Abstract: Embodiments of the invention are directed to using image data and contextual data to determine information about a scene, based on one or more previously obtained images. Contextual data, such location of image capture, can be used to determine previously obtained images related to the contextual data and other location-related information, such as billboard locations. With even low resolution devices, such as cell phone, image attributes, such as a histogram or optically recognized characters, can be compared between the previously obtained images and the newly captured image. Attributes matching within a predefined threshold indicated matching images. Information on the content of matching previously obtained images can be provided back to a user who captured the new image. User profile data can refine the content information. The content information can also be used as search terms for additional searching or other processing.

Abstract: System and method for improving recognition of characters. A system for improving recognition of characters is disclosed. The system comprises at least one processor (10), configured to receive an image (1004) of an article (102) comprising characters to be recognized. The system (100) displays characters as recognized on a display screen (1006). Further, the system (100) is configured to receive user feedback comprising correction of an error made by the system (100) in recognizing at least one character and provide a system feedback comprising display of images or textual descriptions of one or more variants (1012, 1014, 1016, 1018, 1020, 1022) of a character, which is incorrectly recognized by the system, which enables the natural person to adapt writing style to enable better quality inputs to the recognition module. The article (102) is a handwritten paper form (102), filled and captured by the natural person.

Abstract: System and method for improving recognition of characters. A system for improving recognition of characters is disclosed. The system comprises at least one processor (10), configured to receive an image (1004) of an article (102) comprising characters to be recognized. The system (100) displays characters as recognized on a display screen (1006). Further, the system (100) is configured to receive user feedback comprising correction of an error made by the system (100) in recognizing at least one character and provide a system feedback comprising display of images or textual descriptions of one or more variants (1012, 1014, 1016, 1018, 1020, 1022) of a character, which is incorrectly recognized by the system, which enables the natural person to adapt writing style to enable better quality inputs to the recognition module. The article (102) is a handwritten paper form (102), filled and captured by the natural person.

Abstract: Techniques are provided that can be used in advertising campaign management in connection with auction-based online advertising. A tool is provided, for use by advertisers or advertising campaign managers, for being provided with, in connection with specified parameters, an indication of a competitive bid and a non-competitive bid. The tool may also provide an actual, estimated, or projected bid, which may be associated with an advertising campaign or a portion thereof, for comparison with the competitive bid and the non-competitive bid. The tool may allow assessment of a competitive bid landscape and help allow determination of an optimal bid.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention are directed to using image data and contextual data to determine information about a scene, based on one or more previously obtained images. Contextual data, such location of image capture, can be used to determine previously obtained images related to the contextual data and other location-related information, such as billboard locations. With even low resolution devices, such as cell phone, image attributes, such as a histogram or optically recognized characters, can be compared between the previously obtained images and the newly captured image. Attributes matching within a predefined threshold indicated matching images. Information on the content of matching previously obtained images can be provided back to a user who captured the new image. User profile data can refine the content information. The content information can also be used as search terms for additional searching or other processing.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention are directed to using image data and contextual data to determine information about a scene, based on one or more previously obtained images. Contextual data, such location of image capture, can be used to determine previously obtained images related to the contextual data and other location-related information, such as billboard locations. With even low resolution devices, such as cell phone, image attributes, such as a histogram or optically recognized characters, can be compared between the previously obtained images and the newly captured image. Attributes matching within a predefined threshold indicate matching images. Information on the content of matching previously obtained images can be provided back to a user who captured the new image. User profile data can refine the content information. The content information can also be used as search terms for additional searching or other processing.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention are directed to using image data and contextual data to determine information about a scene, based on one or more previously obtained images. Contextual data, such location of image capture, can be used to determine previously obtained images related to the contextual data and other location-related information, such as billboard locations. With even low resolution devices, such as cell phone, image attributes, such as a histogram or optically recognized characters, can be compared between the previously obtained images and the newly captured image. Attributes matching within a predefined threshold indicate matching images. Information on the content of matching previously obtained images can be provided back to a user who captured the new image. User profile data can refine the content information. The content information can also be used as search terms for additional searching or other processing.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention are directed to using image data and contextual data to determine information about a scene, based on one or more previously obtained images. Contextual data, such location of image capture, can be used to determine previously obtained images related to the contextual data and other location-related information, such as billboard locations. With even low resolution devices, such as cell phone, image attributes, such as a histogram or optically recognized characters, can be compared between the previously obtained images and the newly captured image. Attributes matching within a predefined threshold indicate matching images. Information on the content of matching previously obtained images can be provided back to a user who captured the new image. User profile data can refine the content information. The content information can also be used as search terms for additional searching or other processing.

