Patent application number | Description | Published |
20130211877 | RETAIL PRODUCT PRICING MARKDOWN SYSTEM - A system that determines a pricing markdown schedule for a retail item at a store receives demand parameters of the retail item at the store and one or more constraints, and expresses a price curve and inventory curve as linear combinations of price and inventory coefficients for orthogonal polynomials. The system determines revenue in terms of values of the price and inventory coefficients, determines an initial guess of the price and inventory coefficients, and determines a gradient of the revenue. The system then maximizes the revenue based on the revenue, the initial guesses, the gradient, and the constraints, where the constraints are in terms of the price and inventory coefficients. Based on the maximized revenue, the system then generates the price markdown schedule. | 08-15-2013 |
20130211878 | ESTIMATING ELASTICITY AND INVENTORY EFFECT FOR RETAIL PRICING AND FORECASTING - A system that estimates elasticity and inventory effect for a product pricing or forecasting system receives a sales condition relationship for an item at a store, the relationship comprising an elasticity parameter, an inventory effect parameter and a sales constant. The system receives a demand model for sales of the item in terms of the elasticity parameter and the inventory effect parameter and a base demand for the item selling at the store. The system estimates the sales constant, the estimating comprising generating a theta parameter by taking logarithms of the sales condition relationship. The system uses linear regression to estimate a logarithm of the sales constant and a value of the theta parameter. The system determines a relationship between the elasticity parameter and the inventory effect parameter based on the value of the theta parameter. | 08-15-2013 |
20130212332 | SELECTIVELY READING DATA FROM CACHE AND PRIMARY STORAGE - Techniques are provided for using an intermediate cache to provide some of the items involved in a scan operation, while other items involved in the scan operation are provided from primary storage. Techniques are also provided for determining whether to service an I/O request for an item with a copy of the item that resides in the intermediate cache based on factors such as a) an identity of the user for whom the I/O request was submitted, b) an identity of a service that submitted the I/O request, c) an indication of a consumer group to which the I/O request maps, or d) whether the intermediate cache is overloaded. Techniques are also provided for determining whether to store items in an intermediate cache in response to the items being retrieved, based on logical characteristics associated with the requests that retrieve the items. | 08-15-2013 |
20130218925 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MUTATING POLYMORPHIC OBJECT COMPONENTS - Embodiments of the present invention provide for techniques for enabling mutation of an instantiated object between multiple underlying object types at run time. The object may alter its behavior from one object type to another at anytime without requiring a new object to be instantiated. The object's behavior may be implemented by other objects which are retrieved at run time, thus disconnecting the direct link between the object's behavior and the object. | 08-22-2013 |
20130224698 | METHOD, SYSTEM AND APPARATUS FOR EVALUATION OF EMPLOYEE COMPETENCIES USING A COMPRESSION/ACCELERATION METHODOLOGY - A mechanism to evaluate the value of employee competencies across a business entity is provided. Managers provide raw interpretations of employee competencies in a variety of selected competency areas. The raw evaluations of employee competencies are weighted and stored according to an organizational utility of each competency to the business entity, arriving at an adjusted competency value for each competency. Depth of an employee's competency in a particular area is evaluated by selecting the highest adjusted competency value for an employee and then compressing that highest adjusted competency value in order to level initial assessments of an employee's strongest skill This compressed value is augmented by one or more accelerators based upon the assessments of the employee's other competencies. The result is an overall domain competency rating for the employee that can then be used for comparison against other employees in the business entity. | 08-29-2013 |
20130226748 | PENALTY AND INTEREST ASSESSMENT DETAIL DISPLAY - Systems and methods are provided for displaying tax penalty and interest assessment calculation details on demand, in real time. In some embodiments, a method includes receiving a request for a penalty and interest assessment value and determining if the request includes a request for calculation details. When the request includes a request for calculation details, the penalty and interest assessment value is calculated using data received with the request. One or more calculation details are populated based on the calculation of the penalty and interest assessment. The method includes displaying the calculated penalty and interest assessment value and the calculation details. | 08-29-2013 |
20130227577 | Automated Administration Using Composites of Atomic Operations - Various techniques for automatically administering software systems using composites of atomic operations are disclosed. One method, which can be performed by an automation server, involves accessing information representing an activity that includes a first operation and a second operation. The information indicates that the second operation processes a value that is generated by the first operation. The method generates a sequence number as well as an output structure, which associates the sequence number with an output value generated by the first operation, and an input structure, which associates the sequence number with an input value consumed by the second operation. The method sends a message, via a network, to an automation agent implemented on a computing device. The computing device implements a software target of the first operation. The message includes information identifying the first operation as well as the output structure. | 08-29-2013 |
20130311459 | LINK ANALYSIS FOR ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENT - A flexible and extensible architecture allows for secure searching across an enterprise. Such an architecture can provide a simple Internet-like search experience to users searching secure content inside (and outside) the enterprise. The architecture allows for the crawling and searching of a variety of sources across an enterprise, regardless of whether any of these sources conform to a conventional user role model. The architecture further allows for security attributes to be submitted at query time, for example, in order to provide real-time secure access to enterprise resources. The user query also can be transformed to provide for dynamic querying that provides for a more current result list than can be obtained for static queries. | 11-21-2013 |
