Abstract: A device and method for developing software for managing a business process. The steps of the method include (a) providing a plurality of business server objects associated with a database and a set of service functions, (b) providing a plurality of client interfaces which include a set of screens for collecting and displaying transaction data, (c) constructing a dynamic mapping between client interfaces. Step (c) further includes the steps of selecting a client interface, selecting a transaction to be implemented with the client interface, specifying a series of stages to implement the transaction resulting in a dynamic map of the transaction and translating the dynamic map into code.

Abstract: The invention relates to an automated system for monitoring wildlife auditory data and recording same for subsequent analysis and identification. The system comprises one or more microphones coupled to a recording apparatus for recording wildlife vocalizations in digital format. The resultant recorded data is preprocessed, segmented, and analyzed by means of a neural network to identify the respective species. The system minimizes the need for human intervention and subjective interpretation of the recorded sounds.

Abstract: There is disclosed a method for use in a printing system for producing copies or prints in which billing is developed for a customer of the printing system for the produced copies or prints on a basis of a set of accounting information accumulated and stored in an accounting subsystem. The printing system includes an input/output station communicating with the accounting subsystem by way of a network, and the method facilitates the generation of a set of billing/pricing information for transmission to a selected location upon the occurrence of a selected event related to the printing system.

Abstract: A debit card system for implementing an incentive award program for a customer having participants. A plurality of debit cards, each assigned to one participant and having a unique account number corresponding to an award account of the participant is part of the system. A bank filter processor accesses program data including data identifying the authorized unique account numbers of the participants, data identifying the authorized merchants and data indicating the balance in each participant's award account. The filter processor compares this program data to the following transaction data: the initiating account number of the card as initiating the transaction, the merchant identification data of the initiating merchant, and the data regarding the amount of the initiated transaction.

Abstract: A technique for computerized management of a plaintiff's personal injury case is disclosed. This technique includes establishing records, each reflective of the phase of a corresponding personal injury claim. The first phase corresponds to pre-negotiation of the claim and includes at least a first and second subordinate pre-negotiation stage. Each of these stages includes the generation of a number of prompts directed to obtaining information about the claim. A given record may also be set to a second management phase corresponding to negotiation of the claim or a third management phase representing settlement of the claim. In addition, the present invention discloses a technique to automatically generate a demand letter and calculate settlement amounts from information gathered in the record during pursuit of the claim. The management system may also include scheduling various prompts and correspondence with the program in accordance with a predetermined schedule spanning several days.

Abstract: A computer system provides automated merchant-to-customer communication. Each merchant customer is grouped into an initial grouping or entry segment, based on merchant definition of allocation filters. Merchant-defined triggers subsequently resegment customer groupings based on predefined criteria which includes any measurable behavioral patterns as provided by the merchant and stored in a data base. Resegmenting is continually or dynamically provided based on behavior (e.g., shopping activity) of customers. Predefined communication scheduling and/or merchant-defined events initiate execution of a working communication designed by the merchant. The triggers and events are merchant-specified sets of criteria based on demographics, psychographics, and customer shopping behavior. Further filtering of a group of target customers to a final recipient group based on merchant specified criteria is provided by program filters.

Abstract: In the recognition of coherently spoken words, a plurality of hypotheses is usually built up which end in various words during the recognition process and are then to be continued with further words. To keep the number of words yet to be continued as small as possible, especially in the case of a large vocabulary, it is known to carry out a look-ahead in a limited time space. It is suggested according to the invention to use the same phonemes for the look-ahead as for the actual recognition and to add together the differential sums obtained in the look-ahead for the evaluation of the partial hypothesis which has just ended and which is to be continued, and to compare this sum with a threshold value which depends on the extrapolated minimum total evaluation at the end of the time space of the look-ahead. The searching space for hypotheses to be continued can be limited by this in a particularly favorable manner.

Abstract: A neural network IC 31 includes n dedicated processing elements (PEs) 62, an output register 66 for storing the PEs' outputs so that they are immediately accessible to all of the PEs, a number of output circuits 78 that are connected to selected PEs to provide binary outputs, and a timing circuit 74. Each of the PEs includes a weight memory 90 for storing input, output and bias weight arrays, a first in first out (FIFO) memory 88 for storing input data, a dot product circuit 92 and an activation circuit 94. The dot product circuit computes a dot product of the input weight array and the contents of the FIFO memory, a dot product of the output weight array and the contents of the output register, a dot product of the bias value and a constant, and sums the three results. The activation circuit maps the output of the dot product circuit through an activation function to produce the PE's output.

Abstract: Methods and credit or debit card systems are disclosed that allow the available credit to be determined by someone other than the card issuer and that allow a limit to be set on the number of expenditures that can be made. The methods and systems can be used to provide a mechanism for supervising credit or debit card usage. Methods and systems are disclosed which include a child's credit card account linked to a parent's credit or debit card account. The parent may change the child's available credit without changing the total combined available credit for the child's and the parent's accounts. In addition, an expenditure counter figure associated with the child's account is disclosed which can be used by the parent to enable the child to make an unlimited number of purchases, a limited number of purchases, or no purchases. The parent may make a single payment for both the child's and the parent's credit card accounts.

Abstract: A decision support system for the management of an agile supply chain that provides an architecture including a server side and a client side. The server side includes a decision support system database that interfaces with a model engine that performs analysis of the data to support planning decisions. The server side includes a server manager that coordinates requests for service and information. The client side includes decision frames that present the various view points available in the system to the users. A frame manager coordinates the requests from decision support frames to access the needed data and models. The decision support frames provide a view into the supply chain and integrate analytical models responsive to the view point of a business process such as demand management. The frames include a supply management frame, a demand management frame, a vendor managed replenishment frame, a Planning, Sales and Inventory planning frame, and a distribution network design frame.

