142 results about "Active participation" patented technology

Systems and methods are described for redeeming rewards at a merchant's point-of-sale. The reward redemption takes place in real time and can be accomplished without the active participation of the merchant. A single credit card with no additional information may be used with a single swipe from the consumer to access both credit and rewards accounts, such that a single authorization request is made to encompass both rewards and credit. Merchants can be fully compensated for transactions by the issuer despite the customer's choice to redeem rewards.

This invention creates an enhanced marketing system for Online Auctions and ECommerce websites to further provide secondary reasons for current Members to be active with the website. It also provides for the acquisition, activation and retention of new Members that may come to them by way of the 3rd party Organizations that currently have a membership they can influence to become active with the Online Auction website. This invention provides for the presence of an accounting system for awarded incentive points, accessibility to that accounting system and the distribution of those points either through direct redemptions, transfer to other Members or transfer to 3rd party Organizations.

An integrated subject monitoring system facilitates measurement, collection and analysis of data pertaining to the health status of a subject. The system includes a network-coupled computer and subsystems monitoring subject location within a defined space and the curtilage thereof and obtaining measurements of a subject's physiological or behavioral / cognitive parameters within the defined space. Parameter data is obtained primarily passively, without the cooperation or active participation of the subject. A method of monitoring the physiological and behavioral / cognitive health status of an ambulatory subject involves monitoring in a primarily passive fashion, irrespective of the active collaboration of the subject. Subject health indicia parameters are continuously monitored, sampled and recorded. Captured values are compared to initial baseline values established for each of the measured parameters as well as to the trend for the parameter of that subject. Readings falling outside the boundaries trigger a signal to be sent to an appropriate party.

The invention relates to a motion control method of a lower limb rehabilitative robot. In the method, aiming at different rehabilitation stages of a patient, two working modes of passive training and active training are carried out: under the mode of passive training, the patient is driven by controlling the robot to finish specific motions or motion according to a right physiological gait track; abnormal motions of the patient are completely restrained; and the patient passively follows the robot to do walking rehabilitation training; under the mode of active training, limited abnormal motions of the patient are restrained by the robot; through a real-time detection on joint driving forces generated when the patient acts on the robot in the motion process, human-computer interaction moment is extracted by utilizing an inverse dynamic model to judge the active motion intention of lower limbs of the patient; and the interaction moment is converted into correction value of gait track by utilizing an impedance controller to directly correct or generate the gait training track the patient expects through an adaptive controller, therefore, the purpose that the robot can provide auxiliary force and resistant force for the rehabilitation training can be indirectly realized. By means of the motion control method of the lower limb rehabilitative robot, rehabilitation training motions suitable for different rehabilitation stages can be provided for a dysbasia patient, thereby enhancing active participation degree of the rehabilitation training of the patient, building confidence of the rehabilitation and positivity of the motion, and then enhancing effect of the rehabilitation training.

The invention discloses a method and equipment for controlling an intelligent air conditioner. A somatosensory signal, position data, environment data of a user wearing wearable equipment are obtained through the wearable equipment, data can be provided for a server while the user does not need to take part in setting actively, current operating parameters of the intelligent air conditioner are obtained by sending a request to the intelligent air conditioner bound with the wearable equipment, and then a control instruction used for instructing the intelligent air conditioner to adjust the current operating state is generated according to the data of the user wearing the wearable equipment and the current operating parameters of the intelligent air conditioner. Thus, without active participation of the user, the intelligent air conditioner is automatically controlled to adjust the operating state to the state most favorable for the health of the human body according to the human body index changes of the user wearing the wearable equipment, and the problem in the prior art that the intelligent air conditioner can be controlled only when the user takes part in is solved.

A computer networked, multi-user game system utilizing subscription based membership and alternative methods of entry, as well as the award of prizes of immediate value to the winner is described. A game tournament is hosted by a game server computer coupled to client computers operated by participating players. The games offered are games that involve elements of both skill and chance and require active player participation and decision making. A subscription-based membership is established for each player by charging a fee for a pre-determined membership time period. An alternative method of entry is provided to allow non-subscription players to participate in the tournament without payment of the fee. The non-subscribing players receive equal access to the games and at least the same chance of winning as the subscribing players, but are limited to a single entry per game or tournament. The game server hosts at least one game or tournament within the period, and players are potentially eliminated until a winning player and any runner-up players are determined. A prize pool is disbursed to the winning players in the form of cash, cash-equivalent notes, or prizes that have inherent and immediate value.

