International Business Machines Corporation

Ebay, Incorporated

Opera Solutions, LLC

Rahul Garg

Natwar Modani

Parul Alok Mittal

Debasis Mishra

Guillermo A Cecchi

Ravishankar Rao

Yogish Sabharwal

Monu Kedia

Alok Aggarwal

Vipul Bansal

Ravi Kothari

Vijay Mann

Pradipta De

Saurabh Agarwal

Meeta S Gupta

Aditya Afzulpurkar

Samrat Sen

Kanav Goyal

Chayanika Pragya

A method, system and computer program product for conducting an online auction of a plurality of heterogeneous items between a plurality of selling and potential purchasing parties. The method includes the steps of accepting an offer in respect of an item, accepting one or more subsequent offers that is/are preferable to a previously accepted offer, and rejecting the previously accepted offer. While the offer/s is/are binding on a party making the offer, acceptance of the offer/s is/are not binding on a party accepting the offer. Classes of 'seller strategies', for offering items to potential purchasing parties, and 'buyer strategies', to decide which offers to accept, are also disclosed. As a result of the interaction of the buyer and seller strategies, the auction mechanism converges to an allocation of items to buyers at particular prices and assists in discovering a free and fair competitive equilibrium price.

Auction of multiple heterogeneous items among multiple buyers and sellers using software agents linked via a communication network

Systems and methods for modeling functional magnetic resonance image datasets using a multivariate auto-regressive model which captures temporal dynamics in the data, and creates a reduced representation of the dataset representative of functional connectivity of voxels with respect to brain activity. Raw spatio-temporal data is processed using a multivariate auto-regressive model, wherein coefficients in the model with high weights are retained as indices that best describe the full spatio-temporal data. When there are a relatively small number of temporal samples of the data, sparse regression techniques are used to build the model. The model coefficients are used to perform data processing functions such as indexing, prediction, and classification.

Systems and methods for modeling and processing functional magnetic resonance image data using full-brain vector auto-regressive model

A system and method for data anonymization using hierarchical data clustering and perturbation is provided. The system includes a computer system and an anonymization program executed by the computer system. The system converts the data of a high-dimensional dataset to a normalized vector space and applies clustering and perturbation techniques to anonymize the data. The conversion results in each record of the dataset being converted into a normalized vector that can be compared to other vectors. The vectors are divided into disjointed, small-sized clusters using hierarchical clustering processes. Multi-level clustering can be performed using suitable algorithms at different clustering levels. The records within each cluster are then perturbed such that the statistical properties of the clusters remain unchanged.

System and method for data anonymization using hierarchical data clustering and perturbation

A method of generating an image includes the step of obtaining captured data characterizing an object. The method also includes the step of reconstructing a spatio-temporal image of the object based on the captured data, the spatio-temporal image comprising a plurality of spatial images in respective time intervals, with at least a given one of the spatial images in one of the time intervals being reconstructed using captured data from a frame associated with that time interval and captured data associated with one or more additional frames associated with other time intervals. The method further includes the step of outputting the spatio-temporal image. The obtaining, reconstructing and outputting steps are performed by a processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory.

Spatio-temporal image reconstruction using sparse regression and secondary information

A spatio-temporal image of an object is reconstructed based on captured data characterizing the object. The spatio-temporal image comprises a plurality of spatial images in respective time intervals, and at least a given one of the spatial images in one of the time intervals is reconstructed using not only captured data from a frame associated with that time interval but also captured data associated with one or more additional frames associated with other time intervals. The spatio-temporal image may be reconstructed by iteratively obtaining a solution to a minimization or maximization problem in a sparse domain and transforming the solution to an image domain. The transformation between the sparse domain and the image domain may utilize a spatio-temporal transformation implemented using a plurality of basis functions, one or more of which may be determined at least in part based on secondary information associated with the imaged object.

A method, system and computer program product for conducting an online auction of a plurality of heterogeneous items between a plurality of selling and potential purchasing parties. The method includes the steps of accepting an offer in respect of an item, accepting one or more subsequent offers that is/are preferable to a previously accepted offer, and rejecting the previously accepted offer. While the offer/s is/are binding on a party making the offer, acceptance of the offer/s is/are not binding on a party accepting the offer. Classes of 'seller strategies', for offering items to potential purchasing parties, and 'buyer strategies', to decide which offers to accept, are also disclosed. As a result of the interaction of the buyer and seller strategies, the auction mechanism converges to an allocation of items to buyers at particular prices and assists in discovering a free and fair competitive equilibrium price. The auction is performed using terminals connected via a communications network and software-based agents hosted on the terminals, wherein the software-based agents act on behalf of the participating parties.

A method for tuning performance of an operating system, the method comprising identifying all sources of operating system jitter; measuring the impact of each of the operating system jitter source; and tuning performance of the operating system, preferably by use of different approaches/techniques, which could include removing the sources of operating system jitter and/or delaying their execution and/or smoothening their execution over a longer period of time. Computer program code and systems are also provided.

