162 results about "Cost evaluation" patented technology

A method and system for optimizing health expenditure by an organization including developing a Cohort-based personnel model for the organization; determining lifecycle health costs based on the personnel model; evaluating impact of a lifestyle program, a best health practices program, and an employee benefits program on the life cycle health costs for a first scenario; and measuring project evaluation criteria for the lifestyle, best health practices, and employee benefits programs. A method and system for integrating health and wealth of an individual including developing a profile regarding health and wealth, and quality of life specifications for the individual; determining a quality of life index based on wealth, best health practices and lifestyle of the individual, wherein the quality of life index includes both health and wealth information; and measuring impacts of the profile, wealth, best health practices and lifestyle of the individual on the quality of life index.

The subject invention leverages threshold-based strategies applied to relational data to facilitate in determining an optimal execution plan for top-k selection queries. These strategies utilize a given query and relational data metadata to identify possible execution plans. This allows alternatives to scanning techniques to be considered in order to further enhance the overall efficiency of the optimal execution plan. A query optimizer can prune, for example, the alternative execution plans during enumeration of the plan space and/or during cost evaluations of the possible alternative execution plans. A cost model for the query optimizer can utilize a cost function based on an approximation of the number of iterations required to complete a threshold-based strategy.

Systems and methods are disclosed for generating cost estimates. In one implementation, a cost estimation system includes cost object metadata describing a mapping between functions at a cost estimation system and corresponding functions at a cost evaluation system. Based on the metadata, the cost estimation system determines whether a cost object requires evaluation in the cost evaluation system and, based on that determination, provides an evaluation request for the cost object to the cost evaluation system. In response to the evaluation request, the cost estimation system receives cost data determined by the cost evaluation system and calculates the cost estimate.

Adaptive controller apparatus of a robot may be implemented. The controller may be operated in accordance with a reinforcement learning process. A trainer may observe movements of the robot and provide reinforcement signals to the controller via a remote clicker. The reinforcement may comprise one or more degrees of positive and/or negative reinforcement. Based on the reinforcement signal, the controller may adjust instantaneous cost and to modify controller implementation accordingly. Training via reinforcement combined with particular cost evaluations may enable the robot to move more like an animal.

The method and system quantify the impact of various design and operational solutions for equipment modules of a structure and the overall structure based upon economic factors. In particular, the method and system provide cost evaluation of various maintenance approaches for at least one equipment module that is part of an overall structure. In addition, a baseline and alternate equipment module may be specified for each equipment module. The costs associated with each of the maintenance approaches for each baseline and alternate equipment module then may be compared and the costs associated with the overall structure having a chosen maintenance approach for each baseline and alternate equipment module may be evaluated. The sensitivity of the costs associated with the overall structure to changes in one or more of the parameter values also may be calculated.

The invention relates to a route optimizing method for a logistic distribution vehicle. The method comprises the following steps: one, parameter setting and initializing; two, if Nc is less than or equal to Nmax, judging whether the iteration number reaches the maximum iteration number or not, if so, ending circulation and performing step seven; and otherwise, performing step three; three, merging and regulating a logistic distribution route; four, restructuring, inserting and regulating; five, evaluating the cost; six, selecting an optimal logistic distribution route scheme; and seven, obtaining the optimal route scheme for the logistic distribution vehicle. The method for optimizing the logistic distribution route improves the convergence property of the logistic distribution route optimization and can efficiently obtain the optimal logistic distribution route scheme through an abstract enterprise merging action and a merging method consisting of merging operation, restructuring operation and the like.

A computer-implemented system and method for generating a tactical route to a battlefield destination including an Intervisibility Analyzer for analyzing propagation of optical lines of sight in a geographic terrain, a Speed Analyzer for analyzing speed of travelers in the geographic terrain, and a Route Generator for generating routes that facilitate tactical movement. The Intervisibility Analyzer and Speed Analyzer are used by a Cost Generator to determine tactical movement costs in geographic terrain. The Route Generator includes a Cost Evaluator for evaluating the cost of an edge during route generation.

A method and apparatus for selecting a coding mode of intra prediction in video compression. The method adapts an alternative full search (AFS) algorithm which reduces the computations of a conventional full search (FS) method. In the method, estimated sums of predicted blocks are obtained without actually forming predictors. By comparing the estimated sums of all modes with a low bound threshold, the undesired modes are quickly eliminated, and thus the number of predictor calculations and cost evaluations that require intensive computations are decreased.

