Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for processing data. During operation, the system obtains a count of actions associated with a member of a social network, wherein the count comprises a set of action types and a number of actions associated with the member for each of the action types. Next, the system uses the count to calculate a set of scores for measuring the value of the social network to the member, wherein the set of scores is associated with researching and contacting people, building a network, keeping up with connections, staying informed and building knowledge, establishing and managing a reputation, and getting hired. The system then outputs the scores for use in characterizing and improving the value of the social network for the member.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for performing data management. During operation, the system obtains a first schema with a first syntax for describing a first data set and a second schema with a second syntax for describing a second data set. Next, the system converts the first schema into a first standardized form with a standardized syntax and the second schema into a second standardized form with the standardized syntax. The system then outputs the first and second standardized forms for use in accessing the first and second data sets.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for managing execution of a data flow. During operation, the system obtains a data dependency description for a data flow, wherein the data dependency description includes data sources to be consumed by the data flow, data targets to be produced by the data flow, and one or more data ranges associated with the data sources and the data targets. Next, the system uses the data dependency description to determine an availability of the data sources in an execution environment. After the availability of the data sources in the execution environment is confirmed, the system generates output for initiating execution of the data flow in the execution environment.

Abstract: A system, method, and apparatus are provided for repartitioning a topic of a publish-subscribe message system. The topic is originally configured with N partitions (N>1) hosted by multiple brokers for storing messages to be consumed by multiple consumers. The repartitioning process causes one or more collections of partitions to be created in addition to the original collection of N partitions. Afterward, when a new message is received for the topic and has an associated partition key, the key is processed (e.g., hashed) once to identify a target collection of partitions and is then reprocessed to identify a destination partition within the target collection. Consumers may be automatically subscribed to new partitions. For example, a consumer subscribed to the ith partition of the original N partitions may be subscribed to the ith partition of each additional collection of partitions.

Abstract: A system, method, and apparatus are provided for performing set operations on variable-length data that has been stored and indexed to facilitate reverse reading. The set operation is performed on data records having any or all of multiple key/value pairs—such as a union of all data records having the key/value pairs, an intersection, or a difference. For each key/value pair, a tracking entity is initialized to identify a most recently stored record that has the key/value pair. Each record contains a key offset for each key that is common to the records, and the key offset stores an identity (e.g., offset to) the next most recently stored record that has the same value for the key. Each tracking entity is used to support traversal of the data records having the associated key/value pair, during which the set operation is performed to add qualifying records to a result.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for maximizing the propensity of content consumption according to content complexity and content consumption time. During operation, the system receives a request from a user to access a content feed. Based on a time of receipt, the system identifies a current seasonality that corresponds to reading habits of the user during a time period encompassing the time of receipt. The system then accesses a profile for the user to obtain a reading speed of the user and the reading habits of the user for the current seasonality. Next, the system: identifies a subset of content items; estimates a reading session length; and determines a complexity, with regard to the user, for each content item. The system then creates the content feed by ordering the subset of content items according to the reading session length and the complexity of each content item.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for improving use of a social network. During operation, the system obtains a set of member features associated with a member of a social network and a set of attribute features associated with a set of member attributes. Next, the system analyzes the member features and the attribute features to predict a propensity of the member to accept recommendations of the member attributes as profile edits to a member profile of the member. The system then uses the predicted propensity to output a subset of the member attributes as recommended profile edits to the member.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for improving use of a social network. During operation, the system obtains user feedback associated with recommending a set of member attributes as profile edits to a set of members in a social network. Next, the system analyzes the user feedback to determine a set of acceptance rates of the member attributes. The system then uses the acceptance rates to update a taxonomy of the member attributes for use in improving recommendations of the member attributes to the members.

Abstract: A system, method, and apparatus are provided for limiting or preventing write amplification. Full documents (which may be stored as blobs) are stored as monolithic entities in that only the entire documents can be written or read. When one or more fields or other portions of a document are determined to be “hot,” those fields are stored in a separate structure, possibly adjacent to the document. When only these fields are updated, the document need not be rewritten. For read requests, both structures are read and merged to yield a true version of the document. Fields may be considered hot based on criteria such as frequency of access, ratio of the fields' size to the size of the document, type of document, the application associated with the document, etc.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for processing textual content. During operation, the system obtains a content item containing a set of text units. For each text unit in the set of text units, the system obtains a similarity score representing a similarity of the text unit to other text units in the content item and calculates a ranking score for the text unit from a combination comprising a text unit frequency for the text unit, the similarity score, and a position weight associated with a position of the text unit in the content item. The system then ranks the set of text units by the ranking score and uses the ranking to display a summary containing a subset of the text units in the content item.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for performing skill-based recommendation of events. During operation, the system obtains member attributes for a member of an online professional network. Next, the system matches the location of the member and one or more of the member attributes to event attributes of a set of events. The system then uses the member attributes and the event attributes to calculate a set of relevance scores representing a relevance of the events to the member. Finally, the system uses the set of relevance scores to output one or more of the events as recommendations to the member.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for filtering irrelevant actor updates from content feeds. During operation, the system identifies a set of candidate content items to display to a user. Then, for each content item in the set of candidate content items, the system obtains a content score for the content item, determines a second user associated with the content item, determines a propensity for the user to click on content associated with the second user, and applies a penalty to the content score when the propensity is less than a pre-determined threshold. Finally, the system orders the set of candidate content items according to the content scores, and forwards the ordered set of content items for display to the user.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for mocking downstream services while regression testing a service. In one technique a version of a service processes a request, during which one or more computers intercept downstream service calls made by the version of the service. For each downstream service call of the downstream calls, a computer provides, to the version of the service, a response of the downstream service call, which was previously recorded while processing the request in a production environment. Processing, by the version of the service, the request involves processing the request based on the response of at least one of the downstream service calls.

