20th week of 2013 patent applcation highlights part 64 |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20130124209 | INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD, AND PROGRAM - An information processing apparatus includes: a plurality of information input units; an event detection unit that generates event information including estimated position information and estimated identification information of users present in the real space based on analysis of the information from the information input unit; and an information integration processing unit that inputs the event information, and generates target information including a position of each user and user identification information based on the input event information, and signal information representing a probability value of the event generation source, wherein the information integration processing unit includes an utterance source probability calculation unit, and wherein the utterance source probability calculation unit performs a process of calculating an utterance source score as an index value representing an utterance source probability of each target by multiplying weights based on utterance situations by a plurality of different information items from the event detection unit. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124210 | INFORMATION TERMINAL, CONSUMER ELECTRONICS APPARATUS, INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD AND INFORMATION PROCESSING PROGRAM - According to an information terminal connectable to a target apparatus, including a determining unit and a control unit wherein the determining unit determines whether the information terminal is held by a user or not, the control unit perform to output, when changed from a status of being held to a status of not being held, a control signal to instruct accepting an operation given from the user to the target apparatus, and the control unit performs, when changed from the status of not being held to the status of being held, at least either one of displaying a remote controller to operate the target device on a display screen of the information terminal or acquiring information on a status of the target apparatus from the target apparatus to display the information on the display screen. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124211 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ENHANCED COMMUNICATIONS VIA SMALL DATA RATE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS - A system and method for interacting with an interactive communication system include processing a profile associated with an interactive communication system; generating a user interface based on the processing of the profile to solicit a user response correlating to a response required by the interactive communication system; receiving the user response via the user interface; updating the user interface using the profile based on the user response; and sending a signal to the interactive communication system based on one or more user responses. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124212 | Method and Apparatus for Time Synchronized Script Metadata - A method includes receiving script data including script words for dialogue, receiving audio data corresponding to at least a portion of the dialogue, wherein the audio data includes timecodes associated with dialogue words, generating a sequential alignment of the script words to the dialogue words, matching at least some of the script words to corresponding dialogue words to determine hard alignment points, partitioning the sequential alignment of script words into alignment sub-sets, wherein the bounds of the alignment sub-subsets are defined by adjacent hard-alignment points, and wherein the alignment subsets includes a sub-set of the script words and a corresponding sub-set of dialogue words that occur between the hard-alignment points, determining corresponding timecodes for a sub-set of script words in a sub-subset based on the timecodes associated with the sub-set of dialogue words, and generating time-aligned script data including the sub-set of script words and their corresponding timecodes. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124213 | Method and Apparatus for Interpolating Script Data - Provided in some embodiments is a computer implemented method that includes providing script data including script words indicative of dialogue words to be spoken, providing audio data corresponding to at least a portion of the dialogue words to be spoken, wherein the audio data includes timecodes associated with dialogue words, generating a sequential alignment of the script words to the dialogue words, matching at least some of the script words to corresponding dialogue words to determine alignment points, determining corresponding timecodes for unmatched script words using interpolation based on the timecodes associated with matching script words, and generating time-aligned script data including the script words and their corresponding time codes. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124214 | SIGNAL PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD, AND PROGRAM - A method, system, and computer program product for processing an encoded audio signal is described. In one exemplary embodiment, the system receives an encoded low-frequency range signal and encoded energy information used to frequency shift the encoded low-frequency range signal. The low-frequency range signal is decoded and an energy depression of the decoded signal is smoothed. The smoothed low-frequency range signal is frequency shifted to generate a high-frequency range signal. The low-frequency range signal and high-frequency range signal are then combined and outputted. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124215 | CODER USING FORWARD ALIASING CANCELLATION - A codec supporting switching between time-domain aliasing cancellation transform coding mode and time-domain coding mode is made less liable to frame loss by adding a further syntax portion to the frames, depending on which the parser of the decoder may select between a first action of expecting the current frame to have, and thus reading forward aliasing cancellation data from the current frame and a second action of not-expecting the current frame to have, and thus not reading forward aliasing cancellation data from the current frame. In other words, while a bit of coding efficiency is lost due to the provision of the new syntax portion, it is merely the new syntax portion which provides for the ability to use the codec in case of a communication channel with frame loss. Without the new syntax portion, the decoder would not be capable of decoding any data stream portion after a loss and will crash in trying to resume parsing. Thus, in an error prone environment, the coding efficiency is prevented from vanishing by the introduction of the new syntax portion. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124216 | Method, Device and System for Signal Encoding and Decoding - A method, device, and system for signal encoding and decoding are disclosed. The method includes: encoding a core layer signal to obtain a core layer signal code; selecting an enhancement sample point that requires enhancement layer signal encoding according to the core layer signal code and the number of bits that can be used by an enhancement layer; obtaining an enhancement layer signal code of the enhancement sample point; and outputting a bit stream, where the bit stream includes the core layer signal code and the enhancement layer signal code. According to the number of bits that can be used by the enhancement layer, the enhancement sample point that requires enhancement layer signal encoding is selected; the enhancement layer signal of the selected enhancement sample point is encoded and decoded; when no sufficient bits are available for the enhancement layer, the enhancement quality of the core layer can be improved. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124217 | HEALTH PLAN RATING SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM - Methods and training programs for improving the level of quality of care within a healthcare plan. The methods include obtaining medical data from a population of patients within the plan, storing such data in electronic medical records embodied on a computer readable medium, evaluating at least one metric within the data via a computer capable of interpreting said electronic medical records, and presenting a notification if the metric is found to be below a standard for the metric. The training includes evaluating the healthcare plan's current practices, training the healthcare provider in improved practices, providing a system for recording medical documents, and training the healthcare provider in use of the system. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124218 | SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT ENGINE FOR HEALTH WELLNESS PROGRAM - The present disclosure generally relates to systems and methods to encourage health care consumers to engage in healthy lifestyle choices, thereby improving their overall health condition. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to using social media, via a social engagement engine, to encourage health care consumers to participate in health-improving activities and to engage in health-conscious behaviors. Specifically, disclosed is a computer-implemented system for operating a health program, which includes: a team formation module configured to receive data representing the formation of a plurality of teams; a challenge module configured to receive data representing the formation of one or more challenges; a data tracking module configured to receive, over an electronic network, data representing a tracked health condition of a user; and a scoring module configured to apply an algorithm to the health condition data to convert it into a numerical score. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124219 | MANAGING SERVICES IN HEALTH CARE FACILITY - A method of managing services in a health care facility includes receiving one or more stat requests, automatically identifying, for at least one of the stat requests, a candidate to perform at least one task associated with the stat request; automatically determining whether the candidate already has a predetermined maximum number of stat requests; if the candidate already has the predetermined maximum number of stat requests, notifying a manager that the candidate is not available to fulfill the stat request; and paging at least one person to fulfill the stat request. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124220 | MANAGING SERVICES WITH ASSIGNMENT SETTINGS - A method of assigning tasks to members of an organization includes receiving a selection of an assignment setting for each of at least one of one or more groups of members of the organization, wherein the assignment setting selection at least partially determines how tasks are to be assigned to members of the at least one group, receiving one or more requests for a task to be performed by one or more of the members of one or more of the groups, and assigning at least one of the requests to at least one of the members of at least one of the groups based at least in part on the assignment setting for the member's group. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124221 | REAL-TIME TIME SERIES MATRIX PATHOPHYSIOLOGIC PATTERN PROCESSOR AND QUALITY ASSESSMENT METHOD - A device for providing information about a medical condition is described herein. A monitor gathers information about the physiological systems of the patient, reads from the memory storage, identifies time dimensioned dynamic patterns of the data, determines the severity of the patterns, identifies a distress condition based at least on a relative match between a the dynamic patterns of the data for a plurality of physiological systems, and calculates a real-time or near real-time sensitivity, specificity, therapeutic delay, and/or correlation metric. A display processor that provides a visual display of time dimensioned output of the severity of the dynamic patterns and a visual display of the sensitivity, specificity, therapeutic delay, and/or the correlation metric in real-time or near real-time. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124222 | METHOD AND SYSTEM MANAGING AND PROCESSING PATIENT DATA - A computer-implemented device system and method for creating, managing, and processing an interactive workflow is described to handle patient data. A client having various modules may be installed on a computing device. The modules of the client may be adapted to receive and transmit communications by way of various communication methods. The client may be in direct or indirect communication with a server, which includes one or more databases and a host application having various modules and engines that facilitate communications between a user and one or more entities associated with healthcare including insurers, patients, doctors, physical therapists occupations therapists, speech therapists, allied healthcare professionals, nurses and other skilled professionals. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124223 | Systems and Methods for Reducing Medical Claims Fraud - Various embodiments of the present disclosure may be comprised of systems and methods for reducing fraudulent use of a medical identity to obtain medical goods or services. Identification information may be received for a medical insurance account of a medical consumer. Medical claims data associated with the medical insurance account may be received, and the medical claims data may be transmitted to the medical consumer. A confirmation status may be received from the medical consumer for the medical claims data. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124224 | Method and System for Selection of Patients to Receive a Medical Device - In one embodiment, a method for identifying patients to receive a medical device has been developed. The method includes retrieving first medical data associated with one patient from a database, identifying a probability that a medical device provides a medical benefit to the one patient that exceeds a cost associated with providing the medical device to the one patient with reference to the first medical data and a probabilistic model, the probabilistic model having a plurality of model parameters, each model parameter corresponding to one type of datum in the first medical data, and providing the medical device to the one patient in response to the identified probability exceeding a first predetermined threshold. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124225 | UNIVERSAL APPLICATION INTEGRATOR - A universal application integrator system enables the automated integration of data from patient care devices into electronic health records (EHRs). In addition, the system acts as a context manager between these patient care devices, EHR applications, and ancillary specific patient care applications. The system is the central controller for direct integration with patient care devices. This allows for click-once implementation and automated driver uploads for patient care devices. Third party application integration allows for device and patient context information to be shared among applications in a standardized patient care fashion. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124226 | Method and Apparatus for Coordinating Healthcare of Patients - Methods and systems for coordinating care of patients are disclosed, including enrolling a patient onto a communication facilitator application; storing an electronic record pertaining to the patient; establishing a patient healthcare team group for sending and receiving messages; storing a list of one or more members of the patient healthcare team group in the electronic record; receiving from the patient or the one or more members of the patient healthcare team group a message directed to one or more members of the patient healthcare team group; checking if the message is a permitted communication between the patient or the one or more members of the patient healthcare team group and the one or more members of the patient healthcare team group; and if the message is a permitted communication, directing the message to the one or more members of the patient healthcare team group. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124227 | TRACKING SYSTEM FOR HEALTHCARE FACILITIES - A location/tracking system for use in hospitals and similar healthcare facilities is based upon a “last seen” location for patients, clinicians, or high value equipment. The system uses portal readers to determine when and where an item to be tracked passes through a portal, bed or exam chair mounted proximity reader to determine when and how long an item is proximate to a reader in order to determine when and for how long the item is proximate to a particular task area. Real time tracking and retrospective analysis of transaction data enables locating an item to be tracked and allows higher level analysis of the transaction data to determine metrics for “time to test”, “time to treatment”, and similar statistics. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124228 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING ONLINE RECORDS - A method for providing a user with the ability to access and collect records associated with the user in a secure and private manner includes associating access information with the user for the user to use to access a server storing files comprising records associated with the user in a computer readable storage medium, providing the user with a user interface on a computing device to remotely access the records stored on the server, receiving at the server the files comprising records associated with the user from a service provider associated with the user, receiving at the server a request from the user made through the user interface of the computing device for access to the files, wherein the access information is associated with the request, and sending the user a file containing the records associated with user from the server to the computing device in response to the request. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124229 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SECURE SELF REGISTRATION WITH AN INSURANCE PORTAL - Systems and methods are disclosed herein for processing a first-time registration request for electronic access to a plurality of computerized insurance services. A network interface is configured to communicate with the plurality of computerized insurance services by interfacing with a plurality of disparate information platforms and communicating with a user computing device. A memory stores a portal module, a profile module, and a security module, each in the form of computer executable instructions, which, when executed by a processor, cause the system to receive a user identity, a first-time registration request of the user identity, and one or more secure information items associated with the user identity from the user computing device, determine a verification score for the user identity based on the one or more secure information items, and selectively register the user identity with a plurality of the computerized insurance services based on the verification score. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124230 | INCREASING A POLICY VALUE ACCOUNT OF A LIFE INSURANCE POLICY BASED ON AN ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE POLICY - The present disclosure describes, among other things, an example method for maintaining an account for a life insurance policy. The method may include determining an amount to apply to the account, the amount based at least in part on i) a plurality of first factors based on data for life insurance policies in a class of policies, wherein the class of policies includes the life insurance policy, and ii) a plurality of second factors based on data for an individual, wherein the individual is a policy holder of the life insurance policy. The method may include increasing at least a portion of the account by the amount. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124231 | System and Method for Automated Funds Management - An automated funds management system and in particular a system and a method to at least ensure the payment of guaranteed minimum income benefit (“GMIB”) based on the automated sector based allocation of funds in a variable annuity. A contract holder's profile data is evaluated and a profile score is computed based on the evaluated profile data. The GMIB payment stream value is computed based on the available profile data and the assigned profile score. An appropriate asset class percentage allocation of contract holder funds is recommended based on the assigned profile score and the computed GMIB payment stream value. Appropriate subaccounts are identified based on the defined asset class percentage allocation of contract holder funds, GMIB payment stream value, and/or profile score. The changes in the value of at least one market index are captured and based on a pre-determined change in the value of at least one market index, at least a portion of the invested contract holder funds are reallocated into relatively better performing market sector based subaccounts. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124232 | MANAGING CONSISTENT INTERFACES FOR INDIAN PAYROLL BUSINESS OBJECTS ACROSS HETEROGENEOUS SYSTEMS - A business object model, which reflects data that is used during a given business transaction, is utilized to generate interfaces. This business object model facilitates commercial transactions by providing consistent interfaces that are suitable for use across industries, across businesses, and across different departments within a business during a business transaction. In some operations, software creates, updates, or otherwise processes information related to Indian employee payroll input, Indian social insurance arrangement, and Indian tax arrangement business objects. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124233 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETERMINING PAYROLL RELATED INSURANCE PREMIUMS - A computer-implemented method for determining payroll related insurance premiums includes receiving at a server computer first payroll data relating to a first employer in a first data format from a first source and second payroll data in a second data format from a second source. At least one of the first source and the second source includes an employer payroll computer system at an employer location. The received data is read and extracted by a utility program at the employer location. The method further includes conditioning the received payroll data into uniform format payroll data; filtering by at least one of the utility program and the server computer the payroll data to remove non-premium related data; applying by inclusion and exclusion rules from a rules engine to determine payroll data items to consider in calculating a payroll-based insurance premium; and calculating payroll-based insurance premiums. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124234 | INTELLIGENT SEAT RECOMMENDATION - Ticket recommendations are provided based on user preferences, which can include user-set preferences and preferences based on user history. Preferences are compared with ticket information such as comments by other users of specific seats and areas, price, location near friends of the user, location near venue establishments, etc. After a ticket is purchased, recommendations of areas outside the venue may be provided to the user. In another embodiment, a user is presented with advantages and/or disadvantages of events outside the original event of interest. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124235 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GENERATING AND USING A PRICE SUMMARY - Systems for managing pricing proposals and associated options in the travel industry with respect to the provision of travel services or products. The system is capable of communicating with a booking engine and a global distribution system (GDS), and is operable by a reservation agent. An itinerary pricing User Interface determines an itinerary for one or more predetermined passenger, segment, and option combinations, sends one or more informative pricing requests to the GDS, and receives as a result of the requests one or more pricing proposals for each predetermined passenger, segment and option combination from the GDS. A pricing summary module and User Interface stores each pricing proposal, such that the one or more pricing proposals are available for subsequent use. The pricing summary User Interface provides an intuitive representation of the one or more pricing proposals in order to compare the pricing proposals. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124236 | ELECTRONIC TICKET SYSTEM - The present invention is an electronic ticket system. A server is provided with a member platform, a member database, a ticket platform and a ticket database. The member database stores account information of a plurality of members and a characteristic code corresponding to each account. The ticket platform provides the functions of sale and verification of each type of tickets. The ticket database stores ticket information of a plurality of tickets and a characteristic code corresponding to each ticket. A ticket checking device is used by each service unit to read a characteristic code in a characteristic code carrier provided by the member, and then send it to the server to be contrasted with the ticket information and characteristic code stored in the ticket database. Moreover, the verification result is displayed on a warner, and thereby whether the service corresponding to the ticket should be provided is determined. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124237 | EFFICIENT INDEXING AND CACHING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR METASEARCH - Techniques are provided for a metasearch infrastructure. The metasearch infrastructure supports one or more of the following: hotel matching, backend support of user queries, frontend support for user queries, a cache layer that groups or organizes cached data in storage based on hotel location, scoring and ranking on the client side, experiments and rankers, duplicate booking prevention, blacklisting hotels, and indexing that utilizes a document-independent data structure to store index values. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124238 | Detecting Travel Information - Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for detecting travel information. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a document; annotating detected entities in the document; generating one or more travel leg structures using the annotations, wherein generating the one or more travel leg structures includes determining that one or more annotations match a valid travel schedule; and generating an itinerary from the one or more travel leg structures. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124239 | CROP YIELD PER LOCATION MEASURER - A crop yield per location measurer is disclosed. In general, the crop yield measurer includes a crop collector for a field of crops. The crop collector includes a navigation satellite system location determiner to determine location information at periodic times during a crop collection process. The crop collector also includes a weighing mechanism to determine a weight of collected crops at the periodic times during the crop collection process. In addition, a database is used for storing the location information and the weight at the periodic times during the crop collection process. A crop yield overview generator is then utilized to provide a user accessible crop yield per location overview for the field of crops based on the information stored at the database. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124240 | System and Method for Student Activity Gathering in a University - An educational institution (also referred as a university) is structurally modeled using a university model graph. A key benefit of modeling of the educational institution is to help in an introspective analysis by the educational institute. In order to build an effective university model graph, it is required to gather and analyze the various activities performed on the university campus by the various entities of the university. A system and method for automated activity gathering that involves instrumented components, sub-systems, and networks is discussed. Specifically, the presented system allows for reliable identification of activities performed by a student of the university based on inputs received from multiple sources associated with the instrumented components, sub-systems, and networks. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124241 | Method And System For Providing Business Intelligence Data - A computer implemented method for data mining and providing business intelligence data including generating by an analytics server one or more dimensions from source data imported from a computer readable medium, wherein the one or more dimensions define categories into which portions of the normalized data can be grouped; generating by the analytics server one or more measures from the source data linked to the one or more dimensions; storing by the analytics server the one or more dimensions and the one or more measures in a plurality of tables arranged in one of a snowflake and a star schema; determining by the analytics server relationship information between one or more measures and one or more dimensions in each of the plurality of tables; storing by the analytics server the relationship information on the computer readable medium; calculating by the analytics server a total cost of at least one product based on the relationship information; and, querying by a computer system in communication with the analytics server for the change in total cost of the at least one product based on a change in any one of the measures. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124242 | VIDEO REVIEW WORKFLOW PROCESS - Subject matter disclosed herein relates to video content editing, and in particular, to video review workflow. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124243 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CREATING DOCUMENTS TO MANAGE A PROPOSAL LIFECYCLE - The system and method described herein may integrate an enterprise proposal management system with various enterprise systems, applications, data sources, and other resources to provide a comprehensive solution to manage and coordinate a proposal lifecycle and data associated therewith. In particular, the system and method described herein may integrate and use business information stored in various data sources to execute repeatable and effective strategies to manage business development and proposal efforts, reduce the time that proposal authors spend to search, retrieve, and use content from past proposals to create proposals likely to win new business, coordinate collaboration across organizational teams involved in managing proposal, reliably track capture and proposal pipelines, and preserve documents, data, and other information relevant to the proposal lifecycle, thereby providing real business value in day-to-day proposal management operations. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124244 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING A PROPOSAL LIFECYCLE - The system and method described herein may integrate an enterprise proposal management system with various enterprise systems, applications, data sources, and other resources to provide a comprehensive solution to manage and coordinate a proposal lifecycle and data associated therewith. In particular, the system and method described herein may integrate and use business information stored in various data sources to execute repeatable and effective strategies to manage business development and proposal efforts, reduce the time that proposal authors spend to search, retrieve, and use content from past proposals to create proposals likely to win new business, coordinate collaboration across organizational teams involved in managing proposal, reliably track capture and proposal pipelines, and preserve documents, data, and other information relevant to the proposal lifecycle, thereby providing real business value in day-to-day proposal management operations. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124245 | Determining Availability Based on Percentage Available - An embodiment of the invention provides a system and method for displaying the scheduling availability of a user. The system includes an occupancy module for analyzing the schedule of the user to determine the occupancy for a time period in the schedule. The time period includes an available time slot and/or an occupied time slot. A processor connected to the occupancy module determines whether the occupancy for the time period is above a threshold level of occupancy. The threshold level of occupancy includes a maximum number of occupied time slots, a maximum percentage of occupied time slots, a maximum amount of occupied time, and/or a maximum percentage of occupied time. A scheduling module connected to the processor automatically displays the scheduling availability of the user as unavailable for the time slot when the occupancy for the time period is above the threshold level of occupancy. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124246 | CATEGORY BASED ORGANIZATION AND MONITORING OF CUSTOMER SERVICE HELP SESSIONS - A method and computer readable medium are provided for monitoring customer support sessions based on at least one category associated with the customer support sessions. A request from an administrator for information associated with unresolved support sessions is received. A set of support categories is presented to the administrator. A selection of at least one support category is received from the administrator. A set of first level customer support agent identifiers associated with at least one support session queued under the at least one support category which has been selected is presented to the administrator. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124247 | Restroom Convenience Center - A restroom monitoring system for monitoring attributes of fixtures within a restroom using sensors. Additional attributes are determined from the monitored attributes. Consumable usage levels are estimated based on predetermined consumption levels associated with usage states of the fixtures. The restroom monitoring system provides an indication of the need for replenishment of consumables based on the monitored attributes of the fixtures. In addition, restroom monitoring system may provide additional information regarding the restroom attributes to a service provider, a manager or a user. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124248 | Active Device for Providing Real Time Parolee Information - An apparatus and method that enable a case officer to manage visits to probationers according to their risk level priority. The apparatus receives probationer information from a remote supervision server and displays the information by their risk levels. The case officer can drag and drop the name of probationers on an appointment calendar which will calculate an appointment schedule according to the location of each visit, the travel time between the visits, the default first visit time, and default last visit time. After the appointment schedule is calculated, the map will display the optimized route. The case officer can manually change the order of the visits and the apparatus will automatically recalculate the appointment schedule and the route. The invention can further process all the data used to calculate risk of recidivism to predict criminal activity in a given area using location specific information and data collected for probationer management. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124249 | INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS-BASED PLANNING SYSTEMS - This invention relates to providing a system for project planning and scheduling which supports simplified, interactive, graphics-based project planning and scheduling using new planning concepts, new scheduling concepts and new graphics-based software systems. Further, this invention permits an inexperienced user to simultaneously plan and schedule a project including establishing appropriate relationship (or dependency) links between activities, also commonly referred to as tasks, and between activities and milestones. This invention offers the simplest possible scheme of thought that can tie together activities, relationships and milestones, with or without deadlines, to yield a complete, correct network project schedule in the shortest possible time. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124250 | Green Building System and Method - A green building materials system and method are provided in which a decision engine determines one or more designs (each have one or more building components) based on a set of building related inputs and a utility function of each particular user. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124251 | OPTIMAL PLANNING OF BUILDING RETROFIT FOR A PORTFOLIO OF BUILDINGS - Generating an optimal planning of building retrofit for a portfolio of buildings may include providing a plurality of objective functions that may be selected for maximizing cost reduction, maximizing green house gas emission reduction, or maximizing energy reduction, or combinations thereof. The objective function may be solved based on information including at least a retrofit cost for retrofitting a building, payback period specifying the length of time needed to recover the retrofit cost, a budget available for retrofitting the building, expected price of energy, estimated energy savings from retrofitting and estimated green house gas emission from retrofitting. The planning of building retrofit may be generated based on the solutions of one or more of the objective functions, which may provide for an optimal plan of building retrofit. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124252 | System and Method for Allocating Manufactured Products to Sellers Using Profitable Order Promising - A system and method is disclosed for allocating products to one or more sellers. The system includes a database operable to store data associated with one or more enterprises. The system further includes an order promising system coupled with the database and operable to model the flow of the products through the one or more enterprises and allocate resources to the one or more sellers based on the modeled flow of the products. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124253 | INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC WORKFLOWS IN A MANUFACTURING EXECUTION SYSTEM - A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is provided that leverages industry-specific workflows to process business requests. The MES system can maintain activity sets representing industry-specific workflows that can be selected and executed in order to satisfy business-driven goals. The activity sets can comprise both business-level and control-level operations, and can be configured using an intuitive graphical interface that mitigates the need for low-level programming by the end user. Comprehensive functional blocks having combined control, visualization, and reporting configurations can be used to graphically construct workflows that are used by the MES system to coordinate multiple aspects of an enterprise. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124254 | WORKFLOW AUTOMATION SYSTEM AND METHOD - The workflow automation system is a secure, online web-based system that automates any office workflow in a minimal amount of time by providing appropriate customizations and ASP.net forms, the customizations including name of the system, task-names, role names, names of actions on each task, order of tasks, etc. After the customizations, the workflow automation system is executable to provide each role a secure login with a central HR repository; an application that the role is responsible for; active task(s) in the application, etc. The desired web forms can be made in ASP.net using provided templates for forms, and controls to define what to do when by whom. The workflow automation system includes automatic sending of e-mail reminders to complete tasks after certain administrator-defined intervals, application tracking, parallel and sequential task processing, easy concealment of certain role names from others, and an easy method to provide Instructions on each web page. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124255 | Presort Scheme Optimizer and Simulator - A system and method configured for determining optimal mail sorting of a mailing is disclosed. The method may comprise determining a number of mail pieces to be sent in the mailing, selecting an initial scheme for sorting the mailing based on the number of mail pieces, and simulating a mail sorting based on the initial scheme and obtaining efficiency statistics of the simulated mail sorting. After the selected initial scheme is simulated, the method may further comprise generating an updated scheme, in response to the efficiency statistics being less than optimal, by revising the initial scheme. The method includes simulating a mail sorting based on the updated scheme, revising and simulating schemes until efficiency statistics are optimal. The initial scheme may be based on historical schemes for mailings of similar number of mail pieces, selected by an operator from historical schemes for mailings, or a customized scheme for the mailing. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124256 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MONITORING PLANT ASSETS - The invention is a method and system for monitoring plant assets automatically comprising the steps of calculating a sum of the plant assets to be monitored, storing the calculated sum in a database, calculating a sum of the bad actors, computing the percentage of bad actors from the calculated sum, storing the computed percentage of bad actors into the database, calculating a current sum of the plant assets to be monitored after a predetermined interval, retrieving the stored sum of the plant assets, determining whether the current sum of the plant assets corresponds to the stored sum. When the stored sum corresponds to the current sum, the current sum of bad actors is calculated, the percentage of bad actors is computed from the calculated sum to determine an Asset Health Risk Index (“ARI”). | 2013-05-16 |