Abstract: A method and system for managing a low-resource supply chain. The method includes receiving data over unreliable mobile networks from a retailer, identifying a pattern of goods consumption based on at least one of the data and multiple historical transactions associated with the retailer, calculating an expected demand of goods, providing personalized recommendations, to the retailer, based on the expected demand of goods, enabling the retailer to place one or more orders based on the plurality of personalized recommendations and processing the one or more orders, of the retailer, by using services provided by one or more vendors. The system includes an electronic device that enables a retailer to place one or more orders, a communication interface in electronic communication with the electronic device, a memory that stores instructions, and a processor including a transaction management module, a data management module, a personalized recommendation module and an incentive management module.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention are directed to using image data and contextual data to determine information about a scene, based on one or more previously obtained images. Contextual data, such location of image capture, can be used to determine previously obtained images related to the contextual data and other location-related information, such as billboard locations. With even low resolution devices, such as cell phone, image attributes, such as a histogram or optically recognized characters, can be compared between the previously obtained images and the newly captured image. Attributes matching within a predefined threshold indicate matching images. Information on the content of matching previously obtained images can be provided back to a user who captured the new image. User profile data can refine the content information. The content information can also be used as search terms for additional searching or other processing.

Abstract: Techniques are provided that can be used in advertising campaign management in connection with auction-based online advertising. A tool is provided, for use by advertisers or advertising campaign managers, for being provided with, in connection with specified parameters, an indication of a competitive bid and a non-competitive bid. The tool may also provide an actual, estimated, or projected bid, which may be associated with an advertising campaign or a portion thereof, for comparison with the competitive bid and the non-competitive bid. The tool may allow assessment of a competitive bid landscape and help allow determination of an optimal bid.

Abstract: Web page clustering techniques described herein are URL Clustering and Page Clustering, whereby clustering algorithms cluster together pages that are structurally similar. Regarding URL clustering, because similarly structured pages have similar patterns in their URLs, grouping similar URL patterns will group structurally similar pages. Embodiments of URL clustering may involve: (a) URL normalization and (b) URL variation computation. Regarding page clustering, page feature-based techniques further cluster any given set of homogenous clusters, reducing the number of clusters based on the underlying page code. Embodiments of page clustering may reduce the number of clusters based on the tag probabilities and the tag sequence, utilizing an Approximate Nearest Neighborhood (ANN) graph along with evaluation of intra-cluster and inter-cluster compactness.

Abstract: An improved system and method for using contextual sections of web page content for serving advertisements in online advertising is provided. A publisher may use a tool to identify sections of a web page that represent content to be used in contextual advertising. When rendered by a web browser, content from marked sections may be extracted from the web page and sent to an advertisement server for selectively matching advertisements for display to a user. Features may be identified from the content sections and used to select advertisements matching the extracted content of the web page. In particular, the features identified from the content sections may be matched with features designated by advertisers for advertisements. Web page placements may be allocated for advertisements matching the extracted content, and the advertisements may be served for display with the web page.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention are directed to using image data and contextual data to determine information about a scene, based on one or more previously obtained images. Contextual data, such location of image capture, can be used to determine previously obtained images related to the contextual data and other location-related information, such as billboard locations. With even low resolution devices, such as cell phone, image attributes, such as a histogram or optically recognized characters, can be compared between the previously obtained images and the newly captured image. Attributes matching within a predefined threshold indicate matching images. Information on the content of matching previously obtained images can be provided back to a user who captured the new image. User profile data can refine the content information. The content information can also be used as search terms for additional searching or other processing.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed herein for extracting attributes from documents such as web pages. A structure of a training document is compared with a structure of a template to determine a template-node that structurally corresponds to a training-document node that has been annotated with an attribute. Filters can be learned by analyzing characteristics that the attribute possesses in the training document. To extract information for the attribute from a new document, first a set of candidate nodes in a new document are determined by determining which nodes in the new document structurally map to the template node. The filters are applied to eliminate false positives from the candidate nodes. Information can then be extracted from the new document, based on remaining candidate nodes. Even if incremental changes are made to the structure of new documents, nodes that posses the attributes can still be reliably identified.

