Abstract: A distributed data warehouse system may maintain data blocks on behalf of clients, and may store primary and secondary copies of each data block on different disks or nodes in a cluster. The warehouse system may back up data blocks in a remote key-value backup storage system. A restore operation may retrieve data blocks from backup storage using their unique identifiers as keys (while incoming queries are serviced) in response to a failure or a query targeting data that was lost or corrupted. The order in which data blocks are restored may be dependent on the relative likelihood that they will be accessed in the near future (e.g., based on how recently or frequently they were accessed, written, or backed up; the values of one or more access counters associated with each data block; or how recently a database table containing data in each data block was loaded).

Abstract: A distributed data warehouse system maintains data blocks on behalf of clients, and stores primary and secondary copies of data blocks on different disks or nodes in a cluster. The data warehouse system may back up data blocks in a key-value backup storage system. In response to a query targeting a data block previously stored in the cluster, the data warehouse system may determine whether a consistent, uncorrupted copy of the data block is available in the cluster (e.g., by applying a consistency check). If not (e.g., if a disk or node failed), the data warehouse system may automatically initiate an operation to restore the data block from the backup storage system, using a unique identifier of the data block to access a backup copy. The target data may be returned in a query response prior to restoring primary and secondary copies of the data block in the cluster.

Abstract: A distributed data warehouse system may maintain data blocks on behalf of clients in multiple clusters in a data store. Each cluster may include a single leader node and multiple compute nodes, each including multiple disks storing data. The warehouse system may store primary and secondary copies of each data block on different disks or nodes in a cluster. Each node may include a data structure that maintains metadata about each data block stored on the node, including its unique identifier. The warehouse system may back up data blocks in a remote key-value backup storage system with high durability. A streaming restore operation may be used to retrieve data blocks from backup storage using their unique identifiers as keys. The warehouse system may service incoming queries (and may satisfy some queries by retrieving data from backup storage on an as-needed basis) prior to completion of the restore operation.

Abstract: One exemplary embodiment involves generating a plurality of facets and descriptors of all items available via an electronic shop service based on the images depicting each of the items. The facets that may be generated include a color facet, a shape facet, a texture facet, and/or other facets. The embodiment further involves receiving search criteria from a user that includes a number of search criteria elements. Each element of the search criteria may be represented by an image. The embodiment involves generating a search criteria descriptor based on the images received in connection with the search criteria. Additionally, the embodiment involves identifying items associated with images that correspond with the search criteria descriptor and providing the images of the identified items in a user interface.

Abstract: A new method is provided for a database client to interact with a database server that allows the client to observe all changes happening in the server. Using this method is efficient to aggregate changes at the database record level before delivering them to the client. The method can also ensure exactly-once delivery of every change to the client. This method is implemented in the database server by a new data structure that maintains all database pages being modified on a linked list. Any database can incorporate this method to provide this aggregated, exactly-once change observation functionality.

Abstract: A method for determining and providing aggregate functions is provided. The method may include scanning database tables. The method may further include determining the aggregate functions. Additionally, the method may include storing the determined aggregate functions on system catalog tables. The method may also include providing indications that the stored determined aggregate functions are valid. The method may further include receiving database queries. The method may also include, determining whether the stored determined aggregate functions are valid. The method may further include, in response to the stored determined aggregate functions being valid, retrieving the stored determined aggregate functions from the system catalog tables. The method may also include, in response to the stored determined aggregate functions being invalid, re-scanning the database tables. The method may further include determining the aggregate functions based on the re-scanned database tables.

Abstract: A dynamic classification dictionary is built for use in profiling and targeting users for additional relevant content. Behavioral data is gathered from user activity, and user documents and actions are categorized. Author-generated document classification information is analyzed and assigned a first taxonomic noun to characterize the document. User-generated tags characterizing a portion of the document are assigned a second taxonomic noun. Search terms that resulted in the user accessing the document are identified and assigned a third taxonomic noun. Attributes related to the manner in which the document was accessed are evaluated and assigned a fourth taxonomic noun. The document is processed using pattern rules to extract a fifth taxonomic noun. The taxonomic nouns are aggregated into a composite set of taxonomic nouns, and the dynamic classification dictionary is build by storing the composite set of taxonomic nouns.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a computing device receives an indication of a first user action by a first user. The computing device determines a topic of the first user action based on analyzing content associated with the first user action, and determines whether the first user has a preference to exclude posts associated with the topic or a category associated with the topic. If the first user has not indicated any preference to exclude posts associated with the topic or the category, then the computing device identifies a second user action by a second user and related to the topic, and determines whether the first user has indicated a preference to exclude posts associated with the second user. If the first user has not indicated any preference to exclude posts associated with the second user, a reference associated with the second user action is sent to the first user.

Abstract: A computer-based system includes a computer-processable definition of a region in a data set. The system identifies a region of the data set based on the definition of the region. The system provides output to a user representing a question and the identified region of the data set. The system may also automatically generate an answer to the question based on the question and the data set, and provide output to the user representing the answer. The system may generate the answer based on a subset of the data set, and provide output to the user representing the subset of the data set. The user may provide feedback on the first answer to the system, which the system may use to improve subsequent answers to the same and other questions, and to disable the system's automatic question-answering function in response to disagreement between the user and the system.