20130124257 | ENGAGEMENT SCORING - Systems and methods determine an engagement score reflecting a level of engagement for a customer with a company. The engagement score is determined using data from past interactions the customer has had with the company and using other factors such as sentiment expressed in interactions and the recency of interactions. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124258 | Methods and Systems for Identifying Customer Status for Developing Customer Retention and Loyality Strategies - Embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and systems for developing customer retention and loyalty strategies. In one aspect, a method comprises calculating ( | 2013-05-16 |
20130124259 | LEAD MANAGEMENT IN BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS SALES - Methods and systems record and analyze visitors' interactions with a website aimed at turning the visitors into qualified sales leads. Lead scoring may be used, wherein a lead score is based on interactions with content, navigation through a website, and the providing of information from the visitor. Events (e.g., above-threshold lead scores) may prompt a request for information from the visitor. Providing information may increase a profile level and allow access to previously gated website content. Visitor information and/or associated business information may be stored in a user profile. Additionally, interests of the visitor and/or an associated business area may be ascertained. The interests, lead score, and progressive profiles may be used to tailor content and organization of the website, to suggest content and business solutions to the visitor, and to determine if/when a visitor is qualified as a lead, and thus ready for contact from a sales team. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124260 | Process and System for Integrating Information from Disparate Databases for Purposes of Predicting Consumer Behavior - A process and system for integrating information stored in at least two disparate databases. The stored information includes consumer transactional information. According to the process and system, at least one qualitative variable which is common to each database is identified, and then transformed into one or more quantitative variables. The consumer transactional information in each database is then converted into converted information in terms of the quantitative variables. Thereafter, an integrated database is formed for predicting consumer behavior by combining the converted information from the disparate databases. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124261 | Web Influenced In-Store Transactions - In selected embodiments a repository system correlates user browsing behavior with in-store transactions involving a number of products or product categories. For example, an online portal may receive online transactional data and in-store transactional data and associate particular user identities with such data. The user identities may be correlated by matching online transactional data with in-store transactional data. This correlation identifies a user known to frequent both online and in-store venues of the same retailer. The online portal may maintain browser repository records based on an association of online and in-store identities. In some implementations, the portal measures in-store transactions of a user known to frequent both online and in-store venues. The measurements may be performed for a predetermined time period. Such measurements may be used to extrapolate web influenced in-store transactional data from at least one browser repository record to estimate a transaction for an unknown user. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124262 | CROSS CHANNEL EXPLICIT FEEDBACK AND CORRECTIVE ACTION FRAMEWORK - Techniques and equipment for enabling a cross-channel feedback loop for capturing, in an interactive customer retail or service channel of a business enterprise, explicit feedback from a user for a similar or related transaction initiated by the user in a different channel. The explicit user feedback captured in the second channel can be used to evaluate and, if desired, make improvements to user interface components related to self-service or automated user transactions in the first channel. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124263 | Systems and Methods to Summarize Transaction data - A computing apparatus is configured to summarize transaction data via aggregating transactions according to geographical regions (e.g., based on postal codes) for a plurality of merchant categories, normalize the aggregated spending across the merchant categories for each geographical region, rank the regions for each category based on the normalized spending, generate percentile indicators based on the ranking result, and generate spending indices that are proportional to the normalized spending within each category. The spending indices and percentile indicators of a geographical region across the set of merchant categories represent a spending profile of the region. The spending profile is indicative of the spending preferences of the region but does not reveal the actual spending amounts of any individual, family or region. The spending profile can be used in targeted advertising, and in measuring advertisement audience and campaign performance. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124264 | PRICE SIMULATION FOR ENTERPRISE SALES AND SUPPLY PROCESSES - Embodiments of the present invention may provide a method to perform a price simulation. The method may comprise receiving search criteria for sales orders to perform simulation of price changes, selecting sales orders that satisfy the search criteria, and retrieving pricing attributes from the selected sales orders. The pricing attributes may include any discount(s) applied to a base price. The method may further comprise simulating application of a new pricing to affected sales orders according to the pricing attributes and storing simulation results. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124265 | Enterprise System/Process Modeling System and Method - An enterprise system/process modeling (ESPO) system and method that permits efficient representation of enterprise systems/processes (ESP) and calculation of global solutions to models associated with these ESPs is disclosed. The system/method incorporates an enterprise system/process modeling definition subsystem (ESPD) in which an interconnected processes, resources, constraints, and objectives may be defined to describe a global enterprise system/process model (ESPO). This ESPO describes the enterprise to be modeled and the various boundaries within which enterprise modeling is to take place. This ESPO is translated and transformed into an intermediate indexed format by an enterprise global modeling subsystem (EGMS) for use in generating the coefficients of an equation matrix. The equation matrix is solved for a solution state space conforming to desired enterprise objectives and the results are presented for review by an enterprise model reporting subsystem (FSPR). | 2013-05-16 |
20130124266 | SYSTEMS, METHODS, AND PROGRAM PRODUCTS FOR INNOVATION FINANCE - A funding method and system provides funding at all stages of product development and manufacture. One or more of the funding organizations are matched with one or more of the securities issuing entities, and one or more of the securities issuing entities are matched with one or more of the pathable development projects, based at least in part on projected financial return, a schedule of tranches for the stages of the pathable development project, and a surety arrangement. One or more of the securities purchasing entities are matched with one or more securities issuing entities. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124267 | Cohort Cost Analysis and Workload Migration - An approach is provided to analyze data center performance. The approach includes analyzing the data centers, with each of the data centers are represented by a plurality of data center records. Available capacity at each of the data centers is identified based on the selected data center's set of data center records. In addition, a current workload currently being performed by each of the data centers is identified. The approach compares the identified current workload of each data center with the identified available capacity at the other data centers. Data centers are added to a consolidation consideration list in response to the comparisons. The consolidation consideration list is further analyzed to select data centers for consolidation or elimination. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124268 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR IDENTIFYING EXPERTS - Disclosed herein are systems and computer readable storages for identifying experts with particular talents among participants in an online social network. Identification of experts with particular talents identified by talent-labels can take into account multiple factors. One factor that can be applied is self-nomination. Individuals who offer to help others can be expected to offer assistance in areas where they have strong talents. Another factor that can be applied is endorsements by others. A co-worker making an endorsement can be encouraged or required to supply narrative that describes experience with the nominee's actual work. Another factor that can be applied is data mining by semantic analysis or other techniques, taking advantage of access to fielded databases that describe a nominee's work activities. One or more proficiency scores can be derived from these and other factors and used when responding to queries or generally when compiling expertise inventories or talent banks | 2013-05-16 |
