Abstract: Methods and apparatus for dynamic modification of interruptibility settings of network-accessible resources are disclosed. A system includes a resource manager and a plurality of resource instances, each of which has an interruptibility setting. In response to an instance acquisition request, the resource manager allocates an instance with a first interruptibility setting, allowing the resource manager to revoke the client's access to the instance without a notification. In response to an approval of an interruptibility upgrade request, the resource manager modifies the interruptibility setting to a second setting that allows the client to retain access to the instance for at least a specified time. Respective billing amounts for the client's use of the instance are determined for each of the interruptibility settings used.

Abstract: A video analytics based image verification system for obtaining initial vehicle profiles is presented. The system may include an external processing server that receives a location of a vehicle and proximate traffic information to determine whether it is safe for a user to obtain an initial vehicle profile. The external processing server may further determine first and second profile features from video data indicative of the vehicle. The external processing server may compare the second profile feature to an image verification indicator to generate an image verification score. A provider server may receive the first profile feature and the image verification score from the external processing server, and update a risk evaluation to include the initial vehicle profile if the image verification score is above an image verification threshold.

Abstract: A system for calculating energy pricing includes a variety of categories and subcategories of user-selectable preconfigured profiles to derive a detailed, accurate energy profile based on minimal price request information. This profile defines the energy load being priced and its accuracy approaches that which is obtainable through using meter data, but without the need for obtaining and managing such data. The system quickly and accurately calculates both current day and historical pricing based on a single price request by processing the effective dates of time dependent variables, inputs, algorithms, and/or parameters. Managing these effective dates ensures the price output takes into account ongoing market changes in supply, distribution, and/or tax price factors that are known as of the date of the price request and take effect during the future contract term defined by the price request.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with controlling inventory depletion by offering different prices to different customers are described. In one embodiment, a method includes establishing first and second allocations of fulfillment centers to different geographic regions during a markdown phase. Different price schedules are determined for the orders to be fulfilled during the markdown phase based on the first and second allocations. A predicted profit is generated for the orders fulfilled under each of the different price schedules. A price schedule corresponding to the first allocation is selected as resulting in a greater predicted profit than another one of the different price schedules. A sale terminal is controlled to enact the selected price schedule during the markdown phase to cause fulfillment of the incoming orders according to the first allocation of the fulfillment centers.

Abstract: A platform and components for an automated consumer retail utility marketplace are provided, including components for machine learning, components for gamification, and components for supporting a related consumer mobile application that enables improved visibility and control by a consumer over its interaction with energy markets.

Abstract: A method for predicting a topography information item for a vehicle includes assigning at least one respective topography information item to each of the different travel positions of the vehicle, determining a future travel position, and querying at least one topography information item assigned to the determined future travel position.

Abstract: A device may receive historical cloud data associated with resources of a cloud computing environment, and may receive historical customer data associated with requested resource usage by customers of the cloud computing environment. The device may determine a usage growth profile based on the historical cloud data and the historical customer data, and may determine, based on the historical cloud data and the historical customer data, usage deviation data indicating deviations between actual and planned resource usage. The device may train a model, with the usage growth profile and the usage deviation data, to generate a trained model, and may receive a request for new resource usage by a customer associated with the cloud computing environment. The device may process the request for the new resource usage, with the trained model, to generate projected resource usage data, and may perform actions based on the projected resource usage data.

Abstract: The present invention relates to verification of damage to vehicles. More particularly, the present invention relates to a universal approach to automated generation of a damage estimate to a vehicle using images of the vehicle and verification of a manually-generated damage repair proposals using the automatically generated damage estimate. Aspects and/or embodiments seek to provide a computer-implemented method of generating one or more repair estimates from one or more photos of a damaged vehicle and comparing the generated estimate(s) to one or more input repair estimates to verify the one or more input repair estimates.

Abstract: Systems and methods for routing requests to dynamically cached mappings are disclosed. A system may comprise a memory storing instructions and at least one processor configured to execute instructions to perform operations including: receiving an access request to access first item data from a user device, the access request having an access key; based on the access key, routing the request to a server having an in-memory cache with multiple partitions associated with different access key types and storing the first item data and second item data; receiving, from the server, the first item data; and transmitting the first item data to the user device.

