates and analyzes multiple vehicle and actuator concepts and configurations as defined in flight vehicle input data, which specifies flight vehicle parameters at a steady-state condition for modeling flight vehicle response to dynamic forces and flight control commands with respect to steady state operation. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318337 | METHOD, APPARATUS AND SYSTEM FOR MODELED CARBON SEQUESTRATION - Methods, systems and apparatuses are provided for facilitating sequestration of naturally occurring or anthropogenic carbon dioxide. The methods, systems and apparatuses of the present invention include a software interface for facilitating an exchange of data among associated simulators which simulate various steps of the carbon sequestration process. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318338 | System and Method For Implementing A Trace Interface - A system and method for selectively capturing and storing emulation data results from a hardware emulation system, which reduces the data bandwidth requirement and the unnecessary consumption of the DRAM memory capacity by uninteresting data. According to one embodiment, a system comprises a trace array for storing one or more frames of data; a first set of hardware control bits that enables the trace array to selectively capture non-continuous windows of data within a frame of data; a data capture card; and a second set of hardware control bits that enables the data capture card to capture a select frame of data from the one or more frames of data stored on the trace array. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318339 | SIMULATION CONTROLS FOR MODEL VARIABLITY AND RANDOMNESS - A tool for simulating an industrial control system is provided. The tool includes a simulation component to emulate one or more simulation models according to a simulated execution environment. A switch component is associated with the simulation component to selectively enable or disable variability in the simulation models. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318340 | METHOD OF GENERATING A LEADFRAME IC PACKAGE MODEL, A LEADFRAME MODELER AND AN IC DESIGN SYSTEM - A method of generating a model of a leadframe IC package, a leadframe modeler and an IC design system are disclosed. In one embodiment the method includes: (1) adding connectivity information to a geometric representation of a leadframe, wherein the connectivity information represents electrical connections between the IC die and leads of the leadframe and (2) formatting the leads to represent BGA point of contacts for the IC die. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318341 | COMPUTER PRODUCT, DESIGN SUPPORT APPARATUS, AND DESIGN SUPPORT METHOD - A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium stores therein a program that causes a processor to execute inputting a driving capability value, a lumped-constant capacitance value, and an input capacitance value included in the lumped-constant capacitance value, respectively defined in a circuit model, and further inputting a first delay time of the circuit model, based on the driving capability value and the lumped-constant capacitance value; setting in the circuit model, the driving capability value, the lumped-constant capacitance value, and the input capacitance value; acquiring a second delay time of the circuit model, by providing to a simulator, the circuit model having values set therein; calculating a relative evaluation value for the first delay time and the second delay time; and storing to a storage apparatus and as a delay time correcting coefficient, the relative evaluation value correlated with the driving capability value, the lumped-constant capacitance value, and the input capacitance value. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318342 | MODEL GENERATING METHOD AND DEVICE AND RECORDING MEDIUM - A method includes causing a circuit simulator to perform a circuit simulation using circuit data stored in a storage, the circuit data containing a module to be modeled and a circuit for making a change to a clock to be inputted into the module and clock setting data stored in a storage, the clock setting data being intended to, at a predetermined timing, make a change to the clock to be inputted into the module, and storing a result of the circuit simulation in a simulation result data storage; and generating a hidden markov model about input and output signals of the module from values and times of the signals in accordance with a predetermined algorithm, the values and times being contained in the circuit simulation result stored in the simulation result data storage, and storing data about the model in a hidden markov model data storage. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318343 | SMART DATA ACCESS LAYER FOR SUPERVISORY INFORMATION SYSTEM - One embodiment of the application provides a method and system for selecting a template characterizing a power plant from a template base, the template base including a plurality of templates and creating a power plant model of the power plant using the first template, the power plant model including a plurality of modules arranged in a hierarchical tree array having at least one tree branch, wherein each of the plurality of modules includes a plurality of attributes of the power plant that are arranged to be accessed by a data access layer using a tag name which includes names of ancestor modules in the tree branch. Additionally, the method and system also provides for mapping the plurality of attributes to specific applications of the power plant using the data access layer and configuring the power plant with the plurality of attributes using the data access layer. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318344 | System and Method Implementing A Simulation Acceleration Capture Buffer - A system and method for capturing and delivering emulation data from a hardware emulation system to a simulator running on a host workstation without considerably sacrificing emulation speed or sacrificing the emulation capacity available for a user's logic design. According to one embodiment, a system, comprises a logic software simulator running on a host workstation; a hardware emulation system having a system bus and an emulator chip, the emulator chip includes: an emulation processor cluster, and a capture buffer connected to the system bus; and a high-speed interface connecting the host workstation to the system bus of the hardware emulator, wherein the capture buffer captures a select output of the emulation processor cluster. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318345 | System and Method Implementing Full-Rate Writes For Simulation Acceleration - A system and method for writing simulation acceleration data from a host workstation to a hardware emulation system without considerably sacrificing emulation speed or sacrificing the emulation capacity available for a user's logic design. According to one embodiment, a system comprises a logic software simulator running on a host workstation; a hardware emulation system having a system bus arid an emulator chip, the emulator chip includes: an emulation processor that generates emulation data, and a data array connected to the system bus; and a high-speed interface connecting the host workstation to the system bus of the hardware emulator, wherein simulation acceleration data from the host workstation are written to the data array of the emulator chip using the system bus. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318346 | SECOND LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING - The invention has as its objective to aid an individual proficient in a first language in learning the pronunciation and spelling of a second language. To achieve this objective, a language teaching device comprises a processor, a memory, a presentation screen, an audio component and an input unit. The memory has a database, audio files and games. The database is structured to have at least three subsets. The first subset lists spelling patterns in the first and second languages which have similar pronunciations and words in the second language which exemplify the pronunciation. A second subset lists spelling patterns and words in the second language exemplifying a pronunciation not found in the first language, the listed spelling patterns and associated pronunciation in the second subset follow a general rule of pronunciation in the second language. A third subset lists spelling patterns and words exemplifying a spelling pattern and associated pronunciation occurring in fewer than a predetermined number of words in the second language set of words. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318347 | Content-Based Audio Playback Emphasis - Techniques are disclosed for facilitating the process of proofreading draft transcripts of spoken audio streams. In general, proofreading of a draft transcript is facilitated by playing back the corresponding spoken audio stream with an emphasis on those regions in the audio stream that are highly relevant or likely to have been transcribed incorrectly. Regions may be emphasized by, for example, playing them back more slowly than regions that are of low relevance and likely to have been transcribed correctly. Emphasizing those regions of the audio stream that are most important to transcribe correctly and those regions that are most likely to have been transcribed incorrectly increases the likelihood that the proofreader will accurately correct any errors in those regions, thereby improving the overall accuracy of the transcript. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318348 | APPLYING A STRUCTURED LANGUAGE MODEL TO INFORMATION EXTRACTION - One feature of the present invention uses the parsing capabilities of a structured language model in the information extraction process. During training, the structured language model is first initialized with syntactically annotated training data. The model is then trained by generating parses on semantically annotated training data enforcing annotated constituent boundaries. The syntactic labels in the parse trees generated by the parser are then replaced with joint syntactic and semantic labels. The model is then trained by generating parses on the semantically annotated training data enforcing the semantic tags or labels found in the training data. The trained model can then be used to extract information from test data using the parses generated by the model. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318349 | SYNTHESIS OF LOST BLOCKS OF A DIGITAL AUDIO SIGNAL, WITH PITCH PERIOD CORRECTION - The present invention relates to signal modification before pitch period repetition for the synthesis of blocks lost on decoding digital audio signals. The effects of repetition of transitories, such as the plosives of a speech signal, are avoided by comparing the samples of a pitch period with those of the previous pitch period. The signal is modified preferentially by taking the minimum between a current sample (e( | 2010-12-16 |