Method and system for identifying sources of operating system jitter

The invention provides a method for conducting an auction of a plurality of heterogeneous items. The method comprises making, by offering parties, offers to potential accepting parties for the heterogeneous items. The making begins at a specified time with at least some of the potential accepting parties and at least some of the offering parties represented by software-based agents hosted on terminals connected via a communication network. Any acceptance by any accepting party of any offer from any offering party is binding on the offering party immediately, but is not binding on the accepting party until the auction closes. The method also comprises accepting, by an accepting party, a first offer from a first offering party for the heterogeneous item only if the first offer provides a surplus of at least a minimum surplus amount for the heterogeneous item.

method for conducting an auction of a plurality of heterogeneous items

A method, apparatus and computer program product are disclosed for incrementally checkpointing the state of a computer memory in the presence of at least one executing software application at periodic instants. A secure hash function is periodically applied to each partitioned contiguous block of memory to give a periodic block hash value. At each periodic instant, a block hash value for each block is compared with a respective preceding block hash value to determine if said memory block has changed according to whether said block hash values are different. Only changed memory blocks are stored in a checkpoint record. The memory block sizes are adapted at each periodic instant to split changed blocks into at least two parts and to merge only two non-changed contiguous blocks at a time.

Adaptive incremental checkpointing

An electronic coupon, an electronic commerce system, and a method for the honoring of electronic coupons utilizing computing equipment are disclosed. In the method, an issuing party issues an electronic coupon to a customer. The customer presents the coupon for redemption to a redemption party. The redemption party transmits the coupon to an authentication party for authentication. If authentic, the authentication party charges the redemption party a fee and passes that fee to the issuing party. The redemption party honors the coupon for the customer and seeking reimbursement of the fee from the issuing party. The electronic coupon has a plurality of data fields, including: a coupon identifier, x, a first one-way hash function field, f(x), and a secure signature field.

Honoring of electronic coupons

A method and system generates, distributes, stores, redeems, validates and clears electronic manufacturer coupons and electronic store coupons. A coupon mint generates unforgable blank digital coupons. The promoter of the offer then writes the terms and conditions and other details of the offer, on blank coupons to customize these. These customized coupons are digitally signed by the promoter and distributed to potential customers. A customer may either present these coupons electronically for redemption to an online store, or print these coupons and present them to a conventional offline store. The store may check the authenticity of a coupon by verifying the digital signature and also verifying if the coupon has not been used earlier by contacting a verification center. The store collects all redeemed coupons and sends these to manufacturer for clearing. The verification center verifies that the coupon is authentic and has not already been used before.

Generation, distribution, storage, redemption, validation and clearing of electronic coupons

The use of software-based agents to act on behalf of human bidders for dynamic participation in multiple simultaneous online auctions is disclosed. The software-based agents may reside on computer systems or on any type of stationary or mobile terminal. On the basis of bidding-related information from a bidder, a software agent selects a plurality of auctions to place bids in. Upon being outbid, the agent determines whether to place an additional bid in a further auction. The agent can make such a determination on the basis of maximising profitability or surplus.

Methods, systems, and computer program products for dynamically bidding in and conducting multiple simultaneous online auctions located across multiple online auction sites

The present invention relates to a computer implementable system and method for allocation and pricing of classified resources of a web server farm to customers by a resource center comprising means for providing different levels of service by dynamically allocating and pricing said resources based on customers' changing needs, and their willingness to pay.

Dynamic allocation and pricing of resources of web server farm

A methodology and system allows a plurality of reward scheme owners to give differential rewards, through a plurality of reward distribution agents, to various users based on the user profile. The reward scheme owner may be a seller, a manufacturer, a sales promotion agent or even an intermediary. Similarly, the reward distribution agent may be an on-line or a physical retailer, a broker, a seller or an intermediary. Also the users may be consumers, businesses, brokers or other intermediaries. In one specific case, a reward scheme owner defines a plurality of reward schemes, including at least one differential reward scheme giving different rewards to different users. The reward scheme owner communicates these to a central reward scheme database server. The reward scheme owners may or may not advertise these schemes. The user visits an online or a physical store. The store acting as a reward distribution agent dynamically profiles the user, queries the central reward scheme database server if the user profile meets the criterion for one or more rewards and offers the applicable rewards to the user. The store later receives reimbursement for the rewards offered to various users, from the reward scheme owners. This methodology and system may be used for offering targeted or differential discounts on different products and services, offering different promotional schemes on different combination of products, giving loyalty points, electronically distributing prizes, free samples, product warranties, tie-in promotions, cross selling, up selling, premiums, memberships, card discounts, organizing contests, sweepstakes, games and offering other similar rewards.

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Ghaziabad, India

Rahul Garg