Abstract: A method for calculating sales trend of a product at a store shelf based on crowdsourcing, includes receiving, by a retail store server, availability data of a product measured on a shelf in the retail store from a portable device, where the availability data is in the form of a picture acquired of the product on the shelf, identifying products on the shelf using tags attached to the shelves, calculating sales velocity and sales trends of the product from the identified products, and transmitting the sales velocity and sales trend of the product to one or more third parties' systems in a supply chain of said retail store. Products and their locations on retail store shelves have been cataloged in a product database.

Abstract: A method of determining occupancy of a vehicle along a route is determined by processing data generated by two different smartphones reported to be travelling in the same vehicle. An app executing within each smartphone. Information that has been transmitted from the two smartphones includes a unique identification of the mobile computing device and a unique identification of a person associated with the mobile computing device. Sensor data is also received, which corresponds to a local ambient environment inside the vehicle of the mobile computing device generating the data. The sensor data does not include location data or data entered by a user. The received data is used to determine if both mobile computing devices were actually present during the portions of the route, by comparing the data from each device.

Abstract: A populace centric weather forecast system, method of forecasting weather and a computer program product therefor. A forecasting computer applies a grid to a forecast area and provides a weather forecast for each grid cell. Area activity data sources indicate human activity in the forecast area. A dynamic selection module iteratively identifies grid cells for refinement in response to the weather forecast and to indicated/expected human activity. The dynamic selection module provides the forecasting computer with a refined grid for each identified grid cell in each iteration. The forecasting computer provides a refined weather forecast in each iteration.

Abstract: An aspect of this invention is a method that includes receiving input data from an application. The input data includes information descriptive of at least one field. The method further includes processing the input data to form an array composed of legal data for the at least one field. The array is formed by merging a result of processing syntactic constraints and a result of processing semantic constraints. The method further includes outputting the array to the application. A system for performing the method is also described, as is a computer program product that can be used to execute the method.

Abstract: A system, method and computer program product for allowing users to organize and selectively publish content of interest, with freedom to rearrange and curate information in a desired presentation format. The content may be generated by the user or other sources, allowing the user to moderate and organize the content that the user aggregates. The content (e.g. social network posts, online news, SMS messages) may be publicly available for other users to contribute with new information, or used as source for their own content of interest; it can also be shared only with select users or communities (registered or not), or be kept private. Publishing channels might comprise, for instance, web portals or public displays. Filters may be applied to automatically select and aggregate content from several sources. Methods are implemented to organize content by creating, discarding, replicating and reformatting information via a display interface.

Abstract: Determining occupancy of a vehicle during a trip can be carried out using a computer server which receives data from mobile computing devices within the vehicle. Each of the mobile computing devices is associated with a person, and sends to the server a unique identification of the vehicle, such as a license plate number, and also data generated during the trip from sensors within the device. The sensors collect data that relates to the local ambient environment of the device during the trip, such as a local magnetic field, movements, altitude, location, and sounds. The server compares the data from all devices in the vehicle to determine if the data from all of devices match, within predetermined limits. If there is a match, the server can provide a probable vehicle occupancy count; otherwise, the server can provide an indication that the vehicle occupancy should be investigated in another manner.

Abstract: Waiting time for the use of activities at a venue with multiple activities, such as an amusement park, is reduced by first receiving selections from visitors to the park using mobile phones, of desired activities and starting times. The selections are transmitted to a server which determines, for each user, waiting times associated with the desired starting times. The server then recommends alternative starting times for those activities. The alternative starting times are chosen to not only reduce the user's waiting time, but the waiting time for all users in the park. The alternative starting times are transmitted back to the mobile phones, where users can accept or reject the alternative starting times. The users are then placed into a virtual queue for each activity.

Abstract: Determining occupancy of a vehicle during a trip can be carried out using a computer server which receives data from mobile computing devices within the vehicle. Each of the mobile computing devices is associated with a person, and sends to the server a unique identification of the vehicle, such as a license plate number, and also data generated during the trip from sensors within the device. The sensors collect data that relates to the local ambient environment of the device during the trip, such as a local magnetic field, movements, altitude, location, and sounds. The server compares the data from all devices in the vehicle to determine if the data from all of devices match, within predetermined limits. If there is a match, the server can provide a probable vehicle occupancy count; otherwise, the server can provide an indication that the vehicle occupancy should be investigated in another manner.

Abstract: A method of ranking workers for an incoming task includes recording a list of completed tasks in a computer data structure, extracting first attributes from the list for the tasks that were completed during a pre-determined period, generating a first feature vector for each task and worker from the first extracted attributes, training a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based on the feature vector to output a weight vector, extracting second attributes from an incoming task, generating a second feature vector for each worker based on the second extracted attributes, and ranking the workers using the second feature vectors and the weight vector. The first attributes may be updated during a subsequent period to re-train the SVM on updated first feature vectors to generate an updated weight vector. The workers may be re-ranked based on the second feature vectors and the updated weight vector. Accordingly, the feature vectors are dynamic.

Abstract: A method for calculating sales trend of a product at a store shelf based on crowdsourcing, includes receiving, by a retail store server, availability data of a product measured on a shelf in the retail store from a portable device, where the availability data is in the form of a picture acquired of the product on the shelf, identifying products on the shelf using tags attached to the shelves, calculating sales velocity and sales trends of the product from the identified products, and transmitting the sales velocity and sales trend of the product to one or more third parties' systems in a supply chain of said retail store. Products and their locations on retail store shelves have been cataloged in a product database.