Abstract: A system, method, and apparatus are provided for capturing a snapshot of variable-length data records that are indexed and sequentially stored in a manner that facilitates reverse reading. Each data record has a fixed number of keys, a key offset for each key that leads to another record with the same key value, and size metadata identifying a size of the data record (and possibly the key offsets). An index identifies, for each known value of each key, an index offset to a first entry (e.g., the most recently stored entry) that has the key value. Capturing a snapshot includes identifying a final record within the snapshot (e.g., based on time), copying the index, and pruning it as necessary to omit records not consistent with the snapshot (e.g., to omit data records stored after a final time corresponding to the snapshot).

Abstract: A system, method, and apparatus are provided for propagating a status among related events. A relationship component of the system maintains a graph of the related events and, upon assignment of a status to an event identifies one or more related events (e.g., the root event, other ancestor events, descendant events). A retention component of the system includes multiple nodes that maintain user records (e.g., sharded by user identifier) storing events associated with the members and that also maintain separate event status tables to identify statuses of selected events. For example, an event status table may store statuses of root events and/or other ancestor events from which a given subsequent event may inherit or derive a status. An event status may reflect a quality or characteristic of the event (e.g., spam, low quality, language of the event), a status of the associated user (e.g., fame, level of influence), etc.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for processing data. During operation, the system obtains a set of overall scores representing predicted purchase behaviors of a set of customers with an educational technology product. Next, the system displays a graphical user interface (GUI) comprising a customer prioritization chart for the educational technology product. The system then displays representations of the overall scores in the customer prioritization chart. Finally, the system displays, in the GUI, the set of overall scores and a breakdown of the overall scores into a set of sub-scores that characterize different components of the overall scores.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for processing data. During operation, the system obtains a set of features for a customer of an educational technology product. Next, the system uses the set of features to calculate an overall score representing a predicted purchase behavior of the customer with the educational technology product. The system then uses multiple subsets of the features to calculate a set of sub-scores that characterize different components of the overall score. Finally, the system outputs the overall score and the sub-scores for use in managing sales activity with the customer.

Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system for processing data. During operation, the system obtains a set of records from a set of inputs, with each record containing an entity key, a partition key, and one or more attribute-value pairs. Next, the system sorts and indexes the records by the entity key for each partitioned input. The system then processes a query of the records by matching entity key values to the sorted and indexed records for each input partition in the query. Next, the system merges the subset of records with the same entity key values into records, with each merged record containing an entity key field and a single field that includes a list of attribute-value pairs from the subset. Finally, the system outputs the merged records in response to the query.

Abstract: For each of a group of nodes including a node corresponding to a first member and a plurality of nodes corresponding to members with which the first member is directly connected in a social graph, a plurality of reputation scores may be calculated for a node in the social graph, and the plurality of reputation scores for the node may be averaged into an importance score for the node. A keyness score for each of the plurality of nodes corresponding to members with which the first member is directly connected in the social graph can be calculated, the keyness score for each of the plurality of nodes being based on a connection strength for a connection between the node and the node corresponding to the first member and based on the importance score for the node. The keyness scores may be selected, averaged, and saved as a social capital score.

Abstract: A system, method, apparatus and graphical user interface are provided for navigating a multi-component application or service—such as an application that executes on a mobile device and that includes multiple features, pages, content items, utilities, settings, etc. A shortcut bar provides rapid access to application components that correspond to multiple shortcuts, and the shortcut bar can be opened, by swiping it, to reveal a set of options associated with an open shortcut (e.g., the shortcut closest to where the user swiped on the bar). The options can be scrolled (e.g., vertically) or swiped in another direction (e.g., sideways) to access options associated with other shortcuts. The shortcut bar and the options provide set paths of navigation to desired content, without regard to the current context (e.g., the displayed content). Navigation paths to the content via the current context will vary, depending on the displayed content.