20100318350 | VOICE BAND EXPANSION DEVICE, VOICE BAND EXPANSION METHOD, AND COMMUNICATION APPARATUS - A voice band expansion device includes a time-frequency converter that calculates a frequency spectrum of a voice signal having a first frequency band; a separator that extracts, from the frequency spectrum, an envelope amplitude spectrum, a periodic amplitude spectrum, and a random amplitude spectrum; an envelope amplitude spectrum band expander that expands a frequency band to a second frequency band that is different from the first frequency band; a periodic amplitude spectrum band expander that expands a frequency band to the second frequency band; a random amplitude spectrum band expander that expands a frequency band of the random amplitude spectrum to the second frequency band; a broadband spectrum calculator that calculates a broadband frequency spectrum having the first frequency band and the second frequency band; and a frequency-time converter generates a voice signal having the first frequency band and the second frequency band. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318351 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OBTAINING A MESSAGE TYPE IDENTIFIER THROUGH AN IN-BAND MODEM - A system and method is provided for obtaining a message type identifier through a speech codec (in-band) such as found in a wireless communication network. A first predetermined sequence with noise-like characteristics is detected and identifies a first message type. A second predetermined sequence with noise-like characteristics is detected and identifies a second message type. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318352 | METHOD AND MEANS FOR ENCODING BACKGROUND NOISE INFORMATION - The invention relates to a method and means for encoding background noise information during voice signal encoding methods. A basic idea of the invention is to provide the scalability known for transmitting voice information in a similar manner when forming an SID frame. The invention provides encoding of a narrowband first component and of a broadband second component of a piece of background noise information and formation of an SID frame which describes the background noise with separate areas for the first and second components. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318353 | COMPRESSOR AUGMENTED ARRAY PROCESSING - The present invention relates generally to the use of compressors, with an optional noise extractor, to improve audio sensing performance of one or more microphones. The audio sensing performance of a single element microphone array with dynamic range compression can be improved by the use of a noise extractor, to modify the operation of the compressor, typically to avoid noise floor amplification. Dynamic range compression can be applied to the output of two or more element microphone array processing with the optional use of a noise extractor. Dynamic range compression can precede the microphone array processing with the optional use of a noise extractor. Syllabic dynamic range compression may be used in one or more element microphone arrays, with the optional use of a noise extractor, which increases speech recognition accuracy. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318354 | NOISE ADAPTIVE TRAINING FOR SPEECH RECOGNITION - Technologies are described herein for noise adaptive training to achieve robust automatic speech recognition. Through the use of these technologies, a noise adaptive training (NAT) approach may use both clean and corrupted speech for training. The NAT approach may normalize the environmental distortion as part of the model training. A set of underlying “pseudo-clean” model parameters may be estimated directly. This may be done without point estimation of clean speech features as an intermediate step. The pseudo-clean model parameters learned from the NAT technique may be used with a Vector Taylor Series (VTS) adaptation. Such adaptation may support decoding noisy utterances during the operating phase of a automatic voice recognition system. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318355 | MODEL TRAINING FOR AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION FROM IMPERFECT TRANSCRIPTION DATA - Techniques and systems for training an acoustic model are described. In an embodiment, a technique for training an acoustic model includes dividing a corpus of training data that includes transcription errors into N parts, and on each part, decoding an utterance with an incremental acoustic model and an incremental language model to produce a decoded transcription. The technique may further include inserting silence between a pair of words into the decoded transcription and aligning an original transcription corresponding to the utterance with the decoded transcription according to time for each part. The technique may further include selecting a segment from the utterance having at least Q contiguous matching aligned words, and training the incremental acoustic model with the selected segment. The trained incremental acoustic model may then be used on a subsequent part of the training data. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318356 | APPLICATION OF USER-SPECIFIED TRANSFORMATIONS TO AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION RESULTS - Textual transcription of speech is generated and formatted according to user-specified transformation and behavior requirements for a speech recognition system having input grammars and transformations. An apparatus may include a speech recognition platform configured to receive a user-specified transformation requirement, recognize speech in speech data into recognized speech according to a set of recognition grammars; and apply transformations to the recognized speech according to the user-specified transformation requirement. The apparatus may further be configured to receive a user-specified behavior requirement and transform the recognized speech according to the behavior requirement. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318357 | VOICE CONTROL OF MULTIMEDIA CONTENT - Techniques are described for managing various types of content in various ways, such as based on voice commands or other voice-based control instructions provided by a user. In some situations, at least some of the content being managed includes content of a variety of types, such as music and other audio information, photos, images, non-television video information, videogames, Internet Web pages and other data, etc., which may be managed via the voice controls in a variety of ways, such as to allow a user to locate and identify content of potential interest, to schedule recordings of selected content, to manage previously recorded content (e.g., to play or delete the content), to control live television, etc. This abstract is provided to comply with rules requiring it, and is submitted with the intention that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318358 | RECOGNIZER WEIGHT LEARNING DEVICE, SPEECH RECOGNIZING DEVICE, AND SYSTEM - A speech recognition apparatus ( | 2010-12-16 |