The present invention discloses a production cell information system based on activity costs and an architecture therefore. The present invention allows a plurality of production cells to execute most of the functions originally existing in the conventional MES (Manufacturing Execution System). The present invention not only can effectively overcome the shortcomings of centralized MES, but also can let each production cell collect and display its production information according to its characteristics. Furthermore, the present invention performs a cost evaluation based on all the activity costs spent on each production cell, so as to evaluate the performance of each production cell, and meanwhile, the related personnel is informed in time for achieving the objectives of profit center and consistently improving the production efficacy. According to the present invention, the production cell information system comprises: a cell controller, an equipment manager, a data service means and a web server. The architecture of the present invention for the production cell information system comprises: a presentation layer, a business rules layer, a data object service layer and an entity layer.

The invention discloses an XML approximate query method based on the various XML documents. The XML various processing modules adopt a mapping rule automatic generation algorithm based on a PTO model, and rewrite the primitive query raised by the users under global query mode into different rewritten query tree under different DTD. The XML documents approximate query method under a single DTD adopts a basic mutation operation to do querying variability for the rewritten query tree. The obtained query closure combing with a plurality of times of precise embedding realizes the approximate query of the XML document set. A querying cost evaluation module adopts a data distribution statistics method based on an XML sample, and computes the query cost of each query result. The invention aiming at the various XML documents not only can retract the precise query result, but also can retract an approximating result sequence with a similarity scoring in time.

The invention discloses a network vulnerability evaluation method. The method comprises the following steps of: determining vulnerability cost factors according to vulnerability cost information; obtaining a vulnerability evaluation result according to the evaluation cost factors; determining vulnerability consequence factors according to vulnerability consequence information; obtaining a vulnerability consequence evaluation result according to the vulnerability consequence factors; and determining network vulnerability according to the vulnerability cost evaluation result and the vulnerability consequence evaluation result. Therefore, the method of the invention takes the vulnerability cost factors and the vulnerability consequence factors into consideration comprehensively when evaluates the network vulnerability, and enriches and perfects the basis for network vulnerability evaluation in a targeted way, so that the accurate performance of the network vulnerability evaluation is improved obviously. Moreover, the obtained improved network vulnerability evaluation accuracy can provide important reference for network safety management, ensures that corresponding safety measures can be implemented more targeted in a planned manner based on the reference, and avoids a serious result caused by utilizing the network vulnerability.

An electric power trading support system includes a demand prediction unit, a demand prediction error evaluation unit, a demand predicted value upward adjustment ratio (quantity) setting unit, a private power generation/power purchase ratio (quantities) setting unit, an optimization unit for evaluating optimum values of the demand predicted value upward adjustment ratio (quantity) and the self power generation/power purchase ratio (quantities) based on costs, and a display unit for displaying the optimum values evaluated by the optimization unit, maximizing profit to an electric power retailer by minimizing the cost for power generation and power purchase when the electric power retailer sells electric power by use of a private power generator and backup electric power purchased from an electric power company.

A method for transform processing in video coding is disclosed. Embodiments according to the present invention reduce the computational complexity of determining transform size for a processing block corresponding to a prediction block or a coding block. The transform size determination is based on encoder information or external information without comparing costs associated with different transform sizes. The encoder information can be the size of the processing block or the prediction information. The external information may correspond to the system bandwidth, the network bandwidth, the system power, the remaining energy of the battery in a mobile device, the timing budget related to performing transform for a given transform size. In another embodiment, the transform for each prediction block is performed only during cost evaluation or only during video data reconstruction.

The present invention provides an elegant solution for processing multi-feature queries, which considers the differing access costs associated with each feature. Access cost is a critical factor in determining how individual features should be processed in terms of retrieving through sorted or random access, and, hence, in minimizing the overall query response time. The present invention operates dynamically during query processing and seeks to minimize the total query cost in terms of number of features retrieved and cost for access. It works by evaluating different combinations of feature access plans (sorted and random access) according to the number of retrieved features and forward access costs, and it selects the lowest cost plan. Experimental results on practical data show a significant speed-up in multi-features queries using the proposed solution.

The invention relates to a cost accounting mechanism based on a BOM and aims at providing an efficient product cost accounting method for a PLM enterprise user. The cost accounting mechanism based on the BOM is characterized by comprising a PLM platform, a product lifecycle management device including a BOM view (bill of materials for describing composition of parts and raw materials of product and mutual relation of the time and number of the products) derived from a product architecture, a price factor/technique information knowledge base including newest materials, labor hour price and technique process information, and a cost evaluation unit for storing and recording cost information calculated by a specified product module.