A method of controlling conference calls includes initiating a conference call between multiple conferees using a conferencing controller, placing each of the multiple conferees in a listen only mode using the conferencing controller, receiving a signal at the conferencing controller from a plurality of the conferees requesting active participation in the conference call, displaying a list of the plurality of conferees requesting active participation in the conference call, receiving from a user a selection of one of the plurality of conferees who have requested active participation in the conference call, and placing the one of the plurality of conferees in a talk mode using the conferencing controller. The method may also include monitoring a connection between the conferencing controller and a controlling application and notifying an operator if the connection is disrupted.

A system and computer program product for managing an online recycling operation, including uniquely associating one or more recyclable products with unique identifiers and other product information stored in a database, receiving information associated with the one or more recyclable products, periodically storing and updating the information associated with the one or more recyclable products in the database, associating the unique identifier with a recycling user having user account information stored in the database, updating the reward point total based on an activity of the recycling user, communicating the product information and the user account information to the recycling user over a network, communicating rewards that are available in exchange for reward points to the recycling user over the network, and redeeming reward points upon demand by the recycling user over the network. Each recyclable product includes indicia that uniquely identifies the recyclable product. The user account information includes user information comprising a reward point total and recycling data associated with the recycling user. The activity includes recycling activities and active participation on an environmentally-friendly web server.

A toothbrush provides a unique opportunity to integrate health monitoring sensors into an object widely used by the mass population daily. A toothbrush is provided with various health monitoring sensors including an orientation sensor, oximetry sensor, capacitive sensor, pressure sensor, and temperature sensor. Further, the toothbrush is comprised in a system including a data transfer medium (i.e. “smartphone”) and the Cloud, which allows for data transfer between multiple platforms from the toothbrush. The system further allows for passive participation in social games with awards and incentives. The system and toothbrush further provide for active participation in brushing games to encourage proper brushing techniques. Further, the toothbrush also provides a user identification system utilizing capacitive coupling of the human body and a mobile unit that is optionally a “smartphone.” The mobile unit of the user identification system may also be used for user identification by other devices that require the user to touch them for proper use.

A system and method are provided for determining students that are in danger of dropping out of an educational institution, and for delivering Internet content. The system and method gathers behavioral data of users using wireless beacon technology, a Wi-Fi capture device and mobile communications devices by monitoring a user's engagement with campus life and class attendance. As a user's focus changes from active participation in campus life to dropping out of the educational institution, their behavior changes, and the system and method captures this change through their participation in student life. The system and method further allows educational institutions and other information providers to use location beacons to link objects, locations, persons, or pets to information such as web links directing to Internet content, and to deliver such information to a user's mobile communications device.

An interactive Internet mortgage origination system and method for business-to-business use with selected point of access professionals. The system allows professionals, such as Realtors, builders, accountants, lawyers, insurance agents, financial planners, and other professionals already in close proximity to the mortgage transaction to actively participate in the transaction. The system allows the Realtors to track the loan origination progress for multiple borrowers from active to approved to floating to locked to closed. The mortgage origination system also allows the Realtor to monitor commission pipelines generated thereby. The pipeline monitor is helpful in tracking all active, approved, floating, locked, and closed mortgage applications. The mortgage origination system also will track the relationship of a branch manager, or broker, with the real estate agents, or solicitors, who work for that branch manager.

Systems and methods are described for redeeming rewards at a merchant's point-of-sale. The reward redemption takes place in real time and can be accomplished without the active participation of the merchant. A single credit card with no additional information may be used with a single swipe from the consumer to access both credit and rewards accounts, such that a single authorization request is made to encompass both rewards and credit. Merchants can be fully compensated for transactions by the issuer despite the customer's choice to redeem rewards.

The present invention includes various embodiments of a BSA system that facilitates the collection of relevant health-related data on a continuous basis, integrates such data with pertinent personal and aggregate information, enables users to purchase (directly and indirectly) health-related goods and services, and provides credit, discounts and other economic benefits in connection with such purchases that are determined dynamically based upon the nature and extent of users' interaction with the system. The BSA system facilitates a dynamic feedback process by continually monitoring user interaction and medical and financial behavior, which results in dynamic adjustments to their credit levels and offers of discounts and other promotions, which in turn incentivizes users to continue participating in the process (thereby modifying their system interactions and behavior, and thus perpetuating this feedback loop). As a result, users are incentivized to actively participate in the process and thereby enhance their wellness while reducing healthcare costs.

The system and method of the present invention removes barriers that undermine efficient risk-management. The invention prioritizes consumers by predicting their unmet demand for risk protection. Once deemed eligible, consumers are enrolled and funds are allocated to the payment of a premium for income insurance, contribution to a financial vehicle such as a savings or investment product, and payment of a premium for savings loss insurance. Active participants are eligible for income protection in case of job loss, systematic savings and ownership of public equities, principal protection and incentives based on utilization. The system and method of the present invention is calibrated on an ongoing basis to the behaviors of target consumers.

