| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20080300706 | System and method for real-time system control using precomputed plans - Features described herein relate to optimizing a job plan procedure for selecting a plan for executing a manufacturing job. A planner can receive a model of a system that is to perform a job, and may select a precomputed plan that is sufficient to perform the job. The precomputed plan is identified during a first portion of a planning period, and the remainder of the planning period may be utilized to search for and identify a better plan for executing the job. If a better plan cannot be identified by the end of the planning period, then the selected precomputed plan can be executed. | 12-04-2008 |
| 20080300707 | System and method for on-line planning utilizing multiple planning queues - Features described herein relate to concurrently processing multiple batches of job requests for one or more machines and/or components thereof, using a plurality of job planning queues. Each batch of job requests is allocated to a planning queue, and each planning queue comprises an unplanned subqueue that stores unplanned jobs, an unsent subqueue that stores planned jobs waiting to be executed, and a sent subqueue that stores planned jobs that have been output to the machine(s) for execution. A job planner and related components determine which unsent subqueue has the fewest planned jobs at a given point in time, and selects an unplanned job from the unplanned subqueue in the same planning queue as the identified unsent subqueue. The planner then generates a plan for the selected job and inserts the planned job into the unsent subqueue for eventual output to the machine(s) for execution. In this manner, the unsent subqueues for each planning queue are maintained with substantially equal numbers of planned jobs ready for execution, which improves throughput by ensuring that all machines and/or associated components are kept busy. | 12-04-2008 |
| 20080301690 | Model-based planning with multi-capacity resources - Systems and methods are described that facilitate performing model-based planning techniques for allocations of multi-capacity resources in a machine. The machine may be, for instance, a printing platform, such as a xerographic machine. According to various features, the multi-capacity resource may be a sheet buffer, and temporal constraints may be utilized to determine whether an insertion point for a new allocation of the sheet buffer is feasible. Multiple insertion points may be evaluated (e.g., serially or in parallel) to facilitate determining an optimal solution for a print job or the like. | 12-04-2008 |
| 20090024586 | System and method for parallel graph search utilizing parallel structured duplicate detection - A method and system for performing a graph search, includes partitioning a graph into multiple independent regions that do not interfere with each other for a period of time. A state space abstraction is used to identify the independent regions. Then using parallel structured duplicate detection a search work load is distributed across multiple processing units to maximize an amount of time during which the independent regions are capable of being maintained independent. This allows the search of the multiple independent regions of the partitioned graph to be undertaken in parallel. | 01-22-2009 |
| 20090268247 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ON-LINE PLANNING UTILIZING MULTIPLE PLANNING QUEUES - Features described herein relate to concurrently processing multiple batches of job requests for one or more machines and/or components thereof, using a plurality of job planning queues. Each batch of job requests is allocated to a planning queue, and each planning queue comprises an unplanned subqueue that stores unplanned jobs, an unsent subqueue that stores planned jobs waiting to be executed, and a sent subqueue that stores planned jobs that have been output to the machine(s) for execution. A job planner and related components determine which unsent subqueue has the fewest planned jobs at a given point in time, and selects an unplanned job from the unplanned subqueue in the same planning queue as the identified unsent subqueue. The planner then generates a plan for the selected job and inserts the planned job into the unsent subqueue for eventual output to the machine(s) for execution. In this manner, the unsent subqueues for each planning queue are maintained with substantially equal numbers of planned jobs ready for execution, which improves throughput by ensuring that all machines and/or associated components are kept busy. | 10-29-2009 |
| 20100053641 | USING BUFFERS TO SUPPORT UNCERTAINTIES IN MARKING ENGINE EXECUTION - A printing system includes at least one marking engine and a paper path which carries sheets of print media to the marking engine from an upstream direction and carries sheets of print media which have been marked by the marking engine in a downstream direction. A buffer system includes a sheet buffer in the paper path downstream of the marking engine and optionally includes another sheet buffer in the paper path upstream of the marking engine. The buffer system allows variability in the residence time of the marking engine to be accommodated by varying the residence time of sheets in the downstream buffer. | 03-04-2010 |
| 20100128304 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY VALIDATING A WORKFLOW PLAN USING AN AUTOMATED PLANNER - An improved automated planning method and system includes the use of an automated planner for validating a workflow plan with respect to device capabilities. As such, the present invention provides for an improved method and system for implementing and managing workflow plans utilized in printing environments such as, for example, print shops. A plurality of device capability descriptions can be converted into a data indicative of facts and operators for utilizing in a knowledge-based reasoning system. Next, a workflow plan can be converted into properties indicative of a goal state. The goal state and the data indicative of facts and operators can then be utilized in association with a domain-independent or domain-dependent planner to determine if said workflow plan is valid and executable in order to thereby validate said workflow plan. | 05-27-2010 |
