08th week of 2011 patent applcation highlights part 58 |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20110046940 | MACHINE TRANSLATION DEVICE, MACHINE TRANSLATION METHOD, AND PROGRAM - A machine translation device includes: an accepting portion that accepts a first-language document; storage portion in which are stored one or more pieces of multilingual parallel translation information that are each a set of synonymous words in the first language through the Nth language (N is 3 or more integer); a selecting portion that selects the multilingual parallel translation information including a word included in an ith-language document (i is an integer of 1 to N-1) from the one or more pieces of multilingual parallel translation information; a machine translation portion that repeats processing of machine translating the ith-language document into an (i+1)th language document until machine translation into the Nth language has been performed, so as to use parallel-translation relation between two languages included in the selected multilingual parallel translation information; and an output portion that outputs the Nth-language document. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046941 | Advanced Natural Language Translation System - The present invention is an Advanced Natural Language Translation System (ANLTS). It discloses a method to address the most common variation in the world, which is communication gap between people of different ethnicity. Typically, communication is said to be successful between two people if someone speaks and opponent party can understand. In other words the intended recipient's brain language area can comprehend the speech. The problem of not understanding the speech of others is the cause of language barriers. So, this invention discloses a method to solve the language barrier problem where it is capable of interpreting meaning of speech in one language to a language native to another—basically to a language the recipient brain can comprehend. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046942 | METHOD FOR PROMPTING BY SUGGESTING STROKE ORDER OF CHINESE CHARACTER, ELECTRONIC DEVICE, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT - A method for prompting by suggesting the stroke order of a Chinese character, an electronic device, and a computer program product are provided. The electronic device includes a database for storing codes of Chinese characters, and at least one stroke order of at least one handwriting of each of the Chinese characters. In the present method, when a character input through a phonetic transcription input method installed in the electronic device is identified, at least one Chinese character code corresponding to the input character is obtained from the database, and a stroke order of a handwriting of the input character from the database is shown according to the Chinese character code. Accordingly, a user is assisted to memorize the stroke orders of Chinese characters when the user inputs Chinese characters. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046943 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROCESSING DATA - A data processing method and apparatus that may set emotion based on development of a story are provided. The method and apparatus may set emotion without inputting emotion for each sentence of text data. Emotion setting information is generated based on development of the story and the like, and may be applied to the text data. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046944 | PLAIN ENGLISH DOCUMENT TRANSLATION METHOD - A method for building a plain English guide containing translations of a complex document is provided. The method begins by creating a working template from an electronic copy of the complex document using a computing device. Next, the method displays the working template on a user interface connected to the computing device. After that, the method performs one or more translation actions. Then, the method selects one of a set of custom icons after performing each of the translation actions. Finally, the method produces the plain English guide using the computing device to generate a report. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046945 | METHOD AND DEVICE OF BITRATE DISTRIBUTION/TRUNCATION FOR SCALABLE AUDIO CODING - Embodiments of the invention provides a method and device for assigning bitrates to a plurality of channels in a scalable audio encoding/truncation process. Different bitrates are assigned to different channels in the scalable audio encoding/truncation process. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046946 | ENCODER, DECODER, AND THE METHODS THEREFOR - Provided is an encoder which can decode a high-quality stereo signal while keeping the amount of information in the bit allocation information to a minimum when a scalable coding technique is used for a stereo signal. In the encoder, a principal component analysis (PCA) converter ( | 2011-02-24 |
20110046947 | System and Method for Enhancing a Decoded Tonal Sound Signal - A system and method for enhancing a tonal sound signal decoded by a decoder of a speech-specific codec in response to a received coded bit stream, in which a spectral analyser is responsive to the decoded tonal sound signal to produce spectral parameters representative of the decoded tonal sound signal. A quantization noise in low-energy spectral regions of the decoded tonal sound signal is reduced in response to the spectral parameters produced by the spectral analyser. The spectral analyser divides a spectrum resulting from spectral analysis into a set of critical frequency bands each comprising a number of frequency bins, and the reducer of quantization noise comprises a noise attenuator that scales the spectrum of the decoded tonal sound signal per critical frequency band, per frequency bin, or per both critical frequency band and frequency bin. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046948 | AUTOMATIC SOUND RECOGNITION BASED ON BINARY TIME FREQUENCY UNITS - The invention relates to a method of automatic sound recognition. The object of the present invention is to provide an alternative scheme for automatically recognizing sounds, e.g. human speech. The problem is solved by providing a training database comprising a number of models, each model representing a sound element in the form of a binary mask comprising binary time frequency (TF) units which indicate the energetic areas in time and frequency of the sound element in question, or of characteristic features or statistics extracted from the binary mask; providing an input signal comprising an input sound element; estimating the input sound element based on the models of the training database to provide an output sound element. The method has the advantage of being relatively simple and adaptable to the application in question. The invention may e.g. be used in devices comprising automatic sound recognition, e.g. for sound, e.g. voice control of a device, or in listening devices, e.g. hearing aids, for improving speech perception. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046949 | DEVICE, METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETECTING UNWANTED CONVERSATIONAL MEDIA SESSION - Some embodiments of the invention relate to a method and a system for detecting unwanted conversational media session data. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a method of detecting unwanted conversation media session data according to some embodiments of the invention may include calculating two or more progressive similarity scores each with respect to a different instant during a progress of a real-time conversational media session, wherein each of said scores is associated with a similarity between the conversational media session's media data that was available at the associated instant and a reference data item corresponding to media data of a previous conversational media session, and evaluating progressive similarity between the real-time conversational media session and the reference data item based upon the two or more progressive similarity scores. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046950 | Wireless Dictaphone Features and Interface - A system and method for a method for integrating a communications system with a dictation system on a mobile device includes displaying a first graphical user interface screen on a display of the mobile device, the first graphical user interface screen including a first plurality of selections, when selected by a user, enable the user to dictate and create one or more voice files for sending to a receiving server; and automatically displaying a second graphical user interface screen on the display of the mobile device when the communications system receives an incoming call, said second graphical user interface screen indicating suspension of dictation functionality and enabling telephone functionality. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046951 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR BUILDING OPTIMAL STATE-DEPENDENT STATISTICAL UTTERANCE CLASSIFIERS IN SPOKEN DIALOG SYSTEMS - A system and a method to generate statistical utterance classifiers optimized for the individual states of a spoken dialog system is disclosed. The system and method make use of large databases of transcribed and annotated utterances from calls collected in a dialog system in production and log data reporting the association between the state of the system at the moment when the utterances were recorded and the utterance. From the system state, being a vector of multiple system variables, subsets of these variables, certain variable ranges, quantized variable values, etc. can be extracted to produce a multitude of distinct utterance subsets matching every possible system state. For each of these subset and variable combinations, statistical classifiers can be trained, tuned, and tested, and the classifiers can be stored together with the performance results and the state subset and variable combination. Once the set of classifiers and stored results have been put into a production system, for a given system state, the classifiers resulting in optimum performance can be selected from the result list and used to perform utterance classification. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046952 | ACOUSTIC MODEL LEARNING DEVICE AND SPEECH RECOGNITION DEVICE - Parameters of a first variation model, a second variation model and an environment-independent acoustic model are estimated in such a way that an integrated degree of fitness obtained by integrating a degree of fitness of the first variation model to the sample speech data, a degree of fitness of the second variation model to the sample speech data, and a degree of fitness of the environment-independent acoustic model to the sample speech data becomes the maximum. Therefore, when constructing an acoustic model by using sample speech data affected by a plurality of acoustic environments; the effect on a speech which is caused by each of the acoustic environments can be extracted with high accuracy. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046953 | METHOD OF RECOGNIZING SPEECH - A method for recognizing speech involves reciting, into a speech recognition system, an utterance including a numeric sequence that contains a digit string including a plurality of tokens and detecting a co-articulation problem related to at least two potentially co-articulated tokens in the digit string. The numeric sequence may be identified using i) a dynamically generated possible numeric sequence that potentially corresponds with the numeric sequence, and/or ii) at least one supplemental acoustic model. Also disclosed herein is a system for accomplishing the same. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046954 | PORTABLE AUDIO CONTROL SYSTEM AND AUDIO CONTROL DEVICE THEREOF - A portable audio control system that controls an audio signal transmitted from an electronic device, including an earphone device and an audio control device. The audio control device includes an audio source receiver, a signal synthesis module, and an audio output unit. The audio receiver, which is connected with the electronic device, is used for receiving the audio signal. The signal synthesis module receives both the audio signal and a voice signal coming from an external audio resource, and then synthesizes those signals. The audio transmitter is used to output the synthesized sound to the earphone device. As users utilize the portable audio control system to connect with the electronic device, both sound from the electronic device and the external voice or song can be listened at the same time. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046955 | SPEECH PROCESSING APPARATUS, SPEECH PROCESSING METHOD AND PROGRAM - There is provided a speech processing apparatus including: a data obtaining unit which obtains music progression data defining a property of one or more time points or one or more time periods along progression of music; a determining unit which determines an output time point at which a speech is to be output during reproducing the music by utilizing the music progression data obtained by the data obtaining unit; and an audio output unit which outputs the speech at the output time point determined by the determining unit during reproducing the music. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046956 | System And Method For Improved Dynamic Allocation Of Application Resources - A self-help application platform such as one hosting an interactive voice response (IVR) has a browser that executes application scripts to implement the self-help application. The execution of the application scripts is performed by utilizing various application resources, such as media conversions from text to speech (TTS) and speech to text (automatic speech recognition ASR) and other media servers. The platform is provided with a dynamic resource selection mechanism in which the application is executed with an updated optimum set of application resources distributed over different locations. The selection is based on the profiles of the browser, users, route, and quality of service. The selection is further modulated by the browser's previous experiences with the individual resources. The selection is made dynamically during the executing of the application script. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046957 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SPEECH SYNTHESIS USING FREQUENCY SPLICING - Techniques are disclosed for frequency splicing in which speech segments used in the creation of a final speech waveform are constructed, at least in part, by combining (e.g., summing) a small number (e.g., two) of component speech segments that overlap substantially, or entirely, in time but have spectral energy that occupies disjoint, or substantially disjoint, frequency ranges. The component speech segments may be derived from speech segments produced by different speakers or from different speech segments produced by the same speaker. Depending on the embodiment, frequency splicing may supplement rule-based, concatenative, hybrid, or limited-vocabulary speech synthesis systems to provide various advantages. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046958 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR EXTRACTING PROSODIC FEATURE OF SPEECH SIGNAL - The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for extracting a prosodic feature of a speech signal, the method including: dividing the speech signal into speech frames; transforming the speech frames from time domain to frequency domain; and extracting respective prosodic features for different frequency ranges. According to the above technical solution of the present invention, it is possible to effectively extract the prosodic feature which can combine with a traditional acoustics feature without any obstacle. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046959 | Substituting or Replacing Components in Sound Based on Steganographic Encoding - The present disclosure relates to various methods and systems to provide substitute sound (e.g., audio). One claim includes an apparatus comprising: electronic memory for storing identifying information obtained from steganographically encoded sound; an electronic processor programmed for: providing the identifying information to a remote computer, the remote computer including substitute sound corresponding to the identifying information; providing format information to the remote computer, the format information identifying a format in which the substitute sound should be formatted prior to communication of the substitute sound; and controlling receipt of substitute sound corresponding to the identifying information. Of course, other apparatus, methods and combinations are provided as well. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046960 | Multi-Channel Interactive Self-Help Application Platform and Method - An interactive voice response (IVR) platform running a voice application for use with a voice client is extended to support text messaging clients and other clients of other media types on other channels. An application-to-text messaging interface interfaces with text messaging clients via a text messaging protocol transport and interfaces with the IVR via an API. It includes a user/application manager to handle user and application accounts and a state/session manager to handle state information required by the text messaging operations and to handle sessions maintained by the IVR. Text modules are implemented having text synthesis and text recognition with a dictionary/grammar. These allow voice-specific application scripts to be interpreted in a text channel. The extended multi-channel platform supports an open source text messaging network and also through a transport gateways to other types of text messaging clients. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046961 | GREETING CARD HAVING AUDIO RECORDING CAPABILITIES WITH TRIAL MODE FEATURE - A greeting card having an audio message recording and playback device permits recording of personalized audio messages to be played upon opening of the greeting card. The recording device is operable in either a trial mode or a use mode. In the trial mode, which would be applicable when the card is displayed in a store, a potential purchaser may experience the functionality of the card by recording their own test message. The test message is played back initially for the potential purchaser but is not subsequently played back to be later heard by other potential purchasers. In the use mode, which the card may be switched to after purchase by removal of a trial mode panel from the greeting card, a user recorded message is played repeatedly upon subsequent openings of the card. The user recorded message may be followed by a prerecorded recording, such as a song. Additional prerecorded messages, such as voice prompts with instructions for recording a message, may also be included. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046962 | VOICE TRIGGERING CONTROL DEVICE AND METHOD THEREOF - A voice triggering control device for enabling a data collection host which assembled on it comprises a processing unit, a speaker, a control module, a power supply module and a housing containing the elements disclosed above. The control device controls the processing unit to output a high-frequency audio signal which is corresponded to an act command Then, broadcasting a high-frequency audio through the speaker, wherein the high-frequency audio is generated by the high-frequency audio signal, and the data collection host is enabled to perform the act command while receiving and decoding the high-frequency audio. Thereby, making the triggering control device enabling the data collection host proceed a functional action by the high-frequency audio can solve the contact fault problem in the prior art. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046963 | MULTI-CHANNEL AUDIO DECODING METHOD AND APPARATUS THEREFOR - Provided is a multi-channel audio decoding method and apparatus therefor, the method involving decoding filter bank coefficients of a plurality of bands from a bitstream having a predetermined format; performing frequency transformation on the decoded filter bank coefficients of the plurality of bands, with respect to each of the plurality of bands; compensating for a phase of each of the plurality of bands according to a predetermined phase compensation value, and serially band-synthesizing the frequency-transformed coefficients of each of the plurality of phase-compensated bands on a frequency domain; and decoding a multi-channel audio signal from the band-synthesized frequency-transformed coefficients. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046964 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENCODING MULTI-CHANNEL AUDIO SIGNAL AND METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DECODING MULTI-CHANNEL AUDIO SIGNAL - A method and apparatus which encode multi-channel audio signals and a method and apparatus which decode multi-channel audio signals. When encoding, a downmixed audio signal, first additional information for restoring multi-channel audio signals from the downmixed audio signal, and second additional information representing characteristics of a residual signal are multiplexed. When decoding, restored multi-channel audio signals having a predetermined phase difference are combined using the second additional information, and an audio signal of each channel is corrected, in order to improve quality of the restored audio signals. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046965 | Transient Detector and Method for Supporting Encoding of an Audio Signal - A transient detector ( | 2011-02-24 |