Abstract: A method for determining a preferred control strategy relating to control of a manufacturing process for manufacturing an integrated circuit. The method includes: obtaining process data associated with a design of said integrated circuit; and obtaining a plurality of candidate control strategies configured to control the manufacturing process based on the process data, each candidate control strategy including an associated cost metric based on an associated requirement to implement the candidate control strategy. A quality metric related to an expected performance of the manufacturing process is determined for each candidate control strategies, and a preferred control strategy is selected based on the determined quality metrics and associated cost metrics for each candidate control strategy.

Abstract: An online agricultural system manages and optimizes interactions of entities within the system to enable the execution of transaction and the transportation of crop products. The online agricultural system accesses historic and environmental data describing factors that may impact crop product transactions and/or transportation to determine market prices for crop products and crop product transportation. Responsive to receiving a request from an entity, the online agricultural system determines an optimal transaction for the entity, such as a price for selling a crop product, an available crop product for purchase, or a transportation opportunity to transport a crop product.

Abstract: Systems and methods for sourcing participants for a usability study are provided. In some embodiments the systems and methods receive study parameters including the type of study, time-to-field of the study, required number of participants, and required participant attributes. Additionally, a set of business rules for the study are received. These business rules may be received from a client, extrapolated from a service contract with a client for which the study is being performed, or generated based on the monitored outcomes of sourcing of previous studies. Next, panel sources for potential participants and pricing data are queried, and a set of the sources are selected based upon the pricing data. Participants are then received from these sources, which are then fielded in the study and monitored for outcomes.

Abstract: A method for generating a fault tree of a multi-component system is provided. The multicomponent system includes a logical-functional system layer and a physical system layer as different layers of abstraction. The physical system layer may correspond, for example, to software and/or hardware implementing the functional aspects of the logical-functional system layer. The method first provides a logical-functional fault tree for the logical-functional system layer and a physical fault tree for the physical system layer, the latter having elements corresponding to elements in the logical-functional fault tree. Next, a mixed-layer fault tree is generated by combining aspects of both fault trees in a systematic way. The disclosed is particularly relevant for analyzing safety-critical systems. However, the present concepts are not limited to these applications and may be applied to general use cases where fault tree analysis is applicable.

Abstract: An example operation may include one or more of storing a plurality of transactions in a carbon footprint blockchain, each stored transaction including one or more items and a carbon footprint associated with the one or more items included in the transaction, receiving a transaction processing request from a merchant terminal, the transaction processing request including an identification of an item and a user identification, executing chaincode which determines an aggregate carbon footprint of the user based on a carbon footprint of the item and a carbon footprint of one or more previous purchases of the user stored in the carbon footprint blockchain, and transmitting information about the determined aggregate carbon footprint of the user to the merchant terminal.

Abstract: The present invention refers to a digital method of centralizing, optimizing and negotiating the purchase of goods and services implemented by computer, wherein at least one authorised user (101) by the company or purchase centre (108), identifies the products (102) to be acquired and proceeds to consult with at least one potential supplier (103) through a digital purchase platform (109), hosted in a dedicated server, locally or in a cloud. The company or purchase centre (109) proceeds to validate the proposals (104) from the suppliers (103), and can create different, economically more advantageous choice scenarios from the proposals (104) that satisfy all the restrictions imposed by the company or purchase centre (109) and by the suppliers (103).

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer-readable storage media for calculating, for each operator in a set of operators, a set of costs, each cost associated with a data format and including a first segment indicating a cost of an operator to convert an incoming data format to an access format and a second segment indicating a cost based on a set of costs of one or more ancestors of the operator, a conversion cost, and a materialization cost, indicating, along the path within the query plan, a location representing execution of a conversion from a first data format to a second data format, the location being selected based on the sets of costs, and providing the query plan with the location for execution to generate a query result, wherein during execution of the query plan, conversion of data from the first data format to the second data format occurs at the location.