20140059031 | Subject Matter Context Search Engine - A search system associates contextual metadata with search terms and/or stored terms to facilitate identification of relevant information. In one implementation, a search term is identified ( | 02-27-2014 |
20140101644 | USING A DATA DICTIONARY TO DETERMINE AN UPGRADE EDITION OF A RELATIONAL DATABASE TABLE - A method, system, and computer program product using a data dictionary to automatically determine an upgrade edition of relational database table in a database installation. The editioning method commences upon receiving a data dictionary of the database comprising at least entries corresponding to a first edition of the relational database table, then reading entries of the data dictionary to identify at least one relational database table column of the relational database table that has a revision identifier. The revision identifiers are used to determine a first edition (e.g., a run edition) and a second edition (e.g., an upgrade edition). Then, the method proceeds by creating at least a first relational database table view corresponding to the first edition of the relational database table; and creating at least a second relational database table view corresponding to the upgrade edition of the relational database table using the identified relational database table column. | 04-10-2014 |
20140115035 | MECHANISM FOR CONFIGURING SERVICE ENDPOINTS IN NATIVE CLIENT APPLICATIONS AT RUNTIME - A system and method for facilitating efficient interaction between a client device and a server. An example method includes receiving at a server, a request for server configuration information sent to the server by a client device, and then employing a first web service in communication with the server to convey configuration information about a server to a client device in response to the request message received therefrom by the server. The configuration information includes information pertaining to known capabilities that may be offered by the server to the client device. Generally, embodiments described herein provide various features for facilitating configuring service endpoints in native client applications at runtime, thereby enabling implementation of changes to server-side components that a client application invokes or communicates with, without needing to change the client application. | 04-24-2014 |
20140115456 | SYSTEM FOR ACCESSING SOFTWARE FUNCTIONALITY - A system and method for facilitating user access to software functionality, such as enterprise-related software applications and accompanying actions and data. An example method includes receiving natural language input; displaying electronic text representative of the natural language input, in a conversation flow illustrated via user interface display screen; interpreting the natural language input and determining a command representative thereof; employing the command to determine and display a prompt, which is associated with a predetermined set of one or more user selectable items; providing a first user option to indicate a user selection responsive to the prompt; and inserting a representation of the user selection in the conversation flow. In a more specific embodiment, the first user option is provided via an input selection mechanism other than natural language, e.g., via a touch gesture, such that the conversation flow includes text representing user input other than purely text or voice-based input. | 04-24-2014 |
20140122802 | ACCESSING AN OFF-CHIP CACHE VIA SILICON PHOTONIC WAVEGUIDES - The disclosed embodiments provide a system in which a processor chip accesses an off-chip cache via silicon photonic waveguides. The system includes a processor chip and a cache chip that are both coupled to a communications substrate. The cache chip comprises one or more cache banks that receive cache requests from a structure in the processor chip optically via a silicon photonic waveguide. More specifically, the silicon photonic waveguide is comprised of waveguides in the processor chip, the communications substrate, and the cache chip, and forms an optical channel that routes an optical signal directly from the structure to a cache bank in the cache chip via the communications substrate. Transmitting optical signals from the processor chip directly to cache banks on the cache chip facilitates reducing the wire latency of cache accesses and allowing each cache bank on the cache chip to be accessed with uniform latency. | 05-01-2014 |
20140123072 | SYSTEM FOR NAVIGATION IN A COMPUTER USER INTERFACE - Embodiments described herein provide various features for a unified and simplified user experience. A first feature (or set of features) provides icons for launching or accessing applications and business flows. A second feature provides a unified menu system including an icon bar with thumbnails of a selected icon arranged adjacent to the icon bar. A third feature provides a framework for a menu that can expose application objects from diverse sources. | 05-01-2014 |
20140133861 | OPPORTUNISTIC BANDWIDTH STEALING IN OPTICAL NETWORKS - In a multi-chip module (MCM), integrated circuits are coupled by optical waveguides that convey optical signals. The optical waveguides provide dedicated point-to-point optical links between all pairs of the integrated circuits. Moreover, for a given point-to-point optical link between a given pair of integrated circuits, other integrated circuits in the integrated circuits steal access on the given point-to-point optical link when communicating information to one of the given pair of integrated circuits so that the given point-to-point optical link is shared by more than the given pair of integrated circuits. Furthermore, the integrated circuits recover errors in messages in the optical signals corrupted by collisions on the given point-to-point optical link using erasure coding. In this way, the MCM may provide an optical network with increased bandwidth relative to a point-to-point optical network. | 05-15-2014 |
20140149180 | SALE PREDICTION ENGINE RULES - Disclosed is an improved method, system, and computer product for implementing a rules engine to be used in conjunction with a sale prediction engine. A rules dictionary may be used to define a logical data model for one or more rules. Predictions may be generated by applying the rules to attributes extracted from customer entities. | 05-29-2014 |