Abstract: A ticketless system for processing information for issuance of an airplane ticket or the like by using an IC card. The ticketless system includes a coupon ticket issuing module for recording coupon ticket issue information onto a distribution source card to enable plural use of the distribution source card. A coupon ticket moving module records coupon ticket movement information which moves a part of the coupon ticket of the distribution source card to a distribution destination card and enables the coupon ticket movement information to be used with the distribution destination card. A use processing module processes a use such as a reservation, a ticket issuance, a check-in, or a boarding by using the distribution source card or distribution destination card. In addition, a temporary card issuing module issues a temporary card in which a name of the user is not registered on the ticketless system and which is temporarily used.

Abstract: A transaction control system is disclosed wherein a center computer is connected through communication circuits with a plurality of terminal devices and wherein the users of the terminal devices do not suffer disadvantages in dealing produced by differences in transmission time with respect to the center computer. With this transaction control system, prior to the ordinary processing, the transmission time required to effect information transmission between the center computer and the various terminal devices is measured. Using the result of this measurement, an adjustment time is then set in each terminal device such as to make the transmission time coincide with a reference time. When in receipt of transaction information, each terminal device displays this transaction information after the lapse of the adjustment time after the time-point of its reception.

Abstract: A system, method and device for selectively tracking expenditures against a total monetary amount. The device includes a support having a plurality of response areas for presenting information for selection, and printing indicative of one or more discrete monetary amounts, each amount a small fraction of the total monetary amount as a discrete budget unit. The printing is fixed to the support within each response area. The plurality of response areas and the printing are arranged on the support in a distributed fashion such that the aggregate of the representations of the discrete monetary amounts equals the total monetary amount. The arrangement of the printing and response areas provides a visual representation of the total monetary amount as a distribution of discrete monetary amounts. Expenditure amounts are tracked by canceling, for each expenditure amount, a corresponding amount of the discrete printed representations to approximate the expenditure amount.

Abstract: The present invention discloses a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for a computer-implemented financial management system that permits the trading of securities via a network. A server computer receives buy and sell orders for derivative financial instruments from a plurality of client computers. The server computer matches the buy orders to the sell orders and then generates a market price through the use of a virtual specialist program executed by the server computer. The virtual specialist program responds to an imbalance in the matching of the buy and sell orders.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method for issuing a credit card to a customer who has difficulty qualifying for unsecured credit or who requests a secured credit card. A card request input is received indicating that a customer has made a request for a credit card, and, in response, a credit card account with an initial credit limit is created for the customer. The initial credit limit is stored by computer. A credit card us issued to the customer before receipt of an indication of a deposit to a savings account to secure the credit card. A balance of the savings account is periodically monitored by computer for an initial deposit, and a new credit limit is computed when the initial deposit has been made.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a system and method of word syllabification. The present invention receives a word to be syllabified and determines therefrom all possible substrings capable of forming part of the word. Sequences matching at least part of or the whole of the word are determined from the substrings together with respective probabilities of occurrence and the sequence having the greatest probability of occurrence is selected as being the most probable syllabification of the word. The most probable sequence can be determined in many different ways. For example, the sequence can be determined by commencing with the substring having the greatest probability of forming the beginning of a given word and subsequently traversing in a step-by-step manner a table comprising all possible substrings of the word and at each step selecting the next substring of the sequence according to which of the possible next substrings has the highest probability of occurrence.

Abstract: A method to maximize throughput of a group of multi-process machines whereby the number of each kind machine is determined. Then, the machine assignment of each machine is assigned a variable. Next, the throughput definition for each machine is calculated from a database of past production runs. Next, the capacity of each process is calculated. Then, the constraints of the machine assignment variables are determined. A linear programming model is then derived for the system. The linear programming model is then executed under the constraints to determine optimal machine assignments to maximize the capacity of the minimum capacity process.

Abstract: A game system which is operable to update advertisements that are displayed when a game program is executed. The system stores a game program in a memory, receives (i.e., downloads), at predetermined times of operation, for example, on each new day the game program is executed or each time the game program is executed, updated advertising data that relates to at least one advertisement, stores the received advertising data in the memory, executes the game program stored in the memory, and outputs during the execution of the game program display data which corresponds to the stored advertisement data in accordance with the game program code. Further, instead of downloading new advertisements, plural advertisements may be prestored with the game program and only advertisement selection codes are downloaded to update the advertisements that are displayed when the game program is executed.

Abstract: A search server system in an online shopping system uses a communications network to provide shopping information for a customer. When a customer wishes to refer to or buy goods, the name of the goods is used to automatically search for stores and/or malls which handle the goods. The thus obtained stores and/or malls are then indicated as a list so that the customer may easily recognize them. Further, detailed information of each store and/or mall is indicated, whereby the customer may appropriately select a store and/or mall and enter it. An indication unit in the search server system provides visual indication information to a client terminal. The visual indication information is produced from image information of the stores. The visual indication information may also be combined with respective image information of the goods from the stores.

Abstract: A method for providing inventory optimization for levels of products in a complex supply chain network for multiple internal supplier or manufacturer locations and external distributor or retailer locations. The invention constructs a representative supply chain network model to indicate the flow of products between internal and external locations, it determines inventory levels and fill rates to meet the service level requirements, calculates a total inventory cost for all products in the network, and optimizes the fill rates based on estimated gradient information of the total inventory cost.