Abstract: A system, method and computer program product for allowing users to organize and selectively publish content of interest, with freedom to rearrange and curate information in a desired presentation format. The content may be generated by the user or other sources, allowing the user to moderate and organize the content that the user aggregates. The content (e.g. social network posts, online news, SMS messages) may be publicly available for other users to contribute with new information, or used as source for their own content of interest; it can also be shared only with select users or communities (registered or not), or be kept private. Publishing channels might comprise, for instance, web portals or public displays. Filters may be applied to automatically select and aggregate content from several sources. Methods are implemented to organize content by creating, discarding, replicating and reformatting information via a display interface.

Abstract: A method for calculating sales trend of a product at a store shelf based on crowdsourcing, includes receiving, by a retail store server, availability data of a product measured on a shelf in the retail store from a portable device, where the availability data is in the form of a picture acquired of the product on the shelf, identifying products on the shelf using tags attached to the shelves, calculating sales velocity and sales trends of the product from the identified products, and transmitting the sales velocity and sales trend of the product to one or more third parties' systems in a supply chain of said retail store. Products and their locations on retail store shelves have been cataloged in a product database.

Abstract: A method of ranking workers for an incoming task includes recording a list of completed tasks in a computer data structure, extracting first attributes from the list for the tasks that were completed during a pre-determined period, generating a first feature vector for each task and worker from the first extracted attributes, training a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based on the feature vector to output a weight vector, extracting second attributes from an incoming task, generating a second feature vector for each worker based on the second extracted attributes, and ranking the workers using the second feature vectors and the weight vector. The first attributes may be updated during a subsequent period to re-train the SVM on updated first feature vectors to generate an updated weight vector. The workers may be re-ranked based on the second feature vectors and the updated weight vector. Accordingly, the feature vectors are dynamic.

Abstract: A method of ranking workers for an incoming task includes recording a list of completed tasks in a computer data structure, extracting first attributes from the list for the tasks that were completed during a pre-determined period, generating a first feature vector for each task and worker from the first extracted attributes, training a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based on the feature vector to output a weight vector, extracting second attributes from an incoming task, generating a second feature vector for each worker based on the second extracted attributes, and ranking the workers using the second feature vectors and the weight vector. The first attributes may be updated during a subsequent period to re-train the SVM on updated first feature vectors to generate an updated weight vector. The workers may be re-ranked based on the second feature vectors and the updated weight vector. Accordingly, the feature vectors are dynamic.

Abstract: An emergency response system, method of responding to emergencies and a computer program product therefor. Networked provider computers are distributed over a geographical area that includes multiple regions with at least one providing computing capability to each region and each region receiving emergency response resources during emergencies from an emergency response computer. During any local emergency the area emergency response computer provides a local response and notifies other emergency response computers for other regions that are potentially affected by the emergency.

Abstract: A method, computer product and computer system of transmitting a compressed genome of an organism: a computer at a source reading an uncompressed sequence and a reference genome from a repository; the computer comparing nucleotides of the genetic sequence of the organism to nucleotides from a reference genome, to find differences where nucleotides of the genetic sequence of the organism which are different from the nucleotides of the reference genome; the computer using the differences to create surprisal data, the surprisal data comprising a starting location of the differences within the reference genome, and the nucleotides from the genetic sequence of the organism which are different from the nucleotides of the reference genome; and the computer transmitting, to a destination, a compressed genome comprising: surprisal data and an indication of the reference genome, discarding sequences of nucleotides that are the same in the sequence of the organism and reference genome.

Abstract: A method includes receiving a request from a requestor to validate a data assemblage expressed in Javascript Object Notation (JSON); translating the data assemblage expressed in JSON into an extensible markup language (XML) instance; validating the XML instance using syntactic schema and semantic schema specifications; and sending a response to the requestor. For a case where the data assemblage contains invalid data in at least one field the response includes an output array containing information for specifying valid data for the at least one field and a message explaining a reason why the field is invalid. A system for performing the method is also described, as is a computer program product that can be used to execute the method.

Abstract: A travel routing system, method and program product therefor. A location detector detects a current location. A geographical database provides details of a given area. Selecting a destination causes a route generator to generate routes through the area from the current location. A flood simulator receives meteorological data and determines flooding along the routes. A risk-modeling unit determines the risk to travelers of using each route. Before the risk-modeling unit is deployed, it is trained off-line to model travel risks using incidents in an incident data store and simulated flooding in the vicinity of the incidents.

Abstract: A method of ranking workers for an incoming task includes recording a list of completed tasks in a computer data structure, extracting first attributes from the list for the tasks that were completed during a pre-determined period, generating a first feature vector for each task and worker from the first extracted attributes, training a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based on the feature vector to output a weight vector, extracting second attributes from an incoming task, generating a second feature vector for each worker based on the second extracted attributes, and ranking the workers using the second feature vectors and the weight vector. The first attributes may be updated during a subsequent period to re-train the SVM on updated first feature vectors to generate an updated weight vector. The workers may be re-ranked based on the second feature vectors and the updated weight vector. Accordingly, the feature vectors are dynamic.

Abstract: An emergency response system, method of responding to emergencies and a computer program product therefor. Networked provider computers are distributed over a geographical area that includes multiple regions with at least one providing computing capability to each region and each region receiving emergency response resources during emergencies from an emergency response computer. During any local emergency the area emergency response computer provides a local response and notifies other emergency response computers for other regions that are potentially affected by the emergency.