| Patent application number | Description | Published |
| 20090083418 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING REAL FRIENDS COUNT - A method and apparatus for tracking communications in a network are disclosed. For example, the method receives a subscription from a customer for a service to track at least one variable associated with a plurality of communicants of the customer. The method identifies a plurality of members of a social network of the customer, and gathers communication data associated with the plurality of members for tracking the at least one variable. The method then displays at least one result derived from the communication data to the customer. | 03-26-2009 |
| 20100114989 | Automatic gleaning of semantic information in social networks - Disclosed are method and apparatus for identifying members of a social network who have a high likelihood of providing a useful response to a query. A query engine examines the personal pages of a set of members and automatically gleans semantic information relevant to the query. From the automatically-gleaned semantic information, a score indicative of the likelihood that the member may provide a useful response is calculated. | 05-06-2010 |
| 20100132036 | VERIFICATION OF OUTSOURCED DATA STREAMS - Embodiments disclosed herein are directed to verifying query results of an untrusted server. A data owner outsources a data stream to the untrusted server, which is configured to respond to a query from a client with the query result, which is returned to the client. The data owner can maintain a vector associated with query results returned by the server and can generate a verification synopsis using the vector and a seed. The verification synopsis includes a polynomial, where coefficients of the polynomial are determined based on the seed. The data owner outputs the verification synopsis and the seed to a client for verification of the query results. | 05-27-2010 |
| 20100153328 | METHODS AND APPARATUS TO CONSTRUCT HISTOGRAM AND WAVELET SYNOPSES FOR PROBABILISTIC DATA - Example methods and apparatus to construct histogram and wavelet synopses for probabilistic data are disclosed. A disclosed example method involves receiving probabilistic data associated with probability measures and generating a plurality of histograms based on the probabilistic data. Each histogram is generated based on items represented by the probabilistic data. In addition, each histogram is generated using a different quantity of buckets containing different ones of the items. An error measure associated with each of the plurality of histograms is determined and one of the plurality of histograms is selected based on its associated error measure. The method also involves displaying parameter information associated with the one of the plurality of histograms to represent the data. | 06-17-2010 |
| 20100235362 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR RANKING UNCERTAIN DATA IN A PROBABILISTIC DATABASE - Methods and apparatus for ranking uncertain data in a probabilistic database are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein comprises using a set of data tuples representing a plurality of possible data set instantiations associated with a respective plurality of instantiation probabilities to store non-deterministic data in a database, each data tuple corresponding to a set of possible data tuple instantiations, each data set instantiation realizable by selecting a respective data tuple instantiation for at least some of the data tuples, the method further comprising determining an expected rank for each data tuple included in at least a subset of the set of data tuples, the expected rank for a particular data tuple representing a combination of weighted component ranks of the particular data tuple, each component rank representing a ranking of the data tuple in a corresponding data set instantiation, each component ranking weighted by a respective instantiation probability. | 09-16-2010 |
| 20100268719 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING ANONYMIZATION OF DATA - A method and apparatus for providing an anonymization of data are disclosed. For example, the method receives a communications graph that encodes a plurality of types of interactions between two or more entities. The method partitions the two or more entities into a plurality of classes, and applies a type of anonymization to the communications graph. | 10-21-2010 |
| 20100318438 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING AN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE WEBSITE - A method and an apparatus for providing an electronic commerce website over a network are disclosed. For example, the method receives a request for a product or a service from a customer via an electronic commerce website, and identifies internal information pertaining to the request, wherein the internal information is information known by a business enterprise of the electronic commerce website. The method also identifies external information pertaining to the request, wherein the external information is information obtained by the business enterprise from another entity, and sends the internal information and the external information pertaining to the request to the customer. | 12-16-2010 |
| 20110041184 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING ANONYMIZATION OF DATA - A method and apparatus for providing an anonymization of data are disclosed. For example, the method receives a request for anonymizing, wherein the request comprises a bipartite graph for a plurality of associations or a table that encodes the plurality of associations for the bipartite graph. The method places each node in the bipartite graph in a safe group and provides an anonymized graph that encodes the plurality of associations of the bipartite graph, if a safe group for all nodes of the bipartite graph is found. | 02-17-2011 |
| 20110066600 | FORWARD DECAY TEMPORAL DATA ANALYSIS - A disclosed method for implementing time decay in the analysis of streaming data objects is based on the age, referred to herein as the forward age, of a data object measured from a landmark time in the past to a time associated with the occurrence of the data object, e.g., an object's timestamp. A forward time decay function is parameterized on the forward age. Because a data object's forward age does not depend on the current time, a value of the forward time decay function is determined just once for each data object. A scaling factor or weight associated with a data object may be weighted according to its decay function value. Forward time decay functions are beneficial in determining decayed aggregates, including decayed counts, sums, and averages, decayed minimums and maximums, and for drawing decay-influenced samples. | 03-17-2011 |
| 20110145223 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR REPRESENTING PROBABILISTIC DATA USING A PROBABILISTIC HISTOGRAM - Methods and apparatus for representing probabilistic data using a probabilistic histogram are disclosed. An example method comprises partitioning a plurality of ordered data items into a plurality of buckets, each of the data items capable of having a data value from a plurality of possible data values with a probability characterized by a respective individual probability distribution function (PDF), each bucket associated with a respective subset of the ordered data items bounded by a respective beginning data item and a respective ending data item, and determining a first representative PDF for a first bucket associated with a first subset of the ordered data items by partitioning the plurality of possible data values into a first plurality of representative data ranges and respective representative probabilities based on an error between the first representative PDF and a first plurality of individual PDFs characterizing the first subset of the ordered data items. | 06-16-2011 |