20130124269 | PERFORMANCE REPORTING FOR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES USING WEB-BASED PORTALS - A method includes obtaining performance information from sources, where the performance information relates to products and/or services, enabling the performance information to be reviewed to thereby produce vetted and categorized performance information, receiving the vetted and categorized performance information, where the vetted and categorized performance information includes the performance information that has been vetted for reliability and that has been categorized according to reliability, and using the vetted and categorized performance information to generate reports, where the reports indicate a performance impact of the products and/or services. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124270 | METHOD, DEVICE AND INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR PAYMENT OF PARKING FEES - System and method for parking management including an in car device located in the vehicle. The in car device may include a transceiver a processing unit, an input device and a display. The in car device may receive instructions to initiate and terminate parking sessions and upon receiving such instruction to automatically communicate with an at least one parking management unit for exchanging information related to management of the parking session. Parking management units may include single space parking meters, multi space parking meters, parking occupancy meters, parking back end systems, parking back end servers and gates of parking garages. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124271 | AUDIO/VIDEO AUTOMATED PAYMENT FACILITY - A central monitoring station is linked to a plurality of remote terminals, such as payment terminals at a plurality of parking facilities. A two-way communication system enables communication between a customer who is remote from the central monitoring station and an attendant at the central monitoring station. The communication system may also allow the attendant to manipulate each remote terminal to collect data or troubleshoot or override the function of the terminal. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124272 | METHOD AND SERVER SYSTEM FOR ENHANCED MANAGEMENT OF EVENT-BASED USER REWARDS - Provision of enhanced rewarding schemes. A first server of a first service domain is configured to maintain a reward database for users of a first service domain. A second server of a second service domain is configured to identify event data items of the second service domain from which information is to be forwarded to the first service domain, and derive information from the identified event data items to forwarded data items. The first server is configured to update the reward account of the user in response to event data items generated in response to activities of the user in the first service domain, and in response to forwarded data items received from the second server. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124273 | Systems and Methods for Customer Loyalty Program - As a customer conducts qualifying transactions with a participating merchant within a group of merchants, the customer accumulates reward points which can be redeemed at any participating merchant within the group at the time of redemption. A promotion/award determination engine and associated database track the points. A redemption engine is coupled to the database for the redemption of the points. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124274 | Advertising Point-of-Sale Checkout - A brand-specific announcement is audibly output by the point-of-sale terminal upon identification of each product as it is scanned. The brand-specific announcement. In this way, the first Coke product might announce “Coca-cola”, the second product may announce “The real thing.” In a networked application such as in a large, multiple-register checkout of a supermarket, the rotating slogans for any given product may be system wide such that the first time any of the multiple registers scans a given product, that register announces the first slogan in its defined series. The next register to scan the same product might announce the second slogan in the defined series, etc. In this way, e.g., register #3 might announce “Coca-cola”, then soon after register #6 might announce “The real thing.” A trademarked type sound may be announced instead of a slogan. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124275 | Systems and Methods to Provide Communication References based on Recommendations to Connect People for Real Time Communications - Methods and apparatuses to selectively present communication references based on recommendations from related entities to connect people for real time communications. One embodiment includes: receiving from a user a selection of a first listing, including a reference to be used to request a connection for real time communications between the user and a first entity; responsive to the selection of the first listing, determining one or more entities related to the first listing; selecting a second listing based at least in part on data representing one or more recommendations from the one or more entities; and presenting to the user the second listing, the including a reference for the user to request a connection with a second entity for real time communications. In one embodiment, the first and second entities provide services over connections established via the references included in the first and second listings for real time communications. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124276 | METHOD FOR ADVERTISING ON A SMART PHONE LOCK SCREEN - A smart phone lock screen advertising system is based on a software application that integrates with affiliate websites as well as ad networks and continuously displays daily deals (or other content or ads) on the phone lock screen whenever the screen is awake. The smart phone lock screen advertising may provide a direct link to view the details of a deal (or other content) as well as a link to make a purchase, for example. As such, the smart phone lock screen advertising system of the present invention may ring ad content to a top layer of a smart phone's user interface as opposed to three or more layers deep. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124277 | System and Method for an Electronic Gift Key - A system and method facilitating delivery of a fully-integrated physical item providing access to non-physical content is presented. The method includes enabling access to an electronic greeting card, exclusive content, promotion, and/or store credit from a remote system after a gift key is linked to a local system. The system includes a local system and a gift key facilitating access to an electronic greeting card, exclusive content, promotion, and/or store credit after linkage between the local system and the gift key. The gift key includes a decorative cover with bar code, an integrated circuit, and an antenna or physical connector. The local system is a personal, laptop or handheld computer, a mobile phone, a smartphone, a tablet computer, or a Smart TV. A gift key could be disposed along a box, a bag, a ribbon, an envelope, or a gift wrapping or configured as a sticker with an adhesive backing | 2013-05-16 |
20130124278 | METHODS, APPARATUS AND SYSTEMS FOR PROVIDING A MULTI-PURPOSE TASK COMPLETION PLATFORM - A computer-implemented method of sourcing electronic tasks is disclosed. The method includes receiving customized electronic tasks, each customized electronic task being customized for a content managing entity. The method also includes identifying a plurality of users that selected to participate in receiving customized electronic tasks. The method further includes communicating one or more of the customized electronic tasks to at least one of the identified plurality of users. A method of consuming electronic tasks is also disclosed. The method includes displaying indicators of customized electronic tasks to a user, receiving a user selection of one of the customized electronic tasks, and generating feedback information regarding the selected customized electronic task. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124279 | Location of Available Passenger Seats in a Dynamic Transporting Pool - An embodiment of the invention provides a system including an interface for receiving a request from a rider, wherein the request includes a start location of the rider and an end location of the rider. A vehicle identification module connected to the interface identifies at least one vehicle located within a threshold distance from the start location. A communications module connected to the vehicle identification module sends the request to a driver of the vehicle. A validation module connected to the interface verifies that the rider and the driver and/or the vehicle were each located at the start location at the same time, and verifies that the rider and thdriver and/or the vehicle were each located at the end location at the same time. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124280 | REAL TIME REDEMPTION TRACKING SYSTEM - A marketing system is disclosed comprising a merchant server including means for providing a vendor website; a point of sale terminal in communication with the merchant server, the point of sale terminal for conducting a retail transaction with a customer; a tracking server in communication with the merchant server, the tracking server for acquiring customer statistics and providing the customer statistics to the merchant server; and an internet-ready device in communication with a marketing system application disposed in the tracking server, the internet-ready device for utilizing a token received in the retail transaction. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124281 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CUSTOMER INCENTIVE DEVELOPMENT AND DISTRIBUTION - A system for advertising and promotion comprises identifying a promotion to be offered to a consumer, identifying a consumer that is interested in the promotion, identifying a plurality of consumer-specific attributes, using at least one of the consumer-specific attributes to determine a promotion offering value, offering the promotion to the consumer at the promotion offering value determining whether the consumer agrees to purchase the promotion at the promotional offering value, and determining whether to adjust the promotional offering value based on whether the consumer agreed to purchase the promotion. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124282 | Advertising rewards and referrals - Advertising rewards and referrals are described, including detecting an interaction with an advertisement, recording the interaction, the interaction including an input being provided in response to the advertisement, generating a reward for the interaction, the reward being an action taken to provide a benefit in response to the interaction, analyzing data associated with the advertisement, the data including a plurality of documented interactions, and providing a result from analyzing the data. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124283 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISTRIBUTING ADVERTISEMENTS USING SOCIAL NETWORKS AND FINANCIAL TRANSACTION CARD NETWORKS - An exemplary method for distributing an offer to a mobile device includes identifying a location of a first mobile device, identifying offer preferences for a user of the first mobile device, and distributing the offer to the first mobile device. The offer is an offer for the purchase of goods or services, the offer meets the offer preferences of the user of the first mobile device, and the offer is encoded with a first offer identifier corresponding to the user of the first mobile device. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124284 | PROMOTION PROCESSOR AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM - A data processing system employs a unique coded promotional vehicle to attract customers into retail establishments for the purchase of discounted goods. The promotional vehicle includes coupon styled graphics integrated with a code to allow data tracking by the store pursuant to purchases by that customer. The promotional vehicle is easier and less costly to distribute compared to the prior art, avoids cutting of coupons, and post purchase redemptions. The system further allows more targeted discounting at a lower cost, and substantially reducing fraud by eliminating post purchase coupon processing and redemption. Additionally, the system provides for selective deactivation of the code for each discount used by redemption of the vehicle without deactivating the code for the discounts not used so that the code may remain selectively active for future use. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124285 | System and Method for Trusted Embedded User Interface for Secure Payments - A security component may be associated with a network-enabled application. The security component may initiate the display of an embedded region of a window drawn according to display information received from a relying party. The security component may define at least a portion of the appearance of the embedded region; the relying party may not define this portion. The embedded region may include customization information configured by a user, and “Card” information received from an assertion provider, indicating how to authenticate user credentials in order to gain access to relying party restricted content. The security component may request authentication of user credentials from the assertion provider, which may be trusted by the relying party. The security component may receive an assertion token from the assertion provider indicating the credentials are authentic. The security component may forward the assertion token to the relying party to gain access to the restricted content. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124286 | ELECTRONIC TRANSACTION AND LOGISTICS SYSTEM - The present invention is related to an electronic transaction and logistics system that comprises a server, a plurality of shop units and a plurality of characteristic code carriers. The server is provided with a management platform and a member database for storing account information of each member, a corresponding characteristic code, a plurality of points and the attribute of each point. Each shop unit is connected to the server through the network, and provided with a shop platform, a shop database, a counter device, a characteristic code reader and a keyboard. The member can use the shop unit to shop and pay by electronic cash, bonus, and gift coupon, and also to pick-up merchandise, top up value, inquire consumption details, create an account, and change or stop a characteristic code carrier. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124287 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS TO PROVIDE DISCOUNT AT POINT OF SALES TERMINALS - A system and method configured to use a transaction handler to modify the transaction amount of a transaction between an acquirer processor and an issuer processor, during the processing of the authorization of the transaction, in accordance with an offer that is applicable to the transaction to apply the benefit of the offer to the transaction and to provide information of the offer as applied to the transaction in the authorization response transmitted to the acquirer processor. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124288 | Personal digital cashier with the coupon locator - An integrated purchasing system for mobile devices with coupon and discount locating functionality that enables a shopper to obtain discounts, coupons, and to purchase the goods and services of their choice from a retail store without having to stand in a checkout line. The Personal Digital Cashier with the Coupon Locator also provides the shopper with the ability to determine which store(s) in the shoppers selected proximity have the best deals or discounts on the items desired for purchase, as well as to shop online using their Personal Digital Cashier with the Coupon Locator account. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124289 | REMOTE TRANSACTION PROCESSING USING AUTHENTICATION INFORMATION - A method and system for conducting an online payment transaction through a point of sale device. The method includes receiving input from a user selecting an item for purchase through the point of sale device; calculating a total purchase amount for the item in response to a request from the user to purchase the item; and sending payment authorization for the total purchase amount from the point of sale device to a payment entity, in which the payment authorization is sent to the payment entity via a mobile communication device of the user. The method further includes receiving a result of the payment authorization from the payment entity through the mobile communication device; and completing the payment transaction based on the result of the payment authorization. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124290 | REMOTE TRANSACTION PROCESSING USING A DEFAULT PAYMENT METHOD - A method and system for conducting an online payment transaction through a point of sale device. The method includes receiving input from a user selecting an item for purchase through the point of sale device; calculating a total purchase amount for the item in response to a request from the user to purchase the item; and sending payment authorization for the total purchase amount from the point of sale device to a payment entity, in which the payment authorization is sent to the payment entity via a mobile communication device of the user. The method further includes receiving a result of the payment authorization from the payment entity through the mobile communication device; and completing the payment transaction based on the result of the payment authorization. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124291 | REMOTE TRANSACTION PROCESSING WITH MULTIPLE PAYMENT MECHANISMS - A method and system for conducting an online payment transaction through a point of sale device. The method includes receiving input from a user selecting an item for purchase through the point of sale device; calculating a total purchase amount for the item in response to a request from the user to purchase the item; and sending payment authorization for the total purchase amount from the point of sale device to a payment entity, in which the payment authorization is sent to the payment entity via a mobile communication device of the user. The method further includes receiving a result of the payment authorization from the payment entity through the mobile communication device; and completing the payment transaction based on the result of the payment authorization. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124292 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR GENERATING A STRONG MULTI FACTOR PERSONALIZED SERVER KEY FROM A SIMPLE USER PASSWORD - The present invention relates to a method of generating a multi-factor encryption key using a simple password in order to access control over information stored at a second entity from a first entity via at least one communication network. In one embodiment this is accomplished by, requesting to receive an application at the first entity from the second entity via the communication network, activating the first entity to generate a shared secret key, wherein the shared secret key is computed from a first entity specific ID and a random number generated at the first and second entity and allowing the user to register with the application of the second entity by the first entity, wherein the registration include entry of a personal PIN (personal identification number), a personal message etc. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124293 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ADMINISTRATION OF LOYALTY PROGRAM - Systems and methods for management of financial and insurance products held by customers in a group and for administration of a loyalty and reward program for the group. Each customer in a group has an individual customer profile, which includes information about one or more insurance products held by a customer and a reward points total associated with the one or more products held by the customer. The profiles of various customers may be compiled in group data. The group attributes may include a group reward points total, which is based on the reward points total of the customers in the group. Either the individual customer reward points totals and/or the group reward points total can be applied to various transactions to receive a reward benefit. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124294 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING LOYALTY PROGRAM - Systems and methods for management of financial and insurance products held by customers in a group and for administration of a loyalty and reward program for the group. Each customer in a group has an individual customer profile, which includes information about one or more insurance products held by a customer and a reward points total associated with the one or more products held by the customer. The profiles of various customers may be compiled in group data. The group attributes may include a group reward points total, which is based on the reward points total of the customers in the group. Either the individual customer reward points totals and/or the group reward points total can be applied to various transactions to receive a reward benefit. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124295 | SYSTEM, APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ORGANIZING AND PRESENTING OFFERS THROUGH VIRTUAL CHANNELS - A sales offer organizing system comprising a content provider, a user terminal, and a server. The server is configured to receive a registration for at least one channel from said content provider, receive a subscription to said at least one channel from a user of said user terminal, receive a campaign associated with said channel from said content provider, said campaign comprising organization criteria, determine if said user is to be a recipient for the content based on the organization criteria, and if said user is a subscriber to said channel, and if so, send the campaign to said user terminal | 2013-05-16 |
