Abstract: Systems and methods for indexing and searching health data are disclosed herein. In some embodiments, a method for querying patient records includes receiving a search input that specifies a plurality of events, one or more temporal relationships between the events, and inclusion and/or exclusion criteria. An index query is constructed based at least in part on the plurality of events within the search input. The index query is then executed against an inverted index to identify matching patient records. One or more temporal constraints can be solved against the identified patient records. Finally, patient records satisfying the constraint(s) are returned.

Abstract: A technique is described herein for allocating tasks within a distributed system. The distributed system includes plural computing devices. Each computing device, in turn, provides a bucket manager and at least one application instance. The bucket managers allocate work to the computing devices in units of buckets, in a manner governed by a set of application-specific initialization parameters. The bucket managers also perform their assignment function in cooperation with a separate storage and notification (S&N) system. The S&N system stores data nodes in a hierarchical data structure that reflect the assignment-related state of the distributed system. The S&N system also notifies the bucket managers upon changes in the data nodes. According to one provision, the bucket managers include logic that reduces expensive context changes when computing devices join and leave the distributed system.

Abstract: A technique is described herein for allocating tasks within a distributed system. The distributed system includes plural computing devices. Each computing device, in turn, provides a bucket manager and at least one application instance. The bucket managers allocate work to the computing devices in units of buckets, in a manner governed by a set of application-specific initialization parameters. The bucket managers also perform their assignment function in cooperation with a separate storage and notification (S&N) system. The S&N system stores data nodes in a hierarchical data structure that reflect the assignment-related state of the distributed system. The S&N system also notifies the bucket managers upon changes in the data nodes. According to one provision, the bucket managers include logic that reduces expensive context changes when computing devices join and leave the distributed system.

Abstract: Methods, computer systems, and computer-storage media for transferring ranking signals from equivalent pages to master pages are provided. In embodiments, ranking signals are received. Documents are determined to be equivalent pages. Master pages for the equivalent pages are identified. The ranking signals are transferred to the master pages.

Abstract: Each packet message in a sequence of packet messages is sent with an associated packet message priority label in accordance with a predetermined cyclic sequence of such labels. These priority labels each represent one of a plurality of priority levels and the position of each label in the cyclic sequence is such that number of consecutive lower priority labels between that label and the nearest label of equal or higher priority is substantially maximized. In this way, if packet messages are dropped from the sequence due to congestion on a priority basis, the packet messaging method and apparatus according to the invention ensure that, as far as possible, regular update packet messages are still received from all packet message sources.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for predicting the likelihood of an avatar under the control of a user in a virtual environment moving with a predetermined range of a boundary as disclosed in which the movement of the avatar in the virtual environment is monitored for a period of time, a model of avatar movement is determined using the monitor movement, and the likelihood of the avatar movement within the predetermined of a boundary is predicted using the model.