International Business Machines Corporation

Jia Yuan Yu

Sergiy Zhuk

Tigran Tchrakian

Emanuele Ragnoli

Robert Shorten

Randall Lee Cogill

Martin Mevissen

Martin M Rufli

Rudi Verago

Zubair Nabi

Chungmok Lee

Fabian Wirth

Olivier Gallay

Nicole A Taheri

Pricing a commodity based on a forecast received via remote access over a computer network. The forecast is an amount of the commodity that the user will use over a given time period. The provider supplies the user with an actual amount of the commodity over the given time period and then determines a price for the user for the supplied commodity, in retrospect, after the given time period, for the actual amount of the commodity supplied to the user over the given time period, based on the actual amount of the commodity provided to the user and an accuracy of the forecast of the amount of the commodity received from the user, the accuracy being determined by a difference between said forecast and the actual amount of the commodity supplied to the user over the given time period. The user is then charged to determined price.

Distributed forecasting and pricing system

A method, system and computer program product for distributed forecasting and pricing for a commodity supplied by a provider to a user. In one embodiment, the provider announces a pricing plan, and the provider receives a forecast of an estimated amount of the commodity from the provider that the user will use over a given period of time. The provider provides the user with an actual amount of the commodity over the given period; and the provider charges the user for the actual amount of the commodity provided to the user based on the pricing policy, the actual amount of the commodity provided to the user, and the accuracy of the forecast. In an embodiment, the forecast is received by the provider after the provider announces the pricing plan and before the given period begins. The forecast may be received from the user or from a third-party forecaster.

A method and system of providing hot water efficiently. A cost of heating a volume of water to a predetermined temperature in a first water heater is determined. A cost of transferring a volume of hot water from a second water heater of a network of interconnected water heaters to the first water heater is determined. Upon determining that the cost of transferring the volume of hot water from the second water heater is lower than the cost of heating the volume of water of the first water heater, the second water heater transfers at least part of the volume of hot water to the first water heater. Otherwise, the volume of water is heated to the predetermined temperature in the first water heater.

Energy efficient hot water distribution

A mechanism is provided for parking space management of a managed parking structure. Information is received from a vehicle that has parked in the managed parking structure. The information from the vehicle is utilized to determine a probabilistic location of the vehicle within the managed parking structure. Responsive to determining the probabilistic location of the vehicle within the managed parking structure using the information from the vehicle, an occupied parking space evidence data structure is updated with a vehicle identifier of the vehicle as being associated with the location of the vehicle within the managed parking structure.

Distributed parking space detection, characterization, advertisement, and enforcement

Embodiments of the disclosure include a system for providing data-driven distributionally robust optimization the system including a processor, the processor configured to perform a method. The method includes receiving a plurality of samples of one or more uncertain parameters for a complex system and calculating a distribution uncertainty set for the one or more uncertain parameters. The method also includes receiving a deterministic problem model associated with the complex system that includes an objective and one or more constraints and creating a distributionally robust counterpart (DRC) model based on the distribution uncertainty set and the deterministic problem model. The method further includes formulating the DRC as a generalized problem of moments (GPM), applying a semi-definite programming (SDP) relaxation to the GPM and generating an approximation for a globally optimal distributionally robust solution to the complex system.

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Jia Yuan Yu