Abstract: Mechanisms are provided that: identify topics associated with a plurality of pieces of media content presented in a session; calculate a distance metric for pairs of topics, wherein each of the pairs of topics includes a first topic associated with a first piece of media content and a second topic associated with a second piece of media content, and wherein the second piece of media content was presented within a given span of the presentation of the first piece of media content; for each first topic of the pairs of topics, generate a rank-ordered list for all corresponding second topics; for each of the plurality of pieces of media content, generate a single rank-ordered list of all second topics; and for each of the plurality of pieces of media content, identify one or more other pieces of media content as recommended media content based on the single rank-ordered list.

Abstract: A robotic system is provided. The robotic system includes a publishing node including at least one first synchronization database that includes a plurality of attributes, each of the attributes including a tag identifying the attribute and data, a flag associated with each of the attributes, and a subscriber list. The system also includes a subscriber node including at least one second synchronization database. The publishing node is configured to set the flag associated with the attributes when the attributes are written in the at least one first synchronization database or when the data included in the attributes are modified and publish the flagged attributes to the subscriber node.

Abstract: The embodiments described herein are directed to efficient merging of metadata managed by a volume layer of a storage input/output (I/O) stack executing on one or more nodes of a cluster. The metadata managed by the volume layer, i.e., the volume metadata, is illustratively organized as a multi-level dense tree metadata structure, wherein each level of the dense tree metadata structure (dense tree) includes volume metadata entries for storing the volume metadata. The volume metadata entries of an upper level of the dense tree metadata structure are merged with the volume metadata entries of a next lower level of the dense tree metadata structure when the upper level is full. The volume metadata entries of the merged levels are organized as metadata pages and stored as one or more files on the SSDs.

Abstract: A data storage system protects data identified for deletion which has been created or modified between scheduled data backups. For instance, the system monitors data operations and when the data operation is a delete, the system determines whether the data identified for deletion has been protected by a backup operation. Data that has not been backed up, such as newly created data, is copied to temporary storage before deletion. When the data has been protected, the system determines whether the data has been modified after the backup operation. Data modified after the backup operation is copied to temporary storage before deletion.

Abstract: Both content creators and content consumers can benefit by improving communication mechanisms that currently exist. For example, content creators can increase the appeal of content by leveraging the energy of fans, but it is often difficult to identify which content consumers are the best or top fans. However, such can be identified based on various metrics, for example, based on engagement and/or influence of the content consumer. Once the set of top fans is identified, content creators can interact, potentially exclusively, with the set of top fans, which can enhance the experience for all parties involved.

Abstract: A database system performs analytics on longitudinal data, such as medical histories with events occurring to patients over time. Input data is processed into streams of events. A set of indexes of event characteristics is generated. A set of patient event histories, partitioned by patient, is generated. Several copies of event data are stored, each copy being structured to support a specific analytical task. Data is partitioned and distributed over several hardware nodes to allow parallel queries. Definitions of sets of candidate patients are translated into sets of filters applied to the set of indexes. Data for these candidates are input to analytical modules. Reports from analysis are automatically generated to be compatible with standard guidelines for reporting. Workflows support one task or a set of closely related tasks by offering the user a defined sequence of query options and analytic choices specifically arranged for the task.

Abstract: Techniques for enabling user search of content stored in a file archive include providing a search interface comprising a search rules portion and an action rules portion, receiving a file archive search criterion comprising at least one search rule, and searching the file archive using the search criterion. The techniques also include generating a set of files filtered using the search criterion and performing an action specified in the action rules portion on a file included in the set of files.

Abstract: An online article is enhanced by displaying, in association with the article, supplemental content that includes entities that are extracted from the article and/or entities that are related to entities that are extracted from the article. The supplemental content further includes information about each of the entities. The information about an entity may be obtained by searching for the entity in one or more searchable repositories of data. For example, the supplemental content may include, for each entity, video, image, web, and/or news search results. The supplemental content may further include information such as stock quotes, abstracts, maps, scores, and so on. The entities are selected using a variety of analysis and ranking techniques based on contextual factors such as user-specific information, time-sensitive popularity trends, grammatical features, search result quality, and so on. The entities may further be selected for purposes such as generating ad-based revenue.

Abstract: A computer-implemented system and method for search and navigation on a network to find and display specific search identified information in documents. Queries are sent to search engine services and responses comprising snippets are returned. Then, in response to only one or a few user inputs, documents are opened and locations of content matching or best matching the snippets are found reliably and distinguished in a display.

Abstract: Embodiments of methods, apparatuses, devices and/or systems for manipulating hierarchical sets of data are disclosed. In particular, methods, apparatus devices and or/or systems for enumerating rooted partial subtrees are disclosed.

Abstract: In one embodiment, modeling topics includes accessing a corpus comprising documents that include words. Words of a document are selected as keywords of the document. The documents are clustered according to the keywords to yield clusters, where each cluster corresponds to a topic. A statistical distribution is generated for a cluster from words of the documents of the cluster. A topic is modeled using the statistical distribution generated for the cluster corresponding to the topic.