20110046966 | FREQUENCY BAND SCALE FACTOR DETERMINATION IN AUDIO ENCODING BASED UPON FREQUENCY BAND SIGNAL ENERGY - A method of encoding a time-domain audio signal is presented. In the method, an electronic device receives the time-domain audio signal. The time-domain audio signal is transformed into a frequency-domain signal including a coefficient for each of a plurality of frequencies, which are grouped into frequency bands. For each frequency band, the energy of the band is determined, a scale factor for the band is determined based on the energy of the band, and the coefficients of the band are quantized based on the associated scale factor. The encoded audio signal is generated based on the quantized coefficients and the scale factors. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046967 | DATA CONVERTING APPARATUS AND DATA CONVERTING METHOD - An input frame data producing unit | 2011-02-24 |
20110046968 | System and Method for Obtaining Consumer Related Statistics - A system and method for producing statistics based on combinations of data indicative of an identity of one or more persons within a vehicle, product identity data indicative of products within the vehicle, global positioning system data indicative of position and time information of the vehicle, and radio parameter information indicative of usage of a radio within the vehicle. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046969 | ALIAS HIERARCHY AND DATA STRUCTURE - Methods for creating an alias data structure are provided. A representative method includes receiving transaction information related to a first alias associated with an entity, receiving transaction information between a first object and the entity, and associating the first object with the first alias based at least in part on the transaction information related to the first alias and transaction information between the first object and the entity. The method further includes continually monitoring transaction information related to the first object and updating the association of the first object with the first alias in response to the transaction information. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046970 | Electronic Client Data Acquisition and Analysis System - A medical data acquisition and analysis system is disclosed. The system includes a first computing device, connected to a database for storing data indicative of content, where the first computing device includes software comprising an algorithm engine having at least one algorithm for generating enhanced feedback content, and at least one secondary computing device, interactively connected to the first computing device through a web portal operative across a communications network. A user inputs a plurality of health related information items into the web portal interface of the at least one secondary computing device, and the plurality of health related information items are received by the first computing device and stored in the database, and are further processed with at least one secondary input to generate the enhanced feedback content in accordance with the at least one algorithm of the algorithm engine, and delivers the enhanced feedback content to the user. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046971 | Remote healthcare method for measuring physiological parameter and reporting self-perceived health status - A remote healthcare method is applied to a healthcare server and includes the steps of receiving detected information from a physiological parameter detecting instrument, reading a patient identification code and a physiological parameter from the detected information, reading an identification datum and a medical history datum matched with the patient identification code from a history database according to the identification code, reading a disease matched with the disease classification code and a corresponding pathological symptom from the disease database according to at least one disease classification code in the medical history data, screening a corresponding matched pathological symptom from the pathological symptoms according to the read physiological parameter to create a self-perceived list, transmitting the self-perceived list to the physiological parameter detecting instrument, and waiting for a receipt of the selected option of the pathological symptom for determining an appropriate medical dosage or medical tool. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046972 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR HEALTH-CENTERED MEDICINE - Methods and systems for personalized health plan are disclosed. The methods and systems determine a body system hierarchy corresponding to the patient that identifies elements of the patient's body and the associated functions of the elements, retrieve from a database of failures corresponding to the functions, determine risk factors of the patient for diseases corresponding the failures of the functions, select predetermined courses of action applicable to the plurality of diseases based on the determined cumulative risk, and provide a report including the selected courses of action for the patient. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046973 | Diabetes Care Host-Client Architecture and Data Management System - A host-client data sharing system manages diabetes care data. A host database, preferably web or internet based, is implemented for storing diabetes care data relating to multiple diabetics. A client or local database stores the diabetes care data relating to multiple diabetics on a personal appliance such as a PC, or a portable or handheld microprocessor-based computing device. The host database uses multiple servers for handling client interactions with the system. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046974 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MONITORING AND REPORTING LAB RESULTS - The invention provides systems and methods for monitoring and/or reporting laboratory data. One or more laboratory facility may communicate with a data management center. Medical laboratory data, which may include renal data, may be provided to the data management center. In some instances, some of the data from a laboratory facility may be compared to a reference value, or a goal to assess the performance of the laboratory facility. Data may be displayed to a user of the system in a report. Financial tools may also be provided to assess costs associated with bundling various laboratory tests. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046975 | DYNAMICALLY ADJUSTED RULES-BASED DECISION SUPPORT USING SITE-SPECIFIC MAPPED VALUES - Methods, systems, and computer storage media are provided for determining and communicating dynamic threshold values to a particular site system. Upon initiation of one or more rules, a request is received for one or more dynamic threshold values, which are dynamically changeable values associated with healthcare data. The dynamic threshold values are determined and are communicated. One or more rules are updated to reflect the received dynamic threshold values. The rules are used in association with patient care or healthcare data extraction. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046976 | Integrated Communications System - An integrated communication system that is a centralized, web-based structure that facilitates efficient, secure and effective communication between and among users who require secure, and multifaceted communication structures. In a healthcare application, these users may include patients, their next-of-kin, or surrogates; clinicians who care for the patient; other friends and family who care about the patient; and the public. The system may function by making the patient the center of an electronic communication scheme. Others, involved as caregivers or loved ones, may be assigned access to various levels of communication on the basis of role and need. The system allows individuals such as care givers and those receiving care to communicate effectively without concern of invasion of their personal domains, while protecting confidential patient healthcare information and enabling communication using a variety of available communications formats and technologies. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046977 | Diabetes Care Host-Client Architecture and Data Management System - A host-client data sharing system manages diabetes care data. A host database, preferably web or internet based, is implemented for storing diabetes care data relating to multiple diabetics. A client or local database stores the diabetes care data relating to multiple diabetics on a personal appliance such as a PC, or a portable or handheld microprocessor-based computing device. The host database uses multiple servers for handling client interactions with the system. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046978 | DATABASE DRIVEN RULE BASED HEALTHCARE - A method is disclosed for rule based healthcare for use in the treatment of a patient. The method includes (a) providing a storage means for storing data indicative of a plurality of decision states, (b) presenting at least one query associated with a decision state, (c) receiving a corresponding at least one response to said at least one query, (d) comparing said response to a plurality of predefined responses ranges for selecting a new query associated with a new decision state, (e) transitioning to the new decision state, and (f) repeating steps (b) through (e) until a terminating decision state is reached. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046979 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PERSONALIZED GUIDELINE-BASED THERAPY AUGMENTED BY IMAGING INFORMATION - When treating a patient, clinical decision support system (CDSS) guidelines are employed to assist a physician in generating a treatment plan. These plans are generated using both imaging and non-imaging data. To accomplish this, the CDSS is interfaced with imaging systems (CADx, CAD, PACS etc.). A data-mining operation is performed to identify relevant patients with similar attributes such as diagnosis, medical history, treatment, etc from imaging and non-imaging data. Natural language processing is employed to extract and encode relevant non-imaging (textual) data from relevant patients' records. Additionally, an image of a current patient is compared to reference images in a patient database to identify relevant patients. Relevant patients are then identified to a user, and the user selects a relevant patient to view detailed information related to medical history, treatment, guidelines, efficacy, and the like. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046980 | INFORMATION SECURITY FOR RECOVERY BASED SOCIAL NETWORKING - Systems and methods for recovery based social networking are presented. Users of the social network platform can select different groups of individuals that have access to different portions of the content that the user generates through the social networking platform. Private health information can be maintained separately from information generated by the user through the social networking platform. Healthcare professionals can access both private and user generated information in order to support the user's recovery. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046981 | GOALS AND PROGRESS TRACKING FOR RECOVERY BASED SOCIAL NETWORKING - Systems and methods for recovery based social networking are presented. Users of the social network platform can select different goals that are tracked via the social networking platform. In addition, healthcare professionals and supporters can make goals for users that are similarly tracked. Individualized discharge plans can be created for users to track and support recovery on an individualized basis. Location based services can be used to verify completion of goals and the discharge plan. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046982 | METHODS AND COMPOSITIONS RELATED TO VIRAL INHIBITION - Disclosed herein are compounds, compositions and methods related to viral inhibition. In some forms, the compounds, compositions and methods are related to binding RNA. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046983 | Health Care System, Method and Devices for Collaborative Editing of a Medical Document - A system for providing health care documentation is disclosed. The system includes one or more of a local location and a remote location including a plurality of devices including one or more patient examination note-taking devices, and one or more of patient diagnostic devices, wherein the plurality of devices are utilized to create and collaboratively modify a clinical document component file of an electronic medical document of a patient; a communication platform connected to the plurality of devices, wherein the communication platform permits communication between the one or more local location and the remote location; and one or more databases that are disposed at the one or more local location and remote location, wherein the one or more databases stores the electronic medical document of the patient. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046984 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING A RISK OF LOSSES - A method and a system for determining a risk of losses, which can be implemented as a computer-implemented method and a computer system for determining for an institution the risk of losses associated with a line of business. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046985 | A novel method of underwriting and implementing low premium health insurance for globalizing healthcare - A novel method and apparatus for effectuating outsourcing components of the complex processes of underwriting, implementation and administration of a novel low cost healthcare delivery plan to offshore locations, comprising of a computer network of plurality of computer terminals that integrate the conventional processes with new processes that allow seamless implementation of home country emergency inpatient and essential healthcare services, with low cost offshore services that include, i) elective medical procedures performed at offshore accredited hospitals, ii) back office administrative support, ii) 24/7 customer support, iii) 24/7 online physician support, iv) importation and home delivery of approved prescription drugs, and v) travel support to the offshore destination. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046986 | Method and apparatus for insurance vertification - A system and device provides an indication signal perceivable by an observer of a vehicle as to whether that vehicle is covered by a valid insurance policy. A database of policy information is consulted by a control system that, in turn, generates a control signal that is transmitted to an indicator device on vehicle to control whether the indicator device signals that a valid insurance policy is in place or is not. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046987 | Method and system for virtual inflight reservation of post-flight resources - Methods and systems for virtual inflight reservation and a reservation manager for use therein allow passengers to effectively reserve post-flight resources while in-flight, and without having connectivity to a terrestrial communication network. In exemplary operation, before departure, a flight is allocated certain resources and a temporary hold is placed in a terrestrial reservation system on these resources. While in-flight, passengers reserve desired resources within the temporarily held resources. These reservations are “virtual” since they have not yet been processed by the terrestrial reservation system, although the temporary hold guarantees that the post-flight resource will be available when the reservation is later processed by the terrestrial reservation system. After the flight arrives at its destination, the reservations are processed by the terrestrial reservation system. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046988 | AUTOMATED TAXI DISPATCHING SYSTEM USING TELEPHONE NETWORKS - A vehicle for hire request system and method are provided and operate via a telephone network. A plurality of independent vehicle hire entities (A,B,C,D,E) participates and each has its own plurality of vehicles for hire. A unique telephone number is provided for use by an intending hirer so that when called a request for a vehicle for hire can be processed through a trigger component ( | 2011-02-24 |
20110046989 | SYSTEM AND METHOD OF PROTECTING PRICES - A method and system for protecting prices is provided. The price protection system increases consumer confidence when making purchases by reducing the risk associated with fluctuating prices. The price protection system receives a purchase specification from a consumer. Next, the price protection system determines the risk that the prices of items matching the purchase specification will change and reports a protected price to the consumer that represents the price that the price protection system will protect based on the determined risk for a protection period. Finally, the price protection system receives a request from the consumer to purchase protection of the protected price. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046990 | Model for Long-Term Language Achievement - The Model for Long-Term Language Achievement is the framework for the National Language Achievement Framework, the Plan for Long-Term Language Achievement, and the associated national, individual and synchronized data management and reporting systems. The National Language Achievement Framework represents the processes for a nationwide system assessment, national coordination, transformation, and administration. The Plan for Long-Term Language Achievement includes materials and procedures for data collection, analysis, and reporting to provide a process and guide to conduct individual, program, organizational, system, and national assessments. The data management and reporting systems are designed to manage and report data to facilitate these processes. The reporting system includes a feature to develop customized national frameworks and process models. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046991 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR COMPARING AND IMPROVING SALES PERFORMANCE OVER HETEROGENEOUS GEOGRAPHICAL SALES REGIONS - A method of improving sales performance over multiple geographical sales regions includes determining ( | 2011-02-24 |