Abstract: A method and system for determining available shipment options between origin and destination address locations includes defining a plurality of service area polygons as geospatial objects in a geospatial database that correspond to geographic service areas served by a carrier, building a plurality of route definitions that define the shipping services between each origin/destination pair of service area polygons, and defining a plurality of route guide polygons as geospatial objects in the geospatial database that further limit the available shipping services at predetermined locations within the service area polygons.

Abstract: A work request data system wherein a user a person such a homeowner to access and possess accurate information about the physical measurements of a structure or other object as derived from a three-dimensional model of the property. The interface generates the measurement through an extraction module.

Abstract: A method and associated system of managing advertising spending in an advertising campaign for an online marketplace seller, including, under control of one or more processors configured with executable instructions, defining a sales goal; setting a daily advertising budget and a bid value for an advertising campaign of the product; executing the advertising campaign; automatically collecting sales data relating to the product on the online marketplace; executing a machine learning component of an adaptive machine learning platform to generate a machine learning component output, at least in part based on the sales data; generating, based at least in part on the machine learning component output of the machine learning component, one or more sales milestones for the product on the online marketplace; comparing the sales data to the one or more sales milestones; and adjusting the daily advertising budget or the bid value to meet the sales goal.

Abstract: Downtime resulting from converting a software program from a source system to a target system, is forecast, explored, and optimized. A benchmark for a practice conversion test run (including a downtime component) is received as a first input and displayed for exploration. A second input is received comprising a statistic stored in a conversion database and reflecting a prior actual software conversion process run. The benchmark and the statistic are processed with reference to an expert rule set, to generate an optimized result comprising an updated benchmark having a changed downtime component. The updated benchmark including the changed downtime component, is displayed. Processing may occur in conjunction with further input comprising an acceptance of a generated recommendation, and/or changing a data volume of the practice conversion test run. Embodiments may feed back to the conversion database, statistics resulting from a formal software conversion run conducted according to the optimized result.

Abstract: A service providing server providing a delivery service delivering ink includes an obtaining section configured to obtain first use information associated with use of the delivery service by a first user, a determination section configured to determine a corresponding charge plan which is one of charge plans of the delivery service corresponding to the first use information obtained by the obtaining section based on the first use information obtained by the obtaining section, second use information associated with use of the delivery service by a second user, and a selected charge plan which is one of the charge plans of the delivery service selected by the second user, and a display controller configured to display corresponding charge plan information indicating the corresponding charge plan determined by the determination section in a terminal device of the first user.

Abstract: A server is provided. The server includes a communicator comprising communication circuitry, a memory and a processor configured to control the server to store information on a plurality of safety components included in a plurality of vehicles received through the communicator, combine at least one safety component of the plurality of vehicles based on the information on the stored plurality of safety components, and identify surroundings of the plurality of vehicles using the combined safety components.

Abstract: A prescription management system is used by an orthodontic or dental lab and a plurality of prescribing users who send prescriptions for customized orthodontic or dental appliances to the lab. The prescriptions are stored in a database selectively accessible by the lab and plurality of prescribing users. A digital workspace is provided in the system in which the lab or prescribing users may create designs for the customized appliances. The designs of the appliances are stored in the database. A tracking record of fabrication of the appliances is stored in the database. A plurality of billings are simultaneously generated in response to the submissions and storage of the prescriptions, the designs of the customized appliances and the fabrication of the designed customized appliances.

Abstract: A mobile device runs a tolling application program that, in part, can perform several vehicle occupant detection processes in order to verify the number of occupants in a vehicle. When the number of occupants is verified, then (when the number is more than one) discounts on tolls can be applied to toll transactions. In order to avoid the effect of false positive detections, several occupant sensing modalities are used and the results of each are evaluated to ensure that the correct number of occupants has been determined.

Abstract: A method for execution by a dispersed storage and task (DST) processing unit includes obtaining audit records for an audit object and determining when the audit object is complete. When the audit object is complete, aggregating the audit records of the audit object within the audit object by generating the audit object to include the audit records; generating identifier (ID) information and generating integrity information. Fields of the audit object are populated with the audit records, the ID information, and the integrity information and a name of the audit object is determined for storage of the audit object and the name of the audit object in a dispersed storage network (DSN).