20140188793 | USING CONFIDENCE VALUES FOR SYNCHRONIZING FILE SYSTEMS - A system, computer implemented method, and computer program product for analyzing an installation to determine a file system promotion path during an online patching cycle. The method commences by identifying an initial file system and a shadow file system, the shadow file system being at least some duration older than the initial run file system, then analyzing a history of events that occurred in or on the installation during the duration to determine a degree of confidence. Based on the degree of confidence, then selecting the initial file system to be used on the online patching cycle when the confidence value is equal or above a threshold, or selecting the shadow file system to be used in the online patching cycle when the confidence value is below a threshold. The history of events is recorded in forms of a patch list, a log file, or a list of configuration events. | 07-03-2014 |
20140189671 | SYNCHRONIZATION OF CONFIGURATION CHANGES BETWEEN APPLICATIONS AND THEIR PLATFORMS - A method, system, and computer program product for handling synchronization of configuration changes between applications and their platforms. A computer implemented method synchronizes middleware configurations with application configurations using a reciprocating protocol. The protocol includes receiving a middleware state variable from a middleware component, then processing the middleware state variable to determine any application configuration state variables that depend on a value of the middleware state variable. The application (or agent) further processes the application configuration state variable to determine any affected middleware state variables and then sends the affected middleware state variable to the middleware component. The determinations can be performed using a forward mapper or reverse mapper, and the determinations can reciprocate repeatedly between applications and their middleware platforms until quiescence. The techniques can be used during an online patch cycle to maintain synchronization of configuration changes between applications and their platforms even while components are being patched. | 07-03-2014 |
20140258224 | AUTOMATIC RECOVERY OF A FAILED STANDBY DATABASE IN A CLUSTER - A method, system, and computer program product. The method for non-intrusive redeployment of a standby database facility comprises configuring a database system having a shared lock manager process to synchronize two or more concurrent access instances, then granting lock requests for access to a cache of database blocks. At some moment in time, the shared lock manager process may fail, and a monitor process detects the failure or other stoppage of the shared lock manager process. A new shared lock manager process and other processes are started, at least one of which serves for identifying the database blocks in the cache that have not yet been written to the database. The identified blocks are formed into a recovery set of redo operations. During this time, incoming requests for access to the cache of database blocks are briefly blocked, at least until the recovery set of redo operations has been formed. | 09-11-2014 |
20140268312 | HYBRID OPTICAL SOURCE WITH SEMICONDUCTOR REFLECTOR - A hybrid optical source that provides an optical signal having a wavelength is described. This hybrid optical source includes an edge-coupled optical amplifier (such as a III-V semiconductor optical amplifier) aligned to a semiconductor reflector (such as an etched silicon mirror). The semiconductor reflector efficiently couples (i.e., with low optical loss) light out of the optical amplifier in a direction approximately perpendicular to a plane of the optical amplifier. A corresponding optical coupler (such as a diffraction grating or a mirror) fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator chip efficiently couples the light into a sub-micron silicon-on-insulator optical waveguide. The silicon-on-insulator optical waveguide couples the light to additional photonic elements (including a reflector) to complete the hybrid optical source. | 09-18-2014 |
20140280259 | RUN-TIME SQL LANGUAGE TRANSLATION - A method, system, and computer program product for database application migration. The method commences upon executing a foreign application, the foreign application emits SQL statements of a foreign SQL dialect that is incompatible with the SQL dialect of a native database system. The system configures a communication session to intercept the foreign SQL statements before the foreign SQL statements are received by the SQL parser of the native database system; and, while the foreign application is waiting for query results, the system translates the foreign dialect query statements into native SQL compatible with the native database system. The method further performs translating a return code from the native database system into a return code compatible with the foreign application. Configuring the database session connection comprises establishing a translation profile to translate foreign dialect SQL into native SQL, and to translate native SQL query return codes into foreign dialect return codes. | 09-18-2014 |
20140281247 | METHOD TO ACCELERATE QUERIES USING DYNAMICALLY GENERATED ALTERNATE DATA FORMATS IN FLASH CACHE - A method for accelerating queries using dynamically generated columnar data in a flash cache is provided. In an embodiment, a method comprises a storage device receiving a first request for data that is stored in the storage device in a base major format in one or more primary storage devices. The storage device comprises a cache. The base major format is any one of: a row-major format, a column-major format and a hybrid-columnar format. Based on first one or more criteria, it is determined whether to rewrite the data into rewritten data in a rewritten major format. In response to determining to rewrite the data into rewritten data in a rewritten major format, the storage device rewrites at least a portion of the data into particular rewritten data in the rewritten major format. The rewritten data is stored in the cache. | 09-18-2014 |
20140289367 | ENABLE UPLOADING AND SUBMITTING MULTIPLE FILES - An atomic multiple-file upload from a client to a server requires only a single Java Server Faces (JSF) lifecycle to process the multiple files uploaded. Progress and other upload status indicators are displayed at the client and individual files can be deleted, canceled or added prior to committing the multiple-file upload at the server. | 09-25-2014 |