| 20100159432 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RECOMMENDING EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES - An educational recommender system and a method are provided. The method includes receiving a request to recommend a course of action related to a plurality of current students; accessing a computer database storing student data that corresponds to the plurality of current students; clustering in a computer process the plurality of current students into at least two clusters based at least on granular assessment data associated with student data corresponding to respective current students; and outputting the results of the clustering to a user. The granular assessment data includes a result of an assessment administered to respective students of the plurality of current students, and each assessment includes a plurality of questions for assessing one of the current students. The associated result includes an independent evaluation of each respective question of the plurality of questions. | 06-24-2010 |
| 20100159437 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RECOMMENDING EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES - A recommender system and method is provided, including receiving a request to recommend a course of action related to a plurality of current students in accordance with a plurality of constraints and accessing a computer database storing student data that corresponds to the plurality of current students. The student data includes attribute data corresponding to respective students of the plurality of current students for describing at least one attribute related to the respective students. The method further includes clustering in a computer process the plurality of current students into a selected number of clusters based at least on sameness of attribute data corresponding to the respective current students of the plurality of current students and the plurality of constraints, and outputting the results of the clustering to a user. | 06-24-2010 |
| 20100159438 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RECOMMENDING EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES - A recommender system and method including receiving a request identifying at least one current student for which a recommendation is sought and accessing stored student data including attributes associated with respective students of the current students and a plurality of predecessor students. For the predecessor students the attributes include educational resources. The method includes clustering one of predecessor students and the current students into clusters based on sameness of first selected attributes of their respective associated attributes. The method includes generating a mapping between respective students of the other of the predecessor and current students and one of the clusters based on sameness of second selected attributes associated with the students being mapped. The method then includes recommending for each of the current students the educational resource associated with the predecessor student or cluster of predecessor students that the current student is mapped with. | 06-24-2010 |
| 20100262574 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COMBINING BREADTH-FIRST AND DEPTH-FIRST SEARCH STRATEGIES WITH APPLICATIONS TO GRAPH-SEARCH PROBLEMS WITH LARGE ENCODING SIZES - A system and method to integrate breadth-first and depth-first strategies in a single search technique or routine is provided. It combines the complementary strengths of both strategies to achieve significantly improved speed over either strategy used alone. The new algorithm can be used to efficiently find solutions to the treewidth problem that has applications in areas such as diagnosis using probabilistic inferences. | 10-14-2010 |
| 20110010396 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DYNAMIC STATE-SPACE ABSTRACTIONS IN EXTERNAL-MEMORY AND PARALLEL GRAPH SEARCH - Provided is a system and method to perform dynamic state-space partitioning in external memory graph searching. The dynamic partitioning of the state-space search graph leading to substantial improvement of search performance. | 01-13-2011 |
| 20110019223 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATED GENERATION OF A FULLY PARAMETERIZED WORKFLOW PLAN - An improved automated planning method and system includes the use of an automated planner for generating a plan template and a final plan generator to produce a fully parameterized workflow plan. Such an approach provides for the generation of fully parameterized workflow plans utilized in rendering environments. A plurality of device capability descriptions can be converted into a data indicative of facts and operators for use with an automated planner, which can be either domain-independent or domain-dependent. Next, a formal product description can be converted into properties indicative of a goal state. The goal state and the data indicative of facts and operators can then be utilized with the automated planner to synthesize a plan template. The plan template is then provided to a final plan generator, along with a formal product description, to produce a fully parameterized workflow plan. | 01-27-2011 |
| 20110066269 | SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR DYNAMIC SCHEDULING IN CELLULAR MANUFACTURING WITH BATCH-SPLITTING - The present application a new and improved system and method of enhanced Lean Document Production (LDP), which applies cellular manufacturing to document printing operations. The LDP process incorporates process friendly cells and, a push model to order to improve efficiency, reduce work in progress and smooth out the “frictions” in production environments. The current application presents an earliest-completion-time strategy for assigning jobs to cells and a dynamic-priority-based-batch-scheduling algorithm. | 03-17-2011 |
