75 results about "Cost–benefit analysis" patented technology

The present invention relates to a system (10) and methodology (170, 173, 180, 400, 600, 1000) to enable a variety of information associated with one or more notification sources (26-28) to be directed to one or more notification sinks (36-38) via a notification platform architecture (10). The architecture (10) includes a context analyzer (22) for determining a user's state such as location and attentional focus, wherein the user's state is employed by a notification manager (24) to make decisions regarding what, when and how information generated by the notification sources (26-28) should be forwarded to the notification sinks (36-38), for example. These decisions can include a cost benefit analysis wherein considerations are given as to whether the benefits of notifying the user are outweighed by the costs of disrupting the user. Decision-theoretic policies (177, 180) and / or somewhat less formal heuristic policies (177) can be employed to enable the decision-making process within the notification manager (24).

The present invention relates to a system and methodology to facilitate extraction of information from a large unstructured corpora such as from the World Wide Web and / or other unstructured sources. Information in the form of answers to questions can be automatically composed from such sources via probabilistic models and cost-benefit analyses to guide resource-intensive information-extraction procedures employed by a knowledge-based question answering system. The analyses can leverage predictions of the ultimate quality of answers generated by the system provided by Bayesian or other statistical models. Such predictions, when coupled with a utility model can provide the system with the ability to make decisions about the number of queries issued to a search engine (or engines), given the cost of queries and the expected value of query results in refining an ultimate answer. Given a preference model, information extraction actions can be taken with the highest expected utility. In this manner, the accuracy of answers to questions can be balanced with the cost of information extraction and analysis to compose the answers.

A proactive adaptive radio methodology for the opportunistic allocation of radio spectrum is described. The methods can be used to allocate radio spectrum resources by employing machine learning to learn models, via accruing data over time, that have the ability to predict the context-sensitive durations of the availability of channels. The predictive models are combined with decision-theoretic cost-benefit analyses to minimize disruptions of service or quality that can be associated with reactive allocation policies. Rather than reacting to losses of channel, the proactive policies seek switches in advance of the loss of a channel. Beyond determining durations of availability for one or more frequency bands statistical machine learning also be employed to generate price predictions in order to facilitate a sale or rental of the available frequencies, and these predictions can be employed in the switching analyses The methods can be employed in non-cooperating distributed models of allocation, in centralized allocation approaches, and in hybrid spectrum allocation scenarios.

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus where pre-defined diagnostic medical agent administration data are prospectively collected and analyzed, in order to provide an objective contrast administration risk-benefit analysis, and provide an impartial analysis for pre-testing assessment, as well as optimization of examination, contrast selection and performance parameters. By storing this data in a standardized and centralized fashion, the data could in turn be used for clinical outcome analysis on a local, regional, and national level.

The present invention relates to a system and methodology providing a user interface that can be employed by contactors and contactees in conjunction with a communications architecture for identifying and establishing an optimal communication based on preferences, capabilities, contexts and goals of the parties to engage in the communication. The user interface can include a graphical display having a plurality of display objects and associated input fields operable by one or more parties to a communication in order to facilitate convenient access, control, personalization and communications via the communications architecture. For example, configuration capabilities are provided in the user interface to enable operational adjustments to one or more operating parameters, communications groupings, policies and / or context preferences relating to a preferred modality of communication and to potential parties of communication between the contactors and contactees. User interface controls are also provided for defining deterministic policies and for encoding preferences for cost-benefit analyses.

A query processing method intersects two or more unsorted lists based on a conjunction of predicates. Each list comprises a union of multiple sorted segments. The method performs lazy segment merging and an adaptive n-ary intersecting process. The lazy segment merging comprises starting with each list being a union of completely unmerged segments, such that lookups into a given list involve separate lookups into each segment of the given list. The method intersects the lists according to the predicates while performing the lazy segment merging, such that the lazy segment merging reads in only those portions of each segment that are needed for the intersecting. As the intersecting proceeds and the lookups are performed, the intersecting selectively merges the segments together, based on a cost-benefit analysis of the cost of merging compared to the benefit produced by reducing a number of lookups.

A list scheduler in a compiler can select from a plurality of alternative instruction sequences for one or more computation performed within an application. A scheduler can initially identify and track one or more computations for which multiple alternative instruction sequences exist. An available instruction list can be populated with the alternative instruction sequences. The list scheduler can access the available instruction list during scheduling of the application. The list scheduler can perform a cost analysis while scheduling the instructions by performing a look ahead. The list scheduler may select alternate instruction sequences for similar computations occurring in different portions of the application based on the cost benefit analysis.