20110046992 | System and methods for management of external dependencies associated with a project portfolio - The present invention applies concepts from the graph theory in mathematics and computer science to the management of external dependencies associated with a project portfolio. By viewing components of a project portfolio as nodes (vertices) of a graph, which may also include activities that are external to the project portfolio but depend or impose dependencies on it, a significant and unique business value can be realized. An exemplary embodiment of these concepts is described, demonstrating comprehensive, generic, and flexible system and methods. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046993 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR ASSESSING RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH LOCATE REQUEST TICKETS - Locate and/or marking operations involve detecting and/or marking a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility within a dig area, wherein at least a portion of the dig area is planned to be excavated or disturbed during excavation activities. One or more attributes of a locate and/or marking operation requested in a locate request ticket are assessed to provide one or more ticket assessment outcomes. Ticket information is obtained from the locate request ticket and analyzed so as to assign at least one risk designation to the ticket. The risk designation(s) is/are transmitted and/or stored so as to facilitate clearing the locate request ticket and/or dispatching a locate technician to perform the locate and/or marking operation. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046994 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR MULTI-STAGE ASSESSMENT OF LOCATE REQUEST TICKETS - Locate and/or marking operations involve detecting and/or marking a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility within a dig area, wherein at least a portion of the dig area is planned to be excavated or disturbed during excavation activities. One or more attributes of a locate and/or marking operation requested in a locate request ticket are assessed to provide one or more ticket assessment outcomes. In a first stage of assessment, a first assessment outcome is produced by analyzing at least some ticket information obtained from the locate request ticket. In a second stage of assessment, a second assessment outcome is produced based at least in part on the first assessment outcome. The first and/or second ticket assessment outcome(s) is/are transmitted and/or stored so as to facilitate clearing the locate request ticket and/or dispatching a locate technician to perform the locate and/or marking operation. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046995 | METHOD FOR TROUBLE MANAGING OF EQUIPMENT - A method for trouble managing in equipment is provided, with which optimal timing of repairing the equipment and occurrence of malfunction probable to occur concurrently with present malfunction or later stage can be inferred with sufficient accuracy, and which can be adopted for large-scale equipment used in a plant. The method for trouble managing of equipment by monitoring operation condition of the equipment with a monitoring means and inferring cause of malfunction of the equipment by an inference means which infers the cause of the malfunction using measured data concerning the operation condition obtained by the monitoring means when malfunctions occur as nodes of the inference means, comprises selecting acoustic data most similar to sound emitted from the equipment in which malfunction has occurred from among a plurality of acoustic data provide beforehand, selecting morphologic data most similar to a pattern of operating condition in the equipment from among a plurality of morphologic data provide beforehand, adding the selected acoustic data and the selected morphologic data to the nodes, and performing inference of cause of the malfunction of the equipment by a first Bayesian network base on the nodes. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046996 | METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE OPERATING FORECAST FOR A SYSTEM - According to the invention, to determine an operating forecast for a system, measurements are taken of an environmental value in an environment surrounding the system. Then these measurements are processed in a processing unit in order to determine how much of the system's lifetime has been consumed. The consumed lifetime is based on a history of the system in the environment. This is used to calculate a forecast of a good operating lifetime. According to the invention, this forecast determination is made by adaptive linear regression. Thus, all forecast calculations are simplified and can be performed by the system itself and in real-time. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046997 | Systems, Program Product, and Methods For Synthesizing Heat Exchanger Networks That Exhibit Life-Cycle Switchability and Flexibility Under All Possible Combinations of Process Variations - A system, methods, and user-friendly program product to optimize energy recovery for a process or cluster of processes under all possible combinations of given process changes and stream-specific minimum temperature approach values without enumeration, are provided. The systems, methods, and program product can include steps/operations to synthesize multiple heat exchanger network designs according to different process variations schemes, analyze the impact of process variations on each heat exchanger network, and identify which design provides a more optimal heat exchanger network design and which process variation scheme represents a more optimal flexibility index. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046998 | Systems, Program Product, and Methods For Targeting Optimal Process Conditions That Render An Optimal Heat Exchanger Network Design Under Varying Conditions - A system, methods, and user-friendly program product to optimize energy recovery for a process or cluster of processes under all possible combinations of given process changes and stream-specific minimum temperature approach values without enumeration, are provided. The systems, methods, and program product can include steps/operations to identify an optimal set of discrete target temperature values for the process streams for a given heat exchanger network design, to identify which target temperature values of the various process streams have the most significant economic impact on the process or cluster of processes, and to identify process stream supply attribute ranges of variations, e.g., in the form of a criticality list for the plurality of process streams, e.g., resulting from disturbances and/or uncertainty, which have a highly significant or otherwise critical effect on streams target temperature. | 2011-02-24 |
20110046999 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR ANALYZING LOCATE AND MARKING OPERATIONS BY COMPARING LOCATE INFORMATION AND MARKING INFORMATION - Methods, apparatus and systems including a computer comprising at least one hardware processor, at least one tangible storage medium (memory), and at least one input/output (I/O) interface for evaluating a quality of a locate and/or marking operation. First information relating to the marking operation (e.g., marking information) is compared to second information relating to the locate operation (e.g., locate information). In some examples, one or both of the marking information and the locate information may be filtered to improve data integrity in some manner. One or more indications of a quality assessment of the locate and/or marking operation is automatically generated based on such a comparison, and the one or more indications of the quality assessment are electronically stored on the at least one tangible storage medium, and/or electronically transmitted via the at least one I/O interface, so as to provide an electronic record of the quality assessment. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047000 | SHIPMENT FLOW VALIDATION SYSTEMS AND METHODS - According to various embodiments, a flow validation system models distribution flows of a consignor's packages from each of one or more hubs within a carrier's shipping network. The flow validation system allows the carrier and/or the consignor to identify at least one optimal hub within the carrier's shipping network to which packages destined for a particular geographical area (e.g., three-digit ZIP code) should be shipped from their origin and from which the packages should be distributed through the carrier's general shipping network to their respective destinations. According to various embodiments, the optimal hub (or hubs) for packages destined for a particular geographical area may be identified based on the number of days expected to transport the packages from the origin to the particular geographical area via the optimal hub (least “time-in-transit”) and/or the distance (or range of distances) between the optimal hub and the particular geographical area. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047001 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CREATING AN INSTANCE OF AN ADAPTABLE BUSINESS OBJECT - Described are methods and systems related to creating an instance of an adaptable business object for a business scenario. A scenario specific action node is received to perform the business scenario. Based upon a scenario specific action node identifier of the received scenario specific action node, an adaptable business object is identified. A dimension version associate with the identified adaptable business object is determined. Based upon a dimension code of the dimension version, metadata of the dimension version is retrieved. Business logic that is operable for creating an instance of the adaptable business object for the dimension version is identified. Based upon the identified business logic, the metadata of the dimension version and the adaptable business object are compiled to create the instance of the adaptable business object for the dimension version. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047002 | MECHANISM FOR MULTISITE SERVICE STATE DESCRIPTION - A distributed contact center is described and systems, methods, and devices for sharing state information between the various parts of the contact center are provided. Skill state information is condensed into one or several bits such that a message describing the state of multiple skills can be generated and shared with other parts of the contact center. This provides the ability to convey a large amount of state information for a particular site in a multi-site system without consuming a large amount of bandwidth or utilizing a large amount of processing capabilities. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047003 | DETERMINATION OF DECISION SUPPORT DATA CONCERNING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IMPROVEMENT TECHNIQUES - In relation to an entity such as a business having customers, a determination is made of at least one incremental satisfaction improvement value associated with increasing customer satisfaction of at least one customer by a fixed increment relative to a satisfaction scale. Based on the at least one incremental satisfaction improvement value, decision support data corresponding to a plurality of customer satisfaction improvement techniques is then determined, which decision support data may be presented in any desirable manner such as on a display device. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047004 | MODELING CAUSAL FACTORS WITH SEASONAL PATTTERNS IN A CAUSAL PRODUCT DEMAND FORECASTING SYSTEM - A method and system for forecasting product demand using a causal methodology, based on multiple regression techniques. In order to better predict product demand changes associated with causal variables having seasonal patterns, such as temperature, the method and system include a technique for removing the seasonal variation of causal variables, i.e., to de-seasonalize the causal factors. The de-seasonalized causal variables are utilized within the causal methodology to generate product demand forecasts. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047005 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FOOT TRAFFIC ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT - A system for foot traffic analysis and management includes infrared sensors for sensing the movement and direction of traffic in a designated area. The system further includes one or more radio frequency identification sensors for sensing the location of a subset of the traffic in the designated area. The system also includes a controller adapted to receive data from infrared sensors and the radio frequency identification sensors, which may be provided to a computing system as an analysis and management interface. The system may further include manual alert devices that signal the controller when manually activated. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047006 | SYSTEMS, METHODS, AND MEDIA FOR RATING WEBSITES FOR SAFE ADVERTISING - Systems, methods, and media for rating websites for safe advertising are provided. In accordance with some embodiments of the disclosed subject matter, the method comprises: receiving a uniform resource locator corresponding to a webpage; selecting a plurality of evidentiary sources for obtaining evidence relating to the uniform resource locator, wherein each piece of evidence corresponds to one of the plurality of evidentiary sources; converting each piece of evidence obtained from the plurality of evidentiary sources into a plurality of instances that describe the webpage; applying the plurality of instances to a plurality of rating models, wherein each of the plurality of rating models generates an ordinomial and wherein the ordinomial encodes a probability of membership in one or more severity classes of a category; combining the ordinomial from each of the plurality of rating models into a combined ordinomial probability estimate; and generating a rating for the webpage based at least in part on the combined ordinomial probability estimate, wherein the rating identifies whether the webpage is likely to contain objectionable content of the category. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047007 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COMMUNITY-BASED DISPUTE RESOLUTION - There is provided a method and system to enable resolving a dispute using a networked dispute resolution environment. Jurors may be selected from members of a network-based community. A panel of jurors including one or more members is formed and provided evidence associated with the dispute for review. The evidence may include a description of the dispute and comments from at least one party to the dispute. A decision on the dispute based on input received from the panel is then determined. The input may comprise one or more votes received from the panel. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047008 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FEE DETERMINATION IN A COMMUNITY-BASED DISPUTE RESOLUTION - There is provided a system and method for fee determination in a network-based dispute resolution environment. A request to resolve a dispute within a network-based community is received from a first disputant. A fee to resolve the dispute is collected from the first disputant. At least a portion of the fee is returned to the first disputant when an outcome of the dispute is in favor of the first disputant. A panel of one or more members of a network-based community determines the outcome of the dispute. The one or more members may be compensated based on overall performance. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047009 | Method and System for Electronic Toll Payment - A system and method for making electronic payments for tolls, parking and related transactions. A customer downloads an application onto their personal electronic device and registers the customer's vehicle and financial account information with a provider. The application detects upcoming toll facilities and notifies the customer. The customer can accept the payment of the toll through the application whereupon the provider makes a payment from the customer's designated account to the toll facility. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047010 | ARTICLE VENDING MACHINE AND METHOD FOR RECEIVING RESTRICTED DISCOUNT CODES - A network of DVD dispensing machines and method for accepting user-inputted coupon codes that are only accepted when certain restrictions are satisfied. In one aspect of the present invention, certain coupon codes are only accepted by kiosks located in certain geographic areas. In another aspect of the present invention, certain coupon codes are only accepted if the customer is a new customer opening a new account. In another aspect of the present invention, certain coupon codes are only accepted once per user account. In yet another aspect of the present invention, certain coupon codes are only accepted if the coupon codes are used at kiosks housed in certain vending partners or in stores affiliated with a certain entity. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047011 | INCENTIVES TO OPTIMIZE THE PERFORMANCE OF FEMTO CELL GROUPS - A method of incentivizing an operator of femto cell infrastructure to efficiently utilize the femto cell infrastructure. The method can include establishing, for an end user device, telecommunication network presence on a femto cell. The femto cell can be a geographic region serviced by the femto cell infrastructure, which establishes wireless communication links within the femto cell. Further, the femto cell can be smaller than a macro cell supported by infrastructure operated by a communication services provider. At least one parameter measured within the femto cell can be received. Based on the measured parameter, a determination can be made as to whether to award at least one incentive to the operator of the femto cell, and the incentive can be awarded to the operator. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047012 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROMOTING A BUSINESS TO MEMBERS OF A SOCIAL NETWORK - Methods and systems for promoting a business to members of a social network are disclosed. One embodiment is a method for promoting a business to users of a social network, the method including the following steps: establishing a closed user group comprising a plurality of users of the social network, wherein eligibility for membership of the closed user group requires satisfying at least one eligibility criterion; registering as a member of the social network a business wishing to promote a good or service to members of the closed user group, a business registration request including at least one discount offered by the business to members of the closed user group; and displaying discounts offered to the closed user group to any user who is a member of the closed user group. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047013 | MERCHANDISING AMPLIFICATION VIA SOCIAL NETWORKING SYSTEM AND METHOD - A system for engaging in online advertising and merchandising of products or brands in or through social networks, examples of which include MySpace.com and Facebook.com. Consumers select products that they are or may be interested in, and post them to a social network for feedback and voting. The items or products selected appear in the consumer's status update, and can be posted for viewing by their network of friends. By clicking on the link, the friends of the consumer can accept and visit the application. The application may then allow the friends to view the product or item selections on which the consumer is seeking feedback. The friends may submit comments or observations about the available selections, and also may be able to vote for the product or products that they prefer, or provide a rating on a particular product or products. All voting and comments may then be posted back to the consumer's social networking homepage, status update, and/or seller's product website along with the original message and link. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047014 | Graphical User Interface with Circumferentially Displayed Search Results - A method and system for processing user information are described. A graphical user interface is provided to include a display region, a first bounded region circumferentially surrounding the display region, and a second bounded region circumferentially surrounding the first bounded region. The first bounded region may include one or more first-type graphical user interface elements with each of the first-type graphical user interface elements selectively mapped to one or more first-type display data. The second bounded region may include one or more second-type graphical user interface elements with each of the second-type graphical user interface elements selectively mapped to one or more second-type display data. A user input is received using the graphical user interface, and a result is generated based at least on a user activation of at least one of the first-type and second-type graphical user interface elements. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047015 | NETWORK FORMATION IN ASSET-TRACKING SYSTEM BASED ON ASSET CLASS - A plurality of wireless transceivers are associated with assets and each transceiver is assigned a class designation representative of an attribute, characteristic, relation, or behavior of its respective asset. Class based network formation routines are utilized to establish hierarchical networks based on asset classes, and the asset class is used by each transceiver to screen communications intended for receipt by transceivers of the same class. The overall wireless data communication network results in reduced power consumption and signal interference in asset tracking applications. The transceivers may include a query handling routine for forming a dynamically distributed hierarchical database system. Furthermore, a recipient transceiver selectively receives communications from other local transceivers by transmitting at incrementally stronger power levels to successive groups of transceivers, and receiving reply transmissions only from a limited number of the transceivers that excludes those transceivers from which communications already are received. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047016 | DISTRIBUTION OF E-COUPONS TO USER DEVICES - A method and system for determining which of a plurality of users may be sent an e-coupon. More particularly, a computing device may determine which of a plurality of users are watching a particular program or advertisement on television and may determine a corresponding e-coupon to be sent to the users watching the particular program. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047017 | Offer Management Method And System - An offer management system may provide an open platform capable of aggregating offers from multiple offer providers. All offers may be uploaded to the offer management system and presented to consumers via a single portal so they can easily browse, select and review all available digital offers at one time, in one place. Upon visiting a hosted website, the offer management system may interact with the consumer by displaying references to digital offers on the home page or in the navigation bar. The offer management system can display personalized content that may feature any available offers targeted specifically to the consumer based upon personal information contained in a profile for the consumer that is associated with the consumer's online account, such as a loyalty card account. Moreover, the offer management system may receive requests from the consumer to print selected offers or download selected offers to the consumer's account. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047018 | Offer Management Method And System - An offer management system may provide an open platform capable of aggregating offers from multiple offer providers. All offers may be uploaded to the offer management system and presented to consumers via a single portal so they can easily browse, select and review all available digital offers at one time, in one place. Upon visiting a hosted website, the offer management system may interact with the consumer by displaying references to digital offers on the home page or in the navigation bar. The offer management system can display personalized content that may feature any available offers targeted specifically to the consumer based upon personal information contained in a profile for the consumer that is associated with the consumer's online account, such as a loyalty card account. Moreover, the offer management system may receive requests from the consumer to print selected offers or download selected offers to the consumer's account. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047019 | COUPON BEARING SPONSOR ACCOUNT TRANSACTION AUTHORIZATION - A transaction handler receives, for forwarding to a sponsor account's issuer, a coupon authorization request message from a merchant's acquirer that identifies the sponsor account and a coupon for an item being purchased by a consumer in a transaction with the merchant. The issuer determines eligibility of the coupon for use by the consumer, and sends an authorization response message to the merchant via its acquirer and the transaction handler for the application of a corresponding discount for the item when the coupon is eligible. One or more coupon eligibilities for the purchase of the item by the consumer from the merchant can be derived from comparisons of the transaction to predetermined times, geographies, jurisdictions, sets of merchants, and/or the number of times that coupons have been used in other transactions. The transaction handler can further process the transaction for authorization the consumer's account to pay of the transaction. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047020 | SALES DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS AND SALES DATA PROCESSING METHOD - A sales data processing apparatus includes a member rank accepting unit, a point accepting unit, an extraction unit, and a calculation unit. The member rank accepting unit accepts an input of a member rank of a customer as of when a point voucher is used. The point accepting unit accepts an input of a number of points on the point voucher. The extraction unit extracts, from a storage unit which stores a point return rate defining how much should be returned in dollars for one point corresponding to a member rank, the point return rate corresponding to the member rank accepted by the member rank accepting unit. The calculation unit calculates an amount of return on the point voucher on the basis of the number of points accepted by the point accepting unit and the point return rate extracted by the extraction unit. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047021 | Minimum and maximum recommended supply lines for determining price-protection rebate - A minimum recommended supply line (RSL) and a maximum RSL during a time period are determined. The minimum RSL is based on a minimum number of a product that is recommended to be in inventory for the time period. The maximum RSL is based on a maximum number of the product that is recommended to be in inventory for the time period. A number of the product is purchased equal to or greater than the minimum RSL minus a number of the product already in inventory at a beginning of the time period. A price-protected number of the product is determined as a smaller of the maximum RSL and a number of the product in inventory at an end of the time period. A rebate amount is determined as equal to the price-protected number multiplied by a decrease in price of the product from the time period to a next time period. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047022 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING CROSS-BENEFITS BASED ON A CUSTOMER ACTIVITY - In accordance with some embodiments of the present invention, a controller receives an indication of acceptance by a customer of an offer for a subsidy from a second vendor (e.g., a subsidizing vendor). The offer may define, for example, a reduction in the price charged for an item purchased from a first vendor and an obligation for the customer to fulfill in exchange for the subsidy. The customer is charged a second price for the items, which is less than the total price, and may even be zero. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047023 | Offer Management Method And System - An offer management system may provide an open platform capable of aggregating offers from multiple offer providers. All offers may be uploaded to the offer management system and presented to consumers via a single portal so they can easily browse, select and review all available digital offers at one time, in one place. Upon visiting a hosted website, the offer management system may interact with the consumer by displaying references to digital offers on the home page or in the navigation bar. The offer management system can display personalized content that may feature any available offers targeted specifically to the consumer based upon personal information contained in a profile for the consumer that is associated with the consumer's online account, such as a loyalty card account. Moreover, the offer management system may receive requests from the consumer to print selected offers or download selected offers to the consumer's account. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047024 | CASH CHANGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM - A system for exchanging cash change, owed by a vendor to a customer as a result of the customer purchasing a good or a service from the vendor, for an alternative offer of a good or a service, said system for performing the steps of generating change data representing a monetary value of the cash change owed to the customer by the vendor; generating offer data representing said alternative offer of said good or service; receiving acceptance data representing confirmation of acceptance of exchange of said cash change for said alternative offer of said good or service; and generating confirmation data representing confirmation of acceptance of exchange of said cash change for said alternative offer of said good or service, wherein said offer data has an offer value corresponding to said change data. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047025 | IMMEDIACY TARGETING IN ONLINE ADVERTISING - Methods and systems are provided for advertising based at least in part on a temporal response profile associated with a user keyword query. Methods are provided in which the temporal response profile provides an indication of at least one time frame during which serving of advertisements, or certain advertisements, associated with the keyword query to the user is predicted to be more likely to be effective relative to times outside of the at least one time frame. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047026 | USING AUCTION TO VARY ADVERTISEMENT LAYOUT - A layout in which advertisements are displayed may be determined by auction. Several layouts may be defined, each having one or more slots of different relative values. Bids are received from advertisers, and an auction may be held to determine in which slots the different advertisers are placed, and which layout is to be used. The expected revenue from each layout may be calculated, and the layout may be chosen that maximizes the revenue that is expected to result from showing a particular layout to a user. In one example, there are layouts that offer exclusive and non-exclusive mainlines. Mainline exclusivity may be offered to an advertiser that has bid a sufficiently high amount per click that awarding the mainline exclusively to the advertiser can offset the loss of revenue expected from moving other advertisers off the mainline. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047027 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING WHETHER AN AD IS UBIQUITOUS - A method of determining whether an advertisement will be served against a search query calculates the ubiquitous index of the advertisement and if at least the ubiquitous index is below a predefined threshold, the advertisement is served. The ubiquitous index may be based, at least in part, on either the relatedness of a set of search queries against which the advertisement was served over a predetermined period, or a comparison between a click-through rate associated with the advertisement over the predetermined period and an aggregated click-through rate calculated over a set of advertisements available to be served over the predetermined period, or some combination thereof. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047028 | TARGET ADVERTISEMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD IN MOBILE COMMUNICATION TERMINAL - A target advertisement method in a mobile communication terminal includes a first step of, in a web browser, transmitting keywords having high probability indexes among previously stored keywords, to an advertisement server via the Internet in an initially driven state; a second step of, in the advertisement server, selecting advertisements appropriate for the keywords transmitted from the web browser and transmitting the selected advertisements to the web browser via the Internet; a third step of, in the web browser, displaying the advertisements transmitted from the advertisement server on a first screen of the web browser; and a fourth step of implementing an information searching function or a web surfing function in conformity with a user's desire. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047029 | Methods for managing co-located macro and femto base station deployments and methods for initiating mobile station handoff - In a method for managing a plurality of neighboring base stations and handoff of a mobile station, a radio frequency equipment organizes the plurality of neighboring base stations into groups according to base station grouping characteristics associated with the plurality of neighboring base stations. The radio frequency equipment then manages the organized plurality of neighboring base stations for handoff of the mobile station. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047030 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING/RECEIVING MOBILE DIGITAL ADVERTISEMENT SERVICE - The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for receiving/providing mobile digital advertisement service. The mobile digital advertisement service receiving method includes receiving a connection guide message from an access point installed at a first store, establishing connection to the access point by transmitting a connection acceptance message in response to the received connection guide message, and receiving the advertisement contents from an advertisement managing server connected to the access point after establishing connection to the access point. The connection guide message is a message for inquiring whether to receive the advertisement contents or not. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047031 | Targeted Advertising Based on User-Created Profiles - Systems and methods for targeted advertising based on user-created profiles are disclosed. A particular method includes receiving a file at a web server during an Internet session, where the file is created by a user and includes profile information that is associated with the user and that is input into the file by the user. A targeted advertisement is selected for transmission from the web server to the user based on the profile information. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047032 | PRIVACY-COUNSCIOUS ADVERTISING - Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method and related network element including one or more of the following: receiving a plurality of advertisement messages via the communications network, each advertisement message of the plurality of advertisement messages including a set of meta-information which describes the content of an advertisement associated with the advertisement message; determining whether each advertisement message is relevant to the user by comparing the set of meta-information to a set of user preferences associated with the user, the set of user preferences stored locally on the user node; when an advertisement message is determined to not be relevant to the user, discarding the advertisement message; and when an advertisement message is determined to be relevant to the user, providing the user with access to the advertisement associated with the advertisement message. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047033 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MOBILE DEVICE REPLACEMENT - This disclosure describes a system and method for providing relevant offers for a user to replace a mobile communication device in the event that the device is lost, stolen, or otherwise in need of replacement, such as when a device has its SIM card removed or replaced, is inactive for a period of time, is unresponsive to a server monitoring the device, or when other customizable events occur. The disclosed system can determine if and when a mobile communication device may need replacement, and can generate relevant offers to replace the device based upon the user's current device and other factors. The system may also optimize offers to increase the likelihood of acceptance based upon previously accepted offers. In order to provide a comprehensive set of replacement options for a user, the system can aggregate offers from third parties. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047034 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROCESSING PRINT JOBS - A computer implemented document-processing system and related method includes a receiving component, a capabilities analysis component, an authorization component and a calculating component. The receiving component receives a campaign-specifications data structure including one or more job specifications. One of the job specifications is associated with a job type selected from a direct mail campaign catalog, a direct mail campaign advertising and a direct mail non-printable service. The capabilities analysis component selects a set of capable entries from a database of vendors such that each selected entry corresponds to a vendor capable of performing one or more jobs of a campaign as operatively specified by one or more job specifications of the campaign-specifications data structure. The authorization component authorizes a set of entries from the database of vendors that conform to a predetermined set of criteria. The calculating component electronically calculates a plurality of prices corresponding to the campaign-specifications data structure. Each of the plurality of prices is operatively associated with one entry of the authorized set of entries and/or one entry of the selected set of capable entries. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047035 | Systems, Methods, and Media for Evaluating Companies Based On Social Performance - Mechanisms for evaluating companies based on social performance are provided. In some embodiments, systems comprise: at least one processor that: receives data regarding a plurality of companies from a plurality of data sources, wherein the data includes score values regarding the social performance of the plurality of companies; calculates category scores for each of the plurality of companies in each of a plurality of categories based on the score values; calculates a combined score for each of the plurality of companies based on the category scores; compares at least one of the combined score and the category scores for one of the plurality of companies to a threshold; and based on results of the comparison, presents an advertisement to the user that corresponds to the one of the plurality of companies. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047036 | ALL-IN-ONE PROXIMITY PAYMENT DEVICE WITH LOCAL AUTHENTICATION - A personal powered proximity payment device that can be owned by or issued to an individual user is provided. The device is a non-ISO card device that includes an internal dual-mode (contact and contactless) chip card coupled to a display and a robust PIN entry or biometric reading means. The device provides proximity payment functions, and optional proximity payment on/off and local pre-purchase account holder verification functions to the individual user. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047037 | Automatic Electronic Trip Receipt System and Method for Chauffeured Vehicles - The present invention relates to an automatic electronic trip receipt system and method for chauffeured vehicles, and more particularly, to an automatic electronic trip receipt system which combines an in-car device and a center server to automatically generate a electronic trip reports or receipts for a passenger; wherein the center server comprises a dispatch server for transmitting related dispatch data to in-car device, a communication server for wirelessly communicating with the in-car device, a trip data server for storing trip data, and a trip data inquiry server for the passenger to inquire a specified list of trip reports; the in-car device comprises an in-car device main processor for processing signals from modules, which comprise a GPS module, a wireless communication module, a boarding/disembarking detecting module, a tachometer counter module, an external meter reading device and a credit/debit card charging and card ID reading device. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047038 | Smart Card For Safer Credit Transactions - A smart credit card device for allowing its owner to safely make credit transactions, which comprises a display screen; a memory for storing permanent data of the device and its owner and unique temporary dat regarding an impending specific transaction; a wireless transceiver for being in data communication with the credit company through a point o sale; input components for allowing the owner to input data essential fo performing the transactions; a processor for controlling the operation o the card device; and a power source such as a battery or a solar cell arra with a backup battery for supplying DC power to the card device. | 2011-02-24 |
20110047039 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GIVING A GIFT - A first person can give a gift by using a mobile phone or other communications device to access a central computing system to which a gift and a second person (the intended recipient of the gift) can be identified by the first person. Thereafter, the central computing system transmits a unique code to the mobile phone or other communications device of the second person. The code can then be given by the second person, verbally or by transmission or display by his/her mobile phone, to a retailer of the gift. Upon validation by the retailer, such as by communication between the retailer's point-of-sale system and the central computing system, the retailer provides the gift identified by the first person. | 2011-02-24 |