The a method and system of making a coding mode decision for a given macroblock of a current frame is disclosed. A codec for making the coding mode decision is provided. The codec disclosed herein performs prediction of the motion vectors in inter-frames. The macroblock may be coded in one of six inter modes, such as skip mode, P16×16 mode, P16×8 mode, P8×16 mode, and P8×8 mode or in intra modes such as intra 4×4 mode and intra 16×16 mode. Each block in the inter-frame is predicted from a block of equal size in the reference frame. In each mode, the codec finds a best match, that is, a motion vector for each block size in the reference frame and calculates a corresponding cost. The codec evaluates each mode based on cost and the mode with the least cost is selected as best mode for coding the given macroblock.

Method and apparatus for calculating warranty cost includes determining values for a plurality of parameters that characterize a corresponding plurality of physical conditions of a product that is returned under warranty, determining values for a plurality of variables that characterize a customer profile for the product and evaluating an expression that calculates warranty cost based on said determined parameter and variable values. The plurality of physical conditions of the product includes the conditions of no-trouble-found (NTF), repaired, junked, and subject to further failure mode analysis (FMA). The plurality of parameters further comprises probabilities and costs that correspond to each of the physical conditions. Evaluating the above expression includes evaluating a first expression that calculates repair, product conformance and Dead-On-Arrival cost and evaluating a second expression that calculates Change Notice cost. Subsequently, the two costs are summed to arrive at the total warranty cost.

A prefetch command control apparatus is provided. A protocol slot generation unit, when receiving from a CPU a prefetch command in which a utilization time of data to be prefetched is specified, generates a protocol slot based on the utilization time and registers it in a schedule list storage unit. When receiving a regular access command, the protocol slot generation unit registers a protocol slot in a regular protocol queue storage unit. A cost evaluation unit evaluates an issuance cost of the prefetch command based on a cache retention time of data to be prefetched and evaluates an issuance cost of the regular access command based on a resource occupation cost. A protocol issuance unit decides which command shall be issued, the prefetch command or regular access command, based on the evaluation result of these issuance costs.

The invention discloses a target-echo-emission source ternary data associated digital broadcasting passive positioning method which is used for solving the technical problem of poor practicability of the existing digital broadcasting passive positioning method. The technical scheme is that in the track starting stage, infeasible branches are cut by aid of station distribution geometrical information; in the track maintaining stage, a wave gate is generated by aid of the existing track information and the scale of a distribution tree is reduced; a feasible measurement sequence meeting wave gate constraint is gathered for cost evaluation; finally, the multi-dimension assignment problem is continuously relaxed to a sequence two-dimensional distribution problem by aid of the lagrangian relaxation algorithm, and solution is acquired through the improved auction algorithm. The target-echo-emission source ternary data associated digital broadcasting passive positioning method achieves passive target tracing under target-echo-emission source ternary data association, increases the track starting speed, improves the target tracing accuracy, effectively improves the passive target tracing performance in the clutter environment, and has significance in practical application of the passive target tracing projects.

The invention relates to a query optimization method based on an improved genetic algorithm, and belongs to the technical field of query optimization. The method comprises: establishing a mathematical model for a query execution policy set, to transform a query optimization problem into a mathematical problem of finding a global optimal solution, wherein the model is called a cost evaluation model of a query policy; and then improving a genetic algorithm, and using a global search ability of the improved genetic algorithm to perform a parallel search on a query policy set, thereby finally obtaining an ideal query execution policy. According to the method provided by the invention, a conventional genetic algorithm is improved, and the improved genetic algorithm is used for query optimization of a large relational database, thereby overcoming a "premature" convergence phenomenon. Compared with other intelligent optimization algorithms, falling into a local extremum can be effectively avoided, thereby shortening search time. In addition, a gene based search policy and a polyploidy based retention policy in the algorithm greatly improve search accuracy.

The invention discloses a logistics management system, which comprises an inventory commodity data storage module, a vehicle arrangement module and a route planning module. The inventory commodity data storage module is divided into a plurality of subcommodity type libraries according to different types of commodities, wherein each subcommodity type library stores weight, size and warehousing timedata of each commodity included therein; the vehicle arrangement module selects an available vehicle, the vehicle evaluation value p of which is the smallest, to arrange transport; and the route planning module carries out comparison on driving cost evaluation values W of x routes to select a route, the value W of which is the smallest. The system has the advantages of high intelligent degree, accurate and reliable analysis and can save logistics transportation cost.