Abstract: The disclosure provides a parking management system and a parking management method. The parking management system can comprise one or more servers in communication with one or more vehicles. The one or more vehicles can be configured to be shared and utilized by one or more users for transportation. The one or more servers can be configured to receive location data from the one or more vehicles, and determine, based on the received location data and for each vehicle, whether the vehicle is located within one or more predefined parking areas when (1) the vehicle is not in use or (2) upon completion of a transportation trip by the vehicle.

Abstract: Systems and methods for creating a recommendation engine of a process modeling server and automatically comparing tickets by the recommendation engine are disclosed. The recommendation engine may be generated by digitizing a seat map of a venue that characterizes one or more interrelationships between the seats. After creation, the process modeling server receives a notification that a ticket holder's ticket to an event taking place at a venue has been cancelled or become otherwise unavailable. The process modeling server compares one or more attributes of the now-unavailable ticket to one or more rules maintained by a recommendation engine of the process modeling server. The recommendation engine generates one or more substitute ticket alternatives based on the comparison for selection. The recommendation engine may refine the one or more rules over time based on actual customer selection.

Abstract: A system and method are presented for using a plurality of data caches to increase the efficiency of a computing system in an e-commerce environment. Separate caches with distinct time-to-live values are created, one each for customer information, customer cart contents, and product pricing data. Product pricing is pre-analyzed using a pricing data engine that calculates multiple potential prices for a single item that is then stored in the product pricing data cache. This data can then be used in a variety of contexts to determine different pricing for the same product without requiring another request for product data from the pricing data engine. When a product is viewed during catalog browsing, all information needed to determine pricing for that particular user might be accessible from the data caches for fast processing.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure relate to item transportation management. Package characteristics of a first package are determined. A set of unstructured data is processed to determine a transportation constraint associated with a transportation path. The package characteristics of the first package are compared to the transportation constraint. A determination is made that the package characteristics of the first package do not satisfy the transportation constraint based on the comparison. A reconfiguration recommendation is then issued to an individual associated with the first package in response to the determination that the package characteristics of the first package do not satisfy the transportation constraint.

Abstract: A collision avoidance and road safety system is applied to a road network comprised of a plurality of road segments for a location to produce real time or dynamic forecasting of collision risk and root causes of the potential collision.

Abstract: An online agricultural system manages and optimizes interactions of entities within the system to enable the execution of transaction and the transportation of crop products. The online agricultural system accesses historic and environmental data describing factors that may impact crop product transactions and/or transportation to determine market prices for crop products and crop product transportation. Responsive to receiving a request from an entity, the online agricultural system determines an optimal transaction for the entity, such as a price for selling a crop product, an available crop product for purchase, or a transportation opportunity to transport a crop product.

Abstract: Methods and systems are disclosed enabling establishment of a direct connection between a first device connected to a first network and a second device connected to a second network upon finding a permission response from a third device connected to a third network. Establishment of the direct connection is controlled by a second network node associated with the second network. A connection request is received from the first device at at least one of the second network node or a third network node associated with the third network and a permission indication is found indicating that a connection with the second device is subject to permission from the third device. A permission response may be found from the third device to permit the connection request for enabling establishment of the direct connection. Establishing of the direct connection is enabled between the first device and the second device in response to finding the permission response.

Abstract: A system for recommending a meal kit may include a user device and a meal kit recommendation server. The meal kit recommendation server may be configured to obtain a food item purchase history associated with a given user and generate a recommended meal kit based upon the food item purchase history. The meal kit recommendation server may also be configured to generate a digital promotion for the recommended meal kit and communicate the recommended meal kit and the digital promotion to the user device.

Abstract: An image appliance vehicle toll transaction system for electronic toll collection and image appliance vehicle toll transaction methods for identifying a vehicle at an electronic toll for electronic toll collection are disclosed. The image appliance vehicle toll transaction system allows toll agencies to store, in a cloud database, images of vehicle toll transactions and violations for the time required by the law and their data associated image metadata. The image appliance vehicle toll transaction system may use third party services to automatically determine, using AI, the license plate number and state of the vehicle. For each received image, and its metadata, the system returns a unique identifier or image token. This reduces the need for human manual image review by using AI and reduces operation costs while increasing accuracy and quality.