The invention discloses an indoor passive positioning method based on channel state information and a support vector machine. The method comprises the following steps: firstly preprocessing the acquired channel state information data, performing de-noising and smoothness through the adoption of a density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise and a weight-based moving average algorithm, and then using the principal component analysis algorithm to extract the features. The data after the preprocessing and feature-extracting can reflect the signal change more accurately and the dimension is greatly reduced. The passive positioning adopts two-stage positioning. In the training stage, the large positioning space is divided into sub-regions, the support vector machine classification and regression model is established for each sub-region so as to acquire a statistic model for accurately representing the nonlinear relationship between the position and the signal. The two-stage positioning firstly determines the sub-regions through the classification of the support vector machine, and the precision position is determined in the sub-region through the regression of the support vector machine. The method disclosed by the invention has the beneficial effects that the passive positioning can be performed in the absence of the active participation of the target, and the indoor positioning precision is improved to sub-meter level.

A virtual conferencing system is described which evaluates and selects participants for active participation based on one or more criteria. For example, one embodiment of virtual conferencing system comprises: a plurality of clients operated by participants and at least one moderator of a virtual conference, each of the clients comprising state management logic to maintain a current state of the virtual conference; a virtual conferencing service to establish audio and / or video connections between the plurality of clients during the virtual conference, the virtual conferencing service further including a state synchronization service communicatively coupled to the state management logic on each client to ensure that the current state of the virtual conference is consistent on each client; a virtual conferencing graphical user interface (GUI) to be rendered on the plurality of clients, the virtual conferencing GUI configured, via signals sent from the state synchronization service, to display a video stream of one or more current speakers during the virtual conference utilizing the established video connections; and a decision support module to evaluate the participants according to one or more criteria in the virtual conference and to select a subset of the set of participants as candidates to actively participate in the virtual conference based on the evaluation.

The invention discloses a capacity optimization configuration method for a hybrid energy storage system orientating optimization operation of a power distribution network. The capacity optimization configuration method comprises the steps of obtaining imbalance power between the optimal output and photovoltaic actual output when an optical storage system participates in operation of the power distribution network firstly, taking the imbalance power as a hybrid energy storage reference power, adopting ensemble empirical mode decomposition to decompose the imbalance power into a series of intrinsic mode functions, and performing recursion Hilbert conversion to obtain an instantaneous frequency-time curve of each intrinsic mode function separately; according to power type and energy type energy storage characteristics, determining crossover frequency by taking least aliasing of the instantaneous frequency-time curves as a principle, and stabilizing the high-frequency components and low-frequency components of the imbalance power by adopting power type energy storage and energy type energy storage respectively; and finally, by considering charging-discharging efficiency, state of charge and life cycle cost, a power type and energy type energy storage rate power and rate capacity economic optimal configuration scheme is proposed. Compared with a conventional method, new energy output can be compensated, consumption capability to new energy can be improved, and active participation to the optimization operation of the power distribution network can be realized.

A multi-mode mobile phone device is equipped to store both PSTN and VoIP phone numbers in a unified, multi-formatted manner. Automatic registration of VoIP new user accounts is conducted using an existing cellular phone number, an existing MAC address, or an existing VoIP identifier, without active participation from the user. Registrations of an existing VoIP account's IP addresses are also conducted without the knowledge of the user of a VoIP device. Unified electronic phonebooks and graphical user interfaces present all phone (PSTN and VoIP) numbers with the same format, with an option to display the mode (PSTN or VoIP) associated with each number. Four-way switching between entire inbound and outbound circuit and VoIP calls is accomplished by intercepting CALL and ANSWER commands issued by the user of a mobile dual-mode phone device. Seamless end-to-send call setup is enabled by using a social network of phone devices using a DHT-based search algorithm on a distributed database.

Embodiments of the invention are directed to a computer-implemented interactive account management system operated in cooperation with a financial institution on behalf of multiple account holders. The interactive account management system may include a financial networking engine implemented by a processor for defining a financial network for each account holder and for identifying each member of an account holder financial network based on stored account information and account holder input. The system may additionally include interactive processing components for processing information to provide collaborative interaction between the members of the account holder financial network defined by the financial networking engine and user interface presentation tools for displaying financial guidance and collaborative interaction interfaces and inviting active participation from the financial network members.