20130124296 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING WHETHER TO OFFER A REWARD AT A POINT OF RETURN - Computerized decision-making systems and methods are described for determining whether to provide one or more rewards, such as a coupon or instant discount, to a customer requesting to make a merchandise return at a store, and, if so, to determine the terms of the reward, such as value, expiration date/time and other terms that may be associated with a coupon. The reward determinations may be implemented in conjunction with a system for authorizing the requested merchandise return transaction. Information about the requested return may be used together with data about the customer's past purchase, return transactions, and other customer-related data. In some embodiments, the determinations are based, at least in part, on store-related information and policies. The reward may be printed with a receipt issued to the customer at the point of return and/or may be provided to the customer using a wide variety of other communications technologies. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124297 | MULTI-DIMENSIONAL ADVERTISEMENT BIDDING - An online advertising system receives ads from advertisers, which may also provide associated budgets, time period constraints, impressions goals, and performance weightings for the ads. When an ad is requesting from the advertising system from a client, a bid may be determined for each ad based on the budget associated the ad and/or the impressions goal associated with the ad. Ad performance associated with the ad request may be predicted, and a bid may be determined for each ad based on the performance weightings and the predicted performance associated with the ad request. The bid for an ad may be weighted by the pace of budget consumption by the ad, or by the pace of the ad progressing towards the ad's impression goal. An ad is selected for display to the client from among the one or more ads based on the determined bids for the ads. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124298 | GENERATING CLUSTERS OF SIMILAR USERS FOR ADVERTISEMENT TARGETING - A social networking system may identify a first set of users as part of a training cluster and identify a second set of users that is similar to the first set of users for purposes of targeting advertisements related to the advertiser. Using past engagement history (e.g., click-through rates), demographic information, and keywords associated with the training cluster of users, a social networking system may generate a training model specific to the training cluster. Confidence scores may be used to identify similar users across the total population of users of the social networking system for creating a targeting cluster of users for the advertisement. A revenue sharing scheme may be used induce page administrators to increase their fan base by enabling advertisers to target advertisements to users that have expressed interest in pages associated with the page administrators. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124299 | Optimizing Communication of Content Through Networked Media - Methods and systems for identifying content to customers are disclosed. One embodiment provides a method for identifying at least one piece of content to communicate to a consumer comprising receiving impression request data associated with consumers accessing a networked medium in a computing environment, employing a parse request module to evaluate campaign constraints to generate candidate plans, wherein each of the candidate plans includes variable having an associated weight and campaign constraint, employing an optimization engine to determine a first score for each of the candidate plans using a model, wherein the model utilizes precomputed data and the impression request data, and for applying real-time yield management algorithm to evaluate the variable and the campaign constraint to develop a second score for each of the candidate plans, and identifying an optimum plan based on the first score and the second score. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124300 | User-controlled file interaction - User-controlled file interaction is described, including detecting an interaction with a file presented on a client, the interaction indicating a preference associated with the file, selecting other files for presentation based on the preference, the other files being similar to the element, and presenting the other files on the client. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124301 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DYNAMIC USER FEEDBACK FOR DISPLAY AND CONTEXT ADVERTISEMENTS - Methods, systems, and computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium include for an ad to be displayed on a web page, providing a first user input field that is selectable by a user viewing the ad. Upon detection of actuation of the user input field for the ad, providing display data representing a second user input field by which a user can enter feedback information regarding the ad is provided, the second user input field comprising a portion configured to receive input from the user regarding a specific portion of the ad. There is received feedback information regarding the ad that has been entered using the second user input field. The feedback information is stored in association with the ad. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124302 | INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL MODELING - A method includes collecting individual-level data (for example, survey data) corresponding to each of one or more individuals who has been exposed to advertising for a product or service. A representative sample may be created from the individual-level data. A model may be created based on factors relating to acquisition of the product or service. A response to the advertisements is assessed based on the model. In some embodiments, intermediate measures to sales are included in the model. In some embodiments, the individual-level model is integrated with a historical model. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124303 | Advertising Keyword Generation Using an Image Search - Methods, systems, and apparatuses, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable media, for receiving an image of a product. Searching web content using a search query based on the image of the product. Receiving search results including a plurality of uniform resource locators (URL) based on the web content search using the image of the product. Identifying one or more advertising campaigns comprise at least one advertisement that includes a URL in the plurality of URLs. Obtaining one or more keywords associated with the one or more advertising campaigns. Determining a list of suggested keywords for the product based on the obtained one or more keywords. Providing the list of suggested keywords. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124304 | DOCUMENT SCORING BASED ON TRAFFIC ASSOCIATED WITH A DOCUMENT - A system determines an extent to which advertisements are presented or updated within a document, a quality of an advertiser associated with an advertisement provided within the document, whether an advertisement in the document relates to an advertising document that has more than a threshold amount of traffic, and/or an extent to which an advertisement provided within the document generates user traffic to an advertising document related to the advertisement. The system generates a score for the document based, at least in part, on the extent to which advertisements are presented or updated, the quality of the advertiser associated with the advertisement, whether the advertisement relates to an advertising document that has more than the threshold amount of traffic, and/or the extent to which the advertisement generates user traffic to the advertising document. The system ranks the document with regard to at least one other document based on the score. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124305 | CONTENT CONVERSION TRACKING - The present technology allows reliable and accurate tracking of conversions of invitational content by storing token identifying items of invitational content presented to the user within a cookie jar of a local occurrence of an online-store application. When a purchase or download is made from the online store, the cookies are sent to the online store, which can match the purchase or download with the tokens. Thus, conversions can be tracked as they are completed. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124306 | VOUCHER CODE REDEMPTION VIA SMS - A voucher verification system is based on SMS message-based processing of voucher verifications by a central verification authority. Merchants may establish an account with the system and then register mobile communication devices and those of employees by sending an SMS-based registration request to the system. Once registered, the merchant and employees may verify the status of vouchers by sending SMS-base verification requests to the system. Verifications of voucher status are returned to the merchant mobile device via SMS messaging. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124307 | DEVICE AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY DISTRIBUTING PROMOTIONAL ITEMS - A device for automatically distributing promotional items stores a plurality of promotional items and distributes the selected promotional items according to a demand by a user. The device includes: display and input units for the display and the manipulation by a user; an access code recognition unit for recognizing an access code provided by the user; a memory for storing reference data to be compared with the recognized access code; a promotional item storing unit and a promotional item output unit for storing and distributing the promotional items to the user; and a controller that compares the reference data and the access code with each other, which determines whether to distribute the promotion item selected by the user or not, and controlling the respective sections according to the determination. | 2013-05-16 |
20130124308 | BUDGET-BASED ADVERTISMENT BIDDING - An online advertising system receives ads from advertisers, which may also provide associated budgets, time period constraints, impressions goals, and performance weightings for the ads. When an ad is requesting from the advertising system from a client, a bid may be determined for each ad based on the budget associated the ad and/or the impressions goal associated with the ad. Ad performance associated with the ad request may be predicted, and a bid may be determined for each ad based on the performance weightings and the predicted performance associated with the ad request. The bid for an ad may be weighted by the pace of budget consumption by the ad, or by the pace of the ad progressing towards the ad's impression goal. An ad is selected for display to the client from among the one or more ads based on the determined bids for the ads. | 2013-05-16 |