Abstract: Techniques are described for keyword extraction from URLs using regular expression patterns and keyword ranking. Tokenization of URLs also generates regular expressions of URLs from a website. The regular expressions are stored in the form of any type of indexing structure. When a new URL is received, the URL is examined to determine whether the URL is from a website that has previously been tokenized. If the URL is not from such a website, then the URL is tokenized using every delimiter and unit change to extract keywords. If the URL is from a website previously processed, the corresponding regular expression is used to extract keywords from the URL. The keywords extracted from the URLs are then ranked based on any ranking methodology for better relevance and performance.

Abstract: Techniques are described for tokenizing a corpus of URLs of web documents. URLs are first tokenized based upon specified generic delimiters to form components. The components are then tokenized using website-specific delimiters. Website-specific delimiters are any non-alphanumerical symbol or a unit change that is specific to a particular website. Support for website-specific delimiters and the tokens resulting from website-specific delimiters are calculated. Support values for website-specific delimiters and the tokens above a specified threshold value are valid. Tokenization may also be performed by generating a graph of the corpus of URLs of web documents. Each node of the graph represents a token and each edge represents a delimiter of the URLs. The graph is traversed and the support of the edges are compared to a specified threshold value. If the support of an edge of a node is greater, then the token corresponding to the node is valid.

Abstract: A resource catalog system comprises a catalog organized as a set of metadata structures representing distributed system resources, language for resource invocation, and a query interpreter and optimizer. Query optimization includes dynamic functional composition by modeling resources according constraints and determining constraint-satisfaction to compose an execution plan. Query optimization may also include dynamic selection and scheduling of resources by combining a resource scheduling with adaptive feedback. The resources may comprise distributed software components, application programs, shell scripts, executables, and services. The resource catalog system accepts queries for operations on distributed resources through a declarative language or a procedural language. A query optimizer derives catalog operators from a query or elsewhere and accesses the system resources according to interpretation of the catalog operators.

Abstract: Web page clustering techniques described herein are URL Clustering and Page Clustering, whereby clustering algorithms cluster together pages that are structurally similar. Regarding URL clustering, because similarly structured pages have similar patterns in their URLs, grouping similar URL patterns will group structurally similar pages. Embodiments of URL clustering may involve: (a) URL normalization and (b) URL variation computation. Regarding page clustering, page feature-based techniques further cluster any given set of homogenous clusters, reducing the number of clusters based on the underlying page code. Embodiments of page clustering may reduce the number of clusters based on the tag probabilities and the tag sequence, utilizing an Approximate Nearest Neighborhood (ANN) graph along with evaluation of intra-cluster and inter-cluster compactness.

Abstract: A digital work and a system context (or resource information or system resource) are polarized enabling trusted rendering or replay of the digital work without depolarization of the digital content. The digital work includes digital content and resource information. Resource information may include information used by a replay application to format or process the digital content. The digital work and system context are polarized using a polarization scheme which relies on a polarization seed to initialize and customize the polarization. Different types of polarization seeds may be used, including a random number, a user's system's state or characteristic and a dynamic state-based polarization seed based on a dynamic system state or characteristic.