20100318359 | APPLICATION-DEPENDENT INFORMATION FOR RECOGNITION PROCESSING - Architecture for integrating application-dependent information into a constraints component at deployment time or when available. In terms of a general grammar, the constraints component can include or be a general grammar that comprises application-independent information and is structured in such a way that application-dependent information can be integrated into the general grammar without loss of fidelity. The general grammar includes a probability space and reserves a section of the probability space for the integration of application-dependent information. An integration component integrates the application-dependent information into the reserved section of the probability space for recognition processing. The application-dependent information is integrated into the reserved section of the probability space at deployment time or when available. The general grammar is structured to support the integration and improve the overall system. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318360 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR EXTRACTING MESSAGES - The present invention is a method and system for extracting messages from a person using the body features presented by a user. The present invention captures a set of images and extracts a first set of body features, along with a set of contexts, and a set of meanings. From the first set of body features, the set of contexts, and the set of meanings, the present invention generates a set of words corresponding to the message that the person is attempting to convey. The present invention can also use the body features of the person in addition to the voice of the person to further improve the accuracy of extracting the person's message. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318361 | Context-Relevant Images - Assistive, context-relevant images may be provided. First, text may be received. Then a spell check indication may be received and a spelling check may be performed on the received text in response to the received spell check indication. Next, in response to the performed spelling check, a misspelling indication may be provided configured to indicate that at least one word in the received text is misspelled. A selection of the misspelling indication may then be received. Then, on a display device in response to the received selection of the misspelling indication, a plurality of suggested spellings for the at least one word and an image corresponding to a first one of the plurality of suggested spellings for the at least one word may be displayed. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318362 | Systems and Methods for Multiple Voice Document Narration - Disclosed are techniques and systems to provide a narration of a text in multiple different voices where the portions of the text narrated using the different voices are selected by a user. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318363 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROCESSING INDICIA FOR DOCUMENT NARRATION - Disclosed are techniques and systems to provide a narration of a text in multiple different voices. Further disclosed are techniques and systems for processing indicia in a document to determine a portion of words and associating a particular a voice model with the portion of words based on the indicia. During a readback process, an audible output corresponding to the words in the portion of words is generated using the voice model associated with the portion of words. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318364 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SELECTION AND USE OF MULTIPLE CHARACTERS FOR DOCUMENT NARRATION - Disclosed are techniques and systems to provide a narration of a text in multiple different voices. Further disclosed are techniques and systems for generating an audible output in which different portions of a text are narrated using voice models associated with different characters. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318365 | Method and Apparatus for Configuring Web-based data for Distribution to Users Accessing a Voice Portal System - In a system for developing and deploying a voice application using Web-based data as source data over a communications network to one or more recipients, a method for organizing, editing, and prioritizing the Web-based data before dialog creation is provided. The method includes harvesting the Web-based data source in the form of its original structure; generating an object tree representing the logical structure and content type of the harvested, Web-based data source; manipulating the object tree generated to a desired hierarchal structure and content; creating a voice application template in VXML and populating the template with the manipulated object tree; and creating a voice application capable of accessing the Web-based data source according to the constraints of the template. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318366 | Touch Anywhere to Speak - The present invention provides a user interface for providing press-to-talk-interaction via utilization of a touch-anywhere-to-speak module on a mobile computing device. Upon receiving an indication of a touch anywhere on the screen of a touch screen interface, the touch-anywhere-to-speak module activates the listening mechanism of a speech recognition module to accept audible user input and displays dynamic visual feedback of a measured sound level of the received audible input. The touch-anywhere-to-speak module may also provide a user a convenient and more accurate speech recognition experience by utilizing and applying the data relative to a context of the touch (e.g., relative location on the visual interface) in correlation with the spoken audible input. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318367 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR UPDATING STATUS OF SYNTHESIS FILTERS - A method and device for updating statuses of synthesis filters are provided. The method includes: exciting a synthesis filter corresponding to a first encoding rate by using an excitation signal of the first encoding rate, outputting reconstructed signal information, and updating status information of the synthesis filter and a synthesis filter corresponding to a second encoding rate. In the present disclosure, the status of the synthesis filter corresponding to the current rate and the statuses of the synthesis filters at other rates are updated. Thus, synchronization between the statuses of the synthesis filters corresponding to different rates at the encoding terminal may be realized, thereby facilitating the consistency of the reconstructed signals of the encoding and decoding terminals when the encoding rate is switched, and improving the quality of the reconstructed signal of the decoding terminal. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318368 | QUANTIZATION AND INVERSE QUANTIZATION FOR AUDIO - An audio encoder and decoder use architectures and techniques that improve the efficiency of quantization (e.g., weighting) and inverse quantization (e.g., inverse weighting) in audio coding and decoding. The described strategies include various techniques and tools, which can be used in combination or independently. For example, an audio encoder quantizes audio data in multiple channels, applying multiple channel-specific quantizer step modifiers, which give the encoder more control over balancing reconstruction quality between channels. The encoder also applies multiple quantization matrices and varies the resolution of the quantization matrices, which allows the encoder to use more resolution if overall quality is good and use less resolution if overall quality is poor. Finally, the encoder compresses one or more quantization matrices using temporal prediction to reduce the bitrate associated with the quantization matrices. An audio decoder performs corresponding inverse processing and decoding. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318369 | DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM - A document management system creates a copy of a first purchase document when a request to modify the first purchase document is received. The copy of the first purchase document is a second purchase document. The system receives modifications for the second purchase document. The system requests approval of the modifications of the second purchase document. The system receives approval of the modifications of the second purchase document. The system integrates the modifications of the second purchase document into the first purchase document. The first purchase document remains active at least after the second purchase document is created and before the receiving approval. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318370 | WEB SERVICE INTERACTION IN A DYNAMICALLY EXTENSIBLE BUSINESS APPLICATION - A method of binding a web service to a business application includes dynamically extending the executable code of the business application while the business application is being executed by a networked web service client device. The dynamic extension of the business application creates a persistent customizable web service interaction between the business application and a selected web service. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318371 | COMPREHENSIVE HAZARD EVALUATION SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CHEMICALS AND PRODUCTS - A comprehensive hazard evaluation system and method for chemicals and products. The system includes a memory and a processor. The memory stores the component make-up for each of a number of products. The memory also stores an environmental hazard score, an environmental health hazard score, and a physical hazard score for each component. A product hazard score is determined and stored based on the environmental hazard score, the environmental health hazard score, and the physical hazard score. The processor is operable to process user request and to display the product hazard score for at least one product on a display. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318372 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DYNAMICALLY OPTIMIZED ELIGIBILITY DETERMINATION, DATA ACQUISITION, AND APPLICATION COMPLETION - The apparatus and methods disclosed herein provide a convenient and efficient computer-based process methodology for identifying and qualifying people for different solutions and outcomes and enrolling and/or registering people in appropriate programs as they are identified. The most preferred embodiments of the present invention comprise one or more structured computerized databases comprising: a set of outcomes, each with a corresponding set of appropriately-expressed eligibility requirements; a set of applications or forms and their corresponding necessary and unique named data elements, or variables, which may or may not relate to the aforementioned set of outcomes; a set of questions corresponding to the set of variables, each question relating to one or more variables; a set of question scripts corresponding to the set of questions, with one script per question; a set of question help prompt scripts corresponding to the set of questions, with one help prompt per question; a set of interview constructs that semantically relate sets of questions; and a subject definition comprised of named locations used to store variables and their corresponding values. Given the database and elements described above, the most preferred embodiments of the present invention comprise a system that performs: eligibility determination; data acquisition; and forms or application completion using collected data elements. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318373 | Carbon footprint determination device - A carbon footprint calculator that carries out certain parts of the detection of the carbon footprint automatically. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318374 | Determining influencers - The present disclosure relates generally to determining influencers in a Web 2.0 environment. More specifically, in some implementations, an influence of an electronically-accessed content on an involvement between an accessor and a third party is determined. In further implementations, a provider of the electronically accessed content is rewarded based on the assessed influence. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318375 | System and Method for Localized Valuations of Media Assets - An engine, system and method for selecting at least one endorser for use in one or more advertisements. The engine, system and method may include a talent library including a plurality of electronic media assets delineated by respective ones of the at least one endorser, a mention tracker that electronically tracks mentions of the media assets, and that assigns at least one metric to each of the mentions, and a graphical user display that displays the metrics correspondent to a selected one of the at least one endorser based on ones selected from a plurality of geographies, wherein the selected ones of the geographies are a situs of ones of the mentions. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318376 | MESSAGE-PASSING PROTOCOL BETWEEN ENTITIES HAVING DISSIMILAR CAPABILITIES - A system is described for conducting a communication exchange between at least a first entity and a second entity. In operation, the first entity and the second entity implement a communication mechanism that relies on a common set of method modules. Each method module may receive a message that conveys a particular action selected from a hierarchical collection of possible actions. By selecting a particular action, an entity which sends such a message may attempt to invoke a particular version of a message exchange between the entities. Through this provision, the communication exchange accommodates the situation in which different entities have different respective functionalities. According to one case, the system can be applied to the situation in which entities engage in a communication exchange to manage a resource. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318377 | BREAST MILK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD AND ELEMENTS FOR USE THEREWITH - The invention relates to minimizing errors in expressed breast milk feeding in NICU/PICU and other environments. A container of expressed breast milk is labeled with information unique to mother and child. The information may be used to access a system of information about the expressed breast milk, mother's identity, child's identity, location of the breast milk, dates relevant to the breast milk such as express date, receipt, and expiration, and other information such as fortification prior to feeding or feeding by syringe. Other information about the breast milk may be added to the system such as transfer location, use, feeding, disposal, etc. The invention may provide for validation of the identity of the baby to receive the breast milk at the time of feeding, and may also provide for validation at the time of feeding of the container, bottle or syringe as containing the breast milk of the identified mother. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318378 | Patient Bed Search and Management System - An automated search system uses data indicating clinical and non-clinical needs of a patient to provide a ranked list of candidate beds, status of beds and availability of a specific type of bed having a particular set of clinical attributes, using a score value derived using configurable rules for comparing patient requirements with bed characteristics. A patient bed search system includes at least one repository including bed information for multiple beds in a healthcare facility comprising multiple clinical attributes including current availability for individual beds of the multiple beds. A bed management processor automatically employs the bed information in providing data representing a candidate list of beds for a particular patient in response to clinical and non-clinical requirements associated with the particular patient and a request to allocate a bed for the particular patient. A user interface generates data representing at least one display image presenting the candidate list of beds for a particular patient. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318379 | USE OF INTERNET SITE AS A REGISTRY FOR RESULTS OF MEDICAL TESTS - Results of medical tests for sexually transmissible diseases (STDs) or other medical conditions such as drug use are posted to a registry site accessible by a subscriber and any authorized guest of the subscriber. The medical test results are associated with a verification of the subscriber's identity. The verification may be in the form of a driver's license number, or other indicia of identification, recorded when a test sample was drawn by a testing lab affiliated with the registry site. Results of the test performed by the testing lab are automatically posted to the registry site, along with the customer ID assigned to the subscriber when registering with the registry site, and the verification of the subscriber's identity. Subsequently, the subscriber and any authorized guest or prospective sexual partner can access the subscriber's test results and the verification of the subscriber's identity by entering a predefined password or other access code, thereby enabling the guest, who may be a prospective sexual partner, to verify a medical condition asserted by the subscriber. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318380 | CONTROLLER FOR TELEMEDICINE APPLICATIONS - A controller is configured to allow flexible control of information distribution for telemedical assistance being provided via a telemedicine workplace for a treatment carried out in a treatment room. The controller is configured for receiving medical information from a medical modality or storage system for medical information, forwarding the received medical information to a display of the treatment room, controlling the forwarding of information to the treatment room, forwarding the received medical information to a display of the telemedicine workplace, and controlling the forwarding of the received medical information to the telemedicine workplace. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318381 | PANEL DIAGNOSTIC METHOD AND SYSTEM - A method and system for computerized medical diagnostics is disclosed. Beginning with interacting with a patient or a healthcare professional via a diagnostic module to obtain patient health items, the system automatically obtains an initial differential diagnosis and multiple strategy differential diagnoses based on the patient health items. In one embodiment, each strategy differential diagnosis is obtained with different analysis criteria of the patient health items. At least a portion of the strategy differential diagnoses are compared and a panel differential diagnosis based on the compared differential diagnoses is determined. The initial diagnosis and the panel differential diagnosis are reconciled so as to recommend an action or provide a diagnosis to the patient or the healthcare professional. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318382 | Just-In-Time Insurer's Flooring Evaluation and Replacement System - The present invention is directed to a system, and method for making and using the same, for an on-site evaluation of flooring materials, condition, and value, and further, for providing replacement flooring. The present invention provides an effective and uniform way to more objectively evaluate flooring and/or provide replacement flooring to the benefit of both an insurer and a customer. More specifically, the present invention relates to a flooring evaluation system which includes flooring evaluators equipped with a portable apparatus for evaluating flooring which includes an objective evaluation approach using evaluation logic to determine a current monetary market value, or “as new” or pre-use value, which takes into account flooring characteristics, and/or a depreciated value which takes into account loss factors such as wear, appearance, and other degradative considerations. Further, the system of the present invention can include flooring providers which participate in the installation of a selected replacement flooring. The present invention is directed to a n interconnected system which includes estimation logic, project management logic and installation logic for managing an insurance claim from start to finish in a just in time fashion. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318383 | INTERACTIVE CREDENTIAL SYSTEM AND METHOD - The interactive credential system and method has a database containing employee-employer-applicant surveyed information, industry specific criteria, such as insurance loss history and account performance, an authorization code for authorizing access to the database and a control device, operatively associated with the database, for presenting weighted scores. The system further includes a surveyed party processor operatively associated with the control device, and wherein the surveyed party processor is capable of transmitting the authorization code to view the surveyed information. The system also has a participant processor that is capable of requesting authorization to download the employee-employer-applicant information, including weighted scores computed from the system's algorithms processed from industry specific parameters. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318384 | METHOD OF PURCHASING A TICKET FOR A JOURNEY ON TRANSPORTATION MEANS - A method of purchasing, paying for and validating a journey wherein the traveler books the journey via a mobile telephone, on the Internet or at a booking terminal of a travel agency. The method includes starting in a superordinate data system including a database an account K that can be billed and a number A. The parameters K and A are stored in the database. An identification unit including an identification number R is transferred to the traveler and is stored in the database coupled to the parameters K and A. The traveller purchases a journey L by connecting his phone to the data system, in which L is stored in the database coupled to the stored identification number R. A validation unit reads the identification number R. A check is carried out in a database to ascertain that a journey L tied to the identification number R has been purchased. A signalling device indicates whether or not a journey L has been bought. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318385 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ASSIGNING SEATS ON BOARD COLLECTIVE MEANS OF TRANSPORT - A method for assigning seats on board a collective means of transport, for example an aircraft belonging to a airline company, includes the step of providing a data bank accessible to the transport company and containing the demographic data of the passengers, accompanied by personal profiles deriving from information supplied by the passengers themselves and indicating their personality, interests, and preferences. The personal profiles, possibly integrated with further contingent information supplied by each passenger in relation to specific needs or wishes correlated to the booking, are processed to determine mutual compatibility of the passengers booked on the same means of transport. The seats on board the means of transport are then assigned according to the mutual compatibility of the passengers thus determined. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318386 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING RESERVATION REQUESTS FOR ONE OR MORE INVENTORY ITEMS - A system and method for managing reservation requests for one or more inventory items are provided. A user reservation request is obtained and processed to identify inventory data matching the reservation request. Reservation transaction, reservation items and reservation inventory records are generated corresponding to the user reservation request. If the transaction can be completed, a confirmation is sent to the user and a notification is sent to a supplier. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318387 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR THE ELECTRONIC DISTRIBUTION OF TRIP RELATED INFORMATION - Methods for distributing trip related information on board passenger carrier are presented. In some embodiments, a method for distributing passenger trip related information includes storing and updating passenger information, seat information, vehicle timing information, and/or any other travel information in a Departure Control System. Changes to the stored information may be forwarded to a Passenger Information Delivery and Display System Server through a communication network. In some embodiments, a Passenger Information Delivery and Displayer client system may utilize a computer-implemented method for collecting, retrieving, and displaying the information stored the Departure Control System. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318388 | Native American Indian Compliant Financial Services Methodology - A financial services method formulated in accordance with the principles of the current invention supports the implementation of certain Native American Indian compliant financial instruments that are beneficial for trading and possess like qualities to those traded on traditional markets. A financial association is created under which the parties in the system take on several financial responsibilities in high-quality financial offerings. The financial services system will provide an institutional mechanism for the worldwide implementation of Native American Indian guiding principles and policies as policed by a centralized Native American Indian Compliance Office, a Native American Indian auditing and supervising organization. Such a Native American Indian compliant financial structure would prohibit the imposition of foreign levies on activities on Native American Indian sovereign lands, thus enabling the successful implementation of an operational mechanism possessing a pecuniary effect similar to traditional fiscal products that would regularly be precluded under Native American Indian financial guiding principles. Such a method will spawn the maturity of a centralized worldwide Native American Indian financial marketplace purposefully formulated with respect to the monetary services requirements of the participating financial services organizations in bringing financial opportunities to the Native American Indian investment economy for placement. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318389 | BUSINESS FLOW PROCESSING METHOD AND APPARATUS - A business flow processing method includes: extracting data of a series of works carried out for each case from a database storing results of the works, generating process instances in which work names of the works carried out are arranged in time series; judging, for each of the process instances, whether or not a backtracking from a first work to a second work carried out prior to the first work occurs; deleting, for each type of backtracking patterns, an additional backtracking from the process instance in which the backtracking occurs; counting, for each process type, the number of process instances after the deletion of the additional backtracking, which belong to the process type; and identifying, based on counting results, a process whose counted number of process instances is equal to or greater than a predetermined reference, and outputting the identified process as a main business flow. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318390 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR A PLANNER - A planning system and method is disclosed. The planning system includes at least one business rule remote from at least one client, a meeting editor, and at least one tracker communicately connected to the meeting editor, wherein the at least one tracker tracks at least two data items selected from the group consisting of invitees to at least one of the at least one meetings, respondents to invitations to the meeting, at least one speaker of the meeting, at least one host of the meeting, finances of the meeting, and a venue of the meeting, and wherein the at least one tracker communicates the at least two data items with the meeting editor. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318391 | METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR CHANGING AN IT SYSTEM - A method of changing an information technology system comprising a plurality of interacting components is provided. In an embodiment, the method comprises defining ( | 2010-12-16 |
20100318392 | Industrial status viewer system and method - A method of providing industrial status views reflecting a schedule for industrial project plan generated by a project schedule planning and management application includes uploading the industrial project plan schedule, uploading CAD drawing files comprising a physical layout of resources, structural elements and equipment units included in the project plan schedule, extracting project data from the uploaded project schedule and CAD drawing files and generating Plan progress views that reflect expected completion percentages of intended project tasks and operations over a fixed industrial project timeline, according to the plan schedule, as well as Comparison progress views depicting a difference between the expected and actual project progress. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318393 | DYNAMICALLY DISPATCHING WORKFLOWS IN RESPONSE TO WORKFLOW RULES - Systems, methods and articles of manufacture are disclosed for dispatching a workflow responsive to a request. A plurality of dispatch rules may be defined based on user input. Each of the plurality of dispatch rules may specify a workflow and an associated condition for invoking the respective workflow. Each workflow may manage a set of web services in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) system. The dispatch rules may be stored onto a storage device. A request may be received by the SOA system. The request may be evaluated against the plurality of dispatch rules. Further, a workflow may be determined based on the evaluation. The determined workflow may be dispatched responsive to the request, without requiring any source code modification and without requiring the request to specify the determined workflow. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318394 | EXECUTING TRANSACTIONS AS AN ATOMIC UNIT - Multiple operations of a local transaction are enabled to be performed atomically at a resource. A local transaction scope is invoked that includes multiple transaction operations and a commit operation. A local transaction object is generated that includes a transaction identifier. The transaction identifier is initialized with a unique identification number. The transaction identifier is included in a request message that includes a transaction operation. The request message is transmitted to a web service to be provided to a resource, and a response is received. One or more additional request messages including corresponding operations are also transmitted to the web service, and corresponding response messages are received. A completion protocol message that includes the transaction identifier and a commit instruction or an abort instruction is transmitted to the web service, and a completion type response message is received. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318395 | DETERMINING CAPABILITY INTERDEPENDENCY/CONSTRAINTS AND ANALYZING RISK IN BUSINESS ARCHITECTURES - The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for determining capability interdependency and analyzing risks in business architectures. Accordingly, embodiments of the invention can be used to drive an understanding of the relative interdependency (complexity) of a capability and how capabilities impact one another. Connectedness and/or data exchanged between capabilities can be used to formulate relative interdependency (complexity) of a capability and can be analyzed to inform a number of strategies from data architecture and business intelligence and project risk. Other risk/impact analysis data can be combined with interdependency (complexity) to present risk/impact analysis scenarios for organizations. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318396 | FRAMEWORK FOR SUPPORTING REPAIR PROCESSES OF AIRCRAFT - A framework for supporting one or more repair processes of one or more aircraft. The repair processes are based on repair information or repair solution corresponding to the damages to one or more structural components of the aircraft. The framework includes a knowledge engine, and a deployment engine. The knowledge engine automatically generates one or more knowledge interpretation systems based on the user inputs. The knowledge interpretation systems provide the repair information corresponding to the various structural components of the aircraft based on the user inputs. The deployment engine fulfils the deployment requirements corresponding to the one or more knowledge interpretation systems. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318397 | SYNCHRONIZING DELEGATION MODELS BETWEEN DISPARATE SERVERS - Architecture that provides synchronization of delegation permissions between discrete delegation models. For example, the synchronization of the delegation permissions (of a delegator and delegatee) can be performed between a delegation component of a scheduling system and a delegation component of a conferencing system such that the delegatee not only accesses the scheduling system on behalf of the delegator but also the conferencing system on behalf of the delegator. A synchronization component synchronizes the delegation permissions between the server systems (delegation components). Once synchronized, the delegatee administers the communications session, based on on-behalf-of information is validated, the delegatee can then establish the communications session. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318398 | NATURAL LANGUAGE INTERFACE FOR COLLABORATIVE EVENT SCHEDULING - A collaborative event scheduling method and system are provided which allow participants and an event initiator to interact with a scheduler in a natural language form. Participants provide a respective availability announcement, which is processed to generate a representation of the user's availability within a time window specified for the event by the initiator. This includes extracting a temporal expression from the availability announcement, normalizing, if the temporal expression is determined to be referential, identifying an availability modality for each extracted temporal expression from a set of availability modalities. The generated representation is output for establishing a suitable time for the event within the time window based on the availability announcements of the participants. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318399 | Adaptive Meeting Management - A template and/or knowledge associated with a synchronous meeting are obtained by a computing device. The computing device then adaptively manages the synchronous meeting based at least in part on the template and/or knowledge. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318400 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR LINKING INTERACTIONS - Embodiments of the invention are directed to a system and method for linking interactions. The method includes grouping a plurality of customer-agent interactions into a category upon identifying one or more predetermined common characteristics in the customer-agent interactions and linking at least two of said customer-agent interactions to form a chain of interactions upon identifying a condition that matches a predetermined rule defining the chain. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318401 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING LOCATE AND/OR MARKING OPERATIONS WITH IMPROVED VISIBILITY, QUALITY CONTROL AND AUDIT CAPABILITY - First ticket information relating to one or more locate request tickets identifying a dig area is electronically received, including first image data associated with the dig area. The first image data includes one or both of: i) a marked-up digital image of a geographic area including the dig area, the marked-up digital image including at least one dig area indicator to provide an indication of the dig area; and ii) geographic information relating to the at least one dig area indicator. The dig area is inspected based at least in part on the first ticket information, and using one or more pieces of locating equipment to determine a presence or an absence of one or more underground facilities and/or physically mark the dig area with one or more physical locate marks. One or more of marking information, locate information, and landmark information is electronically added to the marked-up digital image and/or a second digital image so as to provide an updated marked-up image relating to the locate operation as performed. An electronic manifest is generated relating to the locate operation and including the updated marked-up image. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318402 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING LOCATE AND/OR MARKING OPERATIONS - First ticket information describing a locate operation to be performed is electronically received, including image information and/or geospatial metadata relating to a dig area and/or a work site. Field information relating to the locate operation as at least partially performed and/or environmental information relating to the dig area and/or the work site is electronically received and processed to provide a quality assessment of the locate operation. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318403 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TOP-DOWN PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION USING ELASTICITY MODELING - A system uses elasticity modeling to enable cross category optimization of store display space for merchandise for any group of stores and items using point-of-sale data. A space elasticity curve is periodically created for each combination of performance metric, store cluster, planogram, and item segment, and is then scaled by individual store. A user can select any combination of stores and planograms, and the system then reconstructs the elasticity curves as individual “synthetic items,” which are averaged across the selected stores by creating average synthetic SKU records that reflect the estimated average store performance in each performance metric. The synthetic items are then used to either evaluate macro space performance across or within store areas, or to determine the best use of overall store display space available to permit management to optimally allocate display space for merchandise. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318404 | COMPENSATING STORES FOR CONSUMER INFLUENCE WITH AUTOMATED TRACKING - Consumer stores typically sell products at a retail profit, which covers the cost of pre-sale, consumer-influencing services regarding the products (e.g., discussions with sales associates, product demonstrations, and consumer inspections of the products.) However, consumers may utilize these services but may purchase selected products from other retailers that do not provide pre-sale services, and that may accordingly offer lower prices. This tactic may cause lost sales for consumer stores, and eventually store failures. Instead, the consumer store may charge the supplier an influence fee for consumer-influencing services based on a per-service price established between the supplier and the consumer store and consumer influence metrics tracked by a computer. The supplier may recoup the influence fee in the wholesale cost of the product, thereby distributing the shared benefit of the influencing services of the consumer store across all retailers and enabling a sustainable business model for providing the consumer-influencing services. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318405 | PRODUCT PLACEMENT FOR THE MASSES - Product-related information provided by brand owners is made available for inclusion in user-generated content. Users may include the product-related information in user-generated content, and receive payment for including the product-related information in their user-generated content based on metrics and rules for publishing the product-related information. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318406 | Quantitative Branding Analysis - A method and system for analysis and evaluation of branding of commercial products embedded in entertainment programming. The entertainment programming may be divided into blocks that are compared to several rule sets defining audio visual and other attributes of the commercial products to evaluate parameters such as recall of the product by viewers. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318407 | Personalized Coupon System - A personalized coupon system is disclosed. A localized offer list may be provided to a consumer including a plurality of offers from merchants in a location near the location of the consumer. The offers included in the offer list may be selected by the system based on progressive and regressive rules. When offers are redeemed, the system receives notification of offer redemption. The offer list and personalized electronic communications to the consumer may include offers based on prior activities of the consumer which are tracked by the system. The offer list and personalized electronic communications may include offers based on the activities of other consumers having similar geography and/or demographic information to the consumer. The activities may include viewing, selecting, obtaining, printing and redeeming offers from merchants. Behavior tracking information, maps and graphics may be provided to merchants so that they may understand the success of offers. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318408 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GENERATING QUANTITATIVE INDICATORS - A method of generating a quantitative indicator of sales for a market segment for a predetermined time period is disclosed. The market segment represents a plurality of members with one or more products. The method includes receiving sales data from the plurality of members of the market segment, calculating the quantitative indicator for each member of the market segment, calculating the quantitative indicator for the market segment by creating a composite of the quantitative indicator for each member representing the market segment, and either calculating the quantitative indicator for the member with missing data using a estimated value of units of the product sold by the member or modifying the baseline benchmark by removing the data of the member with missing data. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318409 | Component Based Productivity Measurement - Methods, computer-readable media, and apparatuses evaluate the productivity of a work effort and determine the potential productivity improvement for completing the work effort. The work effort is baselined, and the potential productivity improvement may be assessed by presenting evaluation questions organized by categories. The potential productivity improvement is then applied to an estimating model to obtain an estimated effort for completing the work effort. The actual effort measure is then obtained from a time capture system and compared to the estimated effort in order to generate an indicator that is indicative of the comparison. The baselining of the work effort may be repeated at a subsequent time by obtaining an updated estimated effort from the estimating model and an updated actual effort measure form the time capture system and then comparing them to determine whether the productivity objective has been achieved at the subsequent time. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318410 | System And Method For Analyzing Agent Interactions - A system and method for analyzing agent interactions is provided. An interaction between an agent and a business is provided to analysts. Performance scores for the interaction are received from each of the analysts and compared. A deviation between the performance score is determined. The deviation is compared to a threshold. Further interactions are provided to at least one of the analysts when the deviation falls below the threshold. A further performance score for the interaction is received from the analyst and provided to the agent associated with the interaction. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318411 | Community Philanthropy System & Process - A computer-implemented process and system for the distribution of resources such as funds to not-for-profit (NFP) entities or other organizations. The system may include a resource accumulation module for acquiring and keeping track of resources, a resource division module for initially determining what to do with resources that have been acquired, an education module for teaching users about the entities or their respective causes, an evaluation module for determining whether a user is eligible to vote on the distribution of resources, and a voting module through which users may choose the resource recipients. In one embodiment, resources may be obtained at least in part from the commissions generated by real estate transactions. In addition, users and/or voters may include students around the world, and organizations may include various NFPs, also located around the world. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318412 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REAL-TIME LOCATION AND INQUIRY BASED INFORMATION DELIVERY - Systems and methods for real-time location and inquiry based information delivery are described. Embodiments of a method for real-time location and inquiry based information delivery include receiving, using a processor and memory, a customer inquiry. The customer inquiry includes product information indicative of a customer's interest in a particular product. The method further receives location information indicative of the customer's current geographical location, determines additional product information based on the customer inquiry, identifies one or more incentives for presentation to the customer based on at least a portion of the product information and the location information. The customer inquiry is received prior to any solicitation of the customer's interest in the particular product. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318413 | ALLOCATION OF INTERNET ADVERTISING INVENTORY - A method for determining a price of a contract for booking advertising space in a networked environment includes receiving, via a web server, a request to book a number of impressions from available impression inventory, where each impression corresponds to the delivery of an advertisement to a browser. The method also includes assembling user samples that represent a total amount of impression inventory, where each user sample represents a number of internet users, calculating a value associated with each piece of remaining impression inventory of the total impression inventory, and evaluating the value of all remaining impression inventory before and after allocation to a contract by maximizing and equation subject to a set of constraints. The base price for the contract corresponds to the difference between the value of the inventory before and after allocation. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318414 | INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING ON CALL TERMINATION FOR MOBILE TERMINALS - Call or call alarm terminating method and system in a mobile telecommunication system, whereby a user (caller, USER | 2010-12-16 |
20100318415 | System and method facilitating purchase of goods and services by pre-payment via a universal gift or other pre-paid card with incentives - A system and method for facilitating purchase of goods and services by pre-payment via a universal gift or other pre-paid card with incentives. The universal gift or other pre-paid card provides incentives to vendors and consumers that use it. It permits flexible purchase of goods and services by consumers. The consumers are recipients of the universal gift card from others or purchasers of the universal gift card who decide to use the card themselves. The universal gift card is usable at any one of a plurality of merchants who are designated and authorized by the system. The universal gift card permits purchase up to a specified amount, which must be paid by a consumer prior to its use. The specified amount is either maintained on the universal gift card itself or is maintained on a database associated with the system, which maintains associated accounts and controls its use. The universal gift card preferably has few restrictions (e.g. expiration date), if any, to facilitate ease of use by consumers. Among the incentives provided is the ability to designate preferences, such as provide a percentage of specified amounts to charitable donations and to reduce transaction costs that are often associated with payment methods other than use of hard physical currency. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318416 | ONLINE AUCTION AND METHOD - An online auction and method of conducting an online auction accessible over a communications network includes the step of providing a computer programmed to host the auction, the computer being accessible to a user through the communications network and adapted to provide a user interface to allow the user to bid on or sell an item on the auction. The method also including the steps of providing instructions to the computer through the user interface, the instructions providing parameters for the auction being conducted; and displaying the item for sale on the user interface with an initial sale price and prompting a bidder to bid on the item. The method further including the steps of allowing the bidder to bid on the item through the communications network, wherein in response to a bid by the bidder, the computer reduces the initial sale price by the bid value and displays a new sale price on the user interface; and using the computer to determine a winning bidder and shipping the item to the winning bidder. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318417 | ENTERPRISE FEMTO BASED KIOSK - Methods and apparatus for employing femto technology in an enterprise kiosk are presented herein. A content component can receive multimedia content from a base station coupled to a core network. Further, a transfer component can wirelessly transfer the received multimedia content to a mobile device utilizing a femto based wireless protocol based on, at least in part, a sale of the received multimedia content. A database component can store the received multimedia content in a data store, and the transfer component can wirelessly transfer the stored multimedia content to the mobile device utilizing the femto based wireless protocol. The transfer component can alternatively record the received multimedia content in a removable data storage device. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318418 | ADVERTISING INVENTORY PREDICTION FOR FREQUENCY-CAPPED LINES - Computer-readable media, computer systems, and computing devices for responding to advertising inventory queries that specify frequency caps limiting the number of impressions that are shown to a unique user. Impression logs are retrieved from logging servers and processed to generate a unique user distribution that provides information regarding the numbers of unique users that receive ad impressions at a specified location and during a specified time period. Estimates of frequency-capped capacity to fulfill a booking request and estimates of frequency-capped availability of inventory are computed using the unique user distribution. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318419 | PAY PER AUDIENCE FOR DIGITAL SIGNAGE ADVERTISING - A “pay-per-audience” system allows advertisers to pay for advertising based on a number and a specified target of hits deemed as reliable, the system being manageable remotely. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318420 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING MEDIA ADVERTISEMENT SERVICE USING HUMAN BODY COMMUNICATION - There is provided an apparatus for providing a media advertisement service using human body communication, including: conductive contact part for contact with a human body; a control part configured to detect human body contact of a user with the conductive contact part and acquire user-contact-associated contents, the user-contact-associated-contents being contents associated with an advertisement selected by the human body contact of the user; and a human body communication part configured to convert the acquired user-contact-associated contents into a signal for human body communication and send the signal to a user terminal via the conductive contact part and a user's body. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318421 | METHOD AND SYSTEM TO IDENTIFY THE CONTEXTUAL DATA THAT WAS USED TO PERFORM AN ADVERTISEMENT SELECTION - Embodiments of a distributed ad-selection system and method for distributed ad selection are generally described herein. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318422 | METHOD FOR RECOMMENDING INFORMATION OF GOODS AND SYSTEM FOR EXECUTING THE METHOD - A method of recommending product information and a system for executing the method are provided. A method of recommending product information via an information recommendation agent installed in a user terminal, the method including the steps of: recognizing at least one product selected via the user terminal; receiving at least one of search data and condition data of the at least one product via the user terminal, associating the at least one of the search data and the condition data with the at least one product, and storing and maintaining the at least one of the search data and the condition data; searching for the product information of the at least one product by using the search data; and displaying the product information corresponding to the condition data via the user terminal. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318423 | Recommendation Systems and Methods Using Interest Correlation - A search technology generates recommendations with minimal user data and participation, and provides better interpretation of user data, such as popularity, thus obtaining breadth and quality in recommendations. It is sensitive to the semantic content of natural language terms and lets users briefly describe the intended recipient (i.e., interests, eccentricities, previously successful gifts). Based on that input, the recommendation software system and method determines the meaning of the entered terms and creatively discover connections to gift recommendations from the vast array of possibilities. The user may then make a selection from these recommendations. The search/recommendation engine allows the user to find gifts through connections that are not limited to previously available information on the Internet. Thus, interests can be connected to buying behavior by relating terms to respective items. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318424 | System for Correlating Physiological and Environmental Conditions - A system comprising a storage device configured to store temporal information, geographical information, physiological information, and environmental information associated with a user, and a server coupled to the storage device and configured to correlate at least some of the physiological information and at least some of the environmental information to obtain relationship information corresponding to a relationship between the physiological information and the environmental information over a time period. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318425 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING A PERSONALIZED SHOPPING ASSISTANT FOR ONLINE COMPUTER USERS - A system and method for providing a personalized shopping assistant for online computer users is disclosed. A particular embodiment includes prompting for personalized profile data related to a consumer; associating the personalized profile data with one or more item feature sets; using the one or more item feature sets to qualify a search performed on an item listing database to produce filtered search results; and presenting the filtered search results to a user. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318426 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR PROCESSING AND DISPLAYING CONTENT - Methods and systems are described for processing and display content. Web page data for a first web page is received from a remote system, wherein the web page is to be displayed on a terminal associated with a user. An automatic identification is performed of a first content in the first web page data. A user-defined profile is accessed. A second content is automatically selected based at least in part on the user profile. The first content is replaced with the second content so that if the first web page is displayed on the terminal associated with the user, the second content is displayed and the first content is not displayed. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318427 | ENHANCING DATABASE MANAGEMENT BY SEARCH, PERSONAL SEARCH, ADVERTISING, AND DATABASES ANALYSIS EFFICIENTLY USING CORE-SET IMPLEMENTATIONS - A computerized method of reducing complexity of data analysis including an inverse search process over a plurality of multimedia content elements mapped to points in a d-dimensional space, and by that improves search, advertising and database analysis efficiency. The computerized method comprises the stages: (i) mapping the points to core-set points, comprising a weighted set of points that represents the points according to predefined geometrical relationships, such that the number of the core-set points is substantially smaller than the number of the points; (ii) inversely projecting the core-set points to receive weighted multimedia content elements, such that weighting is carried out in relation to the geometrical relationships among the core-set points; and (iii) applying at least one inverse search algorithm to the weighted multimedia content elements. | 2010-12-16 |
20100318428 | DYNAMIC PRIORITIZATION OF ADVERTISEMENTS AND CONTENT DELIVERY SYSTEM - A system and method dynamically rendering advertisements to consumers based upon a service level of a service center. When the service level is unacceptable, the rendering of the advertisements to the consumers maybe curtailed until the service level rises to an acceptable level. The service level may be considered unacceptable when the wait time in a call queue exceeds a predetermined threshold. Prior to rendering, the advertisements may be stored in a computer-readable memory local to an electronic device associated with each of the consumers such that the advertisements may be rapidly accessed and rendered to the consumers upon receipt of an appropriate command signal. The receipt of a command signal to render an advertisement at the next available opportunity may be indicative that the service level of the service center is at an acceptable level. | 2010-12-16 |