Abstract: Disclosed are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media for generating incentivizing notifications to complete an uncompleted listing. A draft completion system determines, based on data included in an uncompleted listing for an item, a set of status values for the uncompleted listing. The uncompleted listing os associated with a first account of an online service. The draft completion system determines, based on the set of status values, a first incentivizing notification for the uncompleted listing. The draft completion system presents, on a client device associated with the first account, a user interface including the first incentivizing notification and at least one user interface element that enables a user to complete the uncompleted listing.

Abstract: Endogenous and exogenous variables associated with an item for sale by an affiliate may be displayed to a user of an affiliate decision-making tool. In response to the user selecting one of the endogenous variables, the affiliate decision-making tool may compute a number of introductions, a number of leads, and a number of sales for each of a plurality of possible values of the endogenous variable. The computation may be done utilizing a display position algorithm. A visualization of effects of setting the endogenous variable at different levels may be presented. The user may interact with the display position algorithm to vary one or more of the plurality of possible values of the endogenous variable such that the affiliate is eligible or disqualified to be displayed by an intermediary in response to a search for the item by a visitor of a network site owned and operated by the intermediary.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products for re-issuing a travel reservation based on a travel category associated with the specific travel reservation. The travel reservation is associated with one of a first travel category and a second travel category. The first travel category includes a plurality of machine-readable codes associated with the travel reservation. In response to determining the travel reservation is associated with the first travel category, the travel reservation is re-issued by a computer-based on the plurality of machine-readable codes associated with the travel reservation. In response to determining that the travel reservation is associated with the second travel category, the computer determines if the travel reservation includes data expressed in machine-readable form. If the travel reservation includes the data expressed in machine-readable form, the computer generates a plurality of prepopulated fields in a format compatible with the first travel category.

Abstract: An iterative, tiered system for identifying which assets need to be remodeled. This tiered system uses a Bayesian Structural Time Series, followed by an ensemble classification and cost estimation. The results are then input into an optimization model, where the best possible set of stores is selected according to the constraints. Remodeling of the store then commences.

Abstract: A system for analyzing unmanned aerial missions configured to (i) receive, from a user, pre-mission data for a planned unmanned aerial mission; (ii) determine an insurance policy, premium, rate, mission-based rate, or usage-based rate based upon the pre-mission data, one or more business rules, and a plurality of historical mission data; (iii) transmit, to the user, the insurance policy; (iv) receive acceptance of the insurance policy from the user; (v) receive a plurality of telematics information from the unmanned aerial mission; and (vi) update at least one of the one or more business rules and the plurality of historical mission data based upon the plurality of telematics information.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus for coordinating inter-region operations in provider networks. An inter-region coordinator (IRC) operates asynchronously to the control planes of regional networks to coordinate inter-region operations. The IRC in a region may include one or more IRC servers. To perform inter-region operations, the servers may implement a local-remote-local method in which a server invokes an API in the local region to get work, sends the work to a control plane of a remote region, receives a response from the remote region, and informs the control plane in the local region of the status of the work.

Abstract: An aircraft includes an electrical system and an electronic controller in signal communication with the electrical system. The electronic controller including a main processor and a multi-core processor. The multi-core processor includes one or more control cores and one or more prognostic cores. The control core is in signal communication with the electrical system to control power delivered thereto. The prognostics core is configured to process prognostics and diagnostics data of the electrical system independently from operation of the control core.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates to information processing device, method, and program for allowing support of shared content/real world event viewing. A user recommendation module is configured to determine C. proposer for a user group and recommendation content. The user recommendation module performs, for example, calculation of the Active degree of a user A in the group=the individual Active degree of the user A+?(b*the Active degree of the user A with respect to other users in the group) (the degree of relationship among the user A and other users may be reflected in a weighting coefficient b). Moreover, the user recommendation module determines, as a proposer, a user with the highest Active degree in the group. The present disclosure is applicable to an information processing system configured to perform shared viewing for music, for example.