Data points, calendar entries, trends, behavioral patterns may be used to predict and pre-emptively build digital and printable products with selected collections of images without the user's active participation. The collections are selected from files on the user's device, cloud-based photo library, or other libraries shared among other individuals and grouped into thematic products. Based on analysis of the user's collections and on-line behaviors, the system may estimate types and volumes of potential media-centric products, and the resources needed for producing and distributing such media-centric products for a projected period of time. A user interface may take the form of a “virtual curator”, which is a graphical or animated persona for augmenting and managing interactions between the user and the system managing the user's stored media assets. The virtual curator can assume one of many personas, as appropriate, with each user. For example, the virtual curator can be presented as an avatar-animated character in an icon, or icon that floats around the screen. The virtual curator can also interact with the user via text messaging, or audio messaging.

An integrated subject monitoring system facilitates measurement, collection and analysis of data pertaining to the health status of a subject. The system includes a network-coupled computer and subsystems monitoring subject location within a defined space and the curtilage thereof and obtaining measurements of a subject's physiological or behavioral / cognitive parameters within the defined space. Parameter data is obtained primarily passively, without the cooperation or active participation of the subject. A method of monitoring the physiological and behavioral / cognitive health status of an ambulatory subject involves monitoring in a primarily passive fashion, irrespective of the active collaboration of the subject. Subject health indicia parameters are continuously monitored, sampled and recorded. Captured values are compared to initial baseline values established for each of the measured parameters as well as to the trend for the parameter of that subject. Readings falling outside the boundaries trigger a signal to be sent to an appropriate party.

The realm of fantasy sports gaming is expanded beyond the selection of current, active athletes by including former athletes, or former seasons for current athletes, in a selection pool for fantasy sports leagues. This is accomplished by querying databases of sports statistics for the purpose of generating a mock performance that can be fairly compared and incorporated with real-time performances generated by current athletes actively participating in the same sport. The end result is a realistic, yet unpredictable, statistical box score for a former athlete that can be translated via a point system for the purpose of fantasy sports league play.

The invention discloses a recumbent lower limb rehabilitation robot and a corresponding active exercise control method. The robot comprises a seat, mechanical arms, a master industrial personal case, a man-machine interactive interface, a myoelectric signal acquisition electrode plate and a myoelectric signal acquisition industrial personal case. When the rehabilitation robot is used for assisting a patient to do active exercise, the patient reclines on the seat, the lower limbs on two sides of the patient are respectively fixed with the mechanical arms, the myoelectric signals of corresponding muscles of the patient can be acquired, the patient controls the robot to complete active exercise according to different control algorithms. According to the invention,the traditional occupational therapy and the exercise therapy are organically combined, thus effectively improving the rehabilitation effect of the patient and enhancing the active participation wish of the patient.

A method and a system for teaching and guiding an individual and changing the lifestyle and in building up a health or healthier behaviour includes the step of making a basic assessment of the individual and of defining at least one program to which the individual should attend on the basis of this assessment. The program includes at least teaching, guiding and actively involving the individual and individually gathering personal objective information represented by at least one health indicator. The individual is taught in accordance with a specific learning program in view of understanding a relationship between the objective information and a phenomenon or symptom caused by pathology or functional deficiency. The individual is further taught and guided to understand the effect of specific behaviour and lifestyle on the pathology or functional deficiency. Finally, actions are identified to be taken for changing the lifestyle and for building up a healthier behaviour in view of reducing health problems or health risks.

A method of providing conference call connections includes initiating a conference call between multiple conferees using a conferencing controller, placing each of the multiple conferees in a half-duplex listen only mode using the conferencing controller, and receiving a signal at the conferencing controller from at least one of the multiple conferees to actively participate in the conference call. Active participation can be in the form of asking questions, giving comments, or providing a keypress to vote or provide other information. The conference call can also be broadcast to increase participants. Also, after the conference call is initiated, additional potential conferees can be added.

A data transferring powered toothbrush is provided for use during oral health care activities carried out daily by a user. A powered toothbrush is provided including an orientation sensor that provides data relating toothbrush usage to various positions within the oral cavity. Further, the toothbrush comprises a data extractor that provides a means for transferring the data from the toothbrush to an external medium for viewing and manipulation. Further still, the powered toothbrush is comprised in a system including a data transfer medium (i.e. “smartphone”) and the Cloud, which allows for data transfer between multiple external mediums from the powered toothbrush. The system further allows for passive participation in social games with awards and incentives. The system and powered toothbrush further provide for active participation in brushing games to encourage proper brushing techniques.

The invention relates to the technical field of Internet of things, specifically relates to a smart energy-saving control system. The smart energy-saving control system comprises a cloud server, and a smart energy-saving control terminal and a mobile terminal connected with the cloud server. The smart energy-saving control system can smartly control on / off of a plurality of electric equipment or change the working parameters of the electric equipment. No active participation of users is needed, and a comfortable office and home environment can be provided in an energy-saving, environmental-friendly and automatic way. and the high man-machine user friendliness and high intelligent level are ensured.