Abstract: A system may receive video of a damaged vehicle, perform image analysis of the video to determine one or more frames of the video that include a damaged portion of the vehicle, further analyze the one or more frames of the video that include a damaged portion of the vehicle to determine a damaged cluster of parts of the vehicle, determine whether the damaged cluster of parts should be repaired or replaced, map the damaged cluster of parts to one or more parts in a vehicle-specific database of parts, and generate, based on the mapping, a list of parts for repair or replacement.

Abstract: A device receives vehicle data from a vehicle telematics device or a client device. The vehicle data includes information relating to a vehicle, a vehicle component, and a sensor associated with the vehicle. The device determines a vehicle profile, and one or more of a driving behavior and a driving location based on the vehicle data. The vehicle profile includes information relating to a condition of the vehicle component. The device determines a wear rate for the vehicle component based on the vehicle profile, and one or more of the driving behavior or the driving location. The device determines a service timeframe for the vehicle component based on the wear rate, the condition of the vehicle component, and a wear threshold. The device generates a recommendation based on the service timeframe, and transmits the recommendation to the client device.

Abstract: Utilities (e.g., systems, methods, etc.) for facilitating a bilateral bidding process between buyers and sellers of items (services, products, bundles, etc.) to allow buyers to obtain lower prices on the items through crowd bidding while simultaneously allowing sellers to essentially offset such lower prices on the items through increased sales volume of the items. Specifically, the disclosed utilities may make use of a network-based ecommerce system or platform that provides sellers of items access to real-time buyer demand and the optimum price that a plurality of buyers (e.g., customers) are willing to pay that yields increased profits. The disclosed platform also benefits buyers in cases when multiple sellers compete for the then current plurality of buyer demand resulting in a reduced price for the item based on the then real-time demand.

Abstract: An information processing apparatus includes a processor configured to acquire a first usage of a first service by a user and a second usage of a second service in a first use mode in which the second service is trialed for free of charge by the user, the second service being associated with the first service, calculate, using the first usage and an amount of change in the usage of the first service, a first estimated usage of the first service by the user during a period after switching from the first use mode to a second use mode in which the second service is used for charge, the amount of change corresponding to use of the second service and being obtained based on the second usage in accordance with a defined relationship, and output information indicating a first estimated charge for the first service during the period and a second estimated charge for the second service during the period, the first estimated charge corresponding to the first estimated usage, the second estimated charge corresponding to

Abstract: A method is disclosed for mitigating the risks associated with driving by assigning risk values to road segments and using those risk values to select less risky travel routes. Various approaches to helping users mitigate risk are presented. A computing device is configured to generate a database of risk values. That device may receive accident information, geographic information, vehicle information, and other information from one or more data sources and calculate a risk value for the associated road segment. Subsequently, the computing device may provide the associated risk value to other devices. Furthermore, a personal navigation device may receive travel route information and use that information to retrieve risk values for the road segments in the travel route. An insurance company may use this information to determine whether to adjust a quote or premium of an insurance policy.

Abstract: One aspect of the disclosure relates to providing players pricing of in-game virtual items associated with their experience and their progress in the game. For example, the first player and the second player may have similar triggers, similar in-game events, and actually have different prices and currencies inside each story depending on each player's progress in the game, thus creating an individualized experience that may alter from player to player.

Abstract: A quantitative scoring and optimization method of a drilling and completion loss-control material includes: extracting key performance parameters of drilling and completion loss-control materials in loss-circulation zone, sequencing the key performance parameters according to their importance; performing weight calculation on the key performance parameters of the loss-control material by an analytic hierarchy process; determining scores of the key performance parameters of conventional loss-control materials according to an experimental evaluation table of the performance parameters of the loss-control materials; calculating comprehensive scores of all loss-control materials and performing optimal selection on the loss-control materials according to the comprehensive scores.

Abstract: Systems and methods provide improved control and sharing of financial account and financial transaction information from a plurality of disparate banks to a plurality of disparate customers using a plurality of disparate financial services apps on a plurality of disparate devices. A centralized hub is used to provide communication between disparate bank and customer systems and devices, and a hub provider ensures that disparate financial services apps comply with applicable requirements before being allowed to participate in the information sharing system. The systems and methods provide new mechanisms to share data and new sources by which to monetize and incentivize the sharing of data.