Researchers Submit Patent Application, “Personal Assistant Computing System Monitoring”, for Approval (USPTO 20190108911)

2019 APR 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Washington, D.C., NewsRx journalists report that a patent application by the inventors Anumalasetty, Kiran K. (Bangalore, IN); Ayyagari, Phani Kumar V.U. (Hyderabad, IN); Bhide, Manish A. (Hyderabad, IN), filed on June 1, 2018, was made available online on April 11, 2019.

The patent’s assignee is International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, New York, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “This disclosure relates generally to personal assistant computing systems, and more specifically to receiving sensor data input corresponding to one or more attributes of a user and outputting one or more results based on analyzing the sensor data.

“Personal assistant computing systems are configured to receive user input (e.g., a voice command) and provide a corresponding output response based on the input received. QA systems, for example, receive input questions, analyze them, and return applicable candidate answers in order to answer the input questions. QA systems and other personal assistant computing systems can rely on advanced computing techniques such as natural language processing in order to output a result response. QA systems may provide mechanisms for searching very large sources of content and analyze the content with regard to a given input question in order to determine an answer to the question. In some QA systems this may take the form of hypothesis generation, scoring, and ranking to determine a final set of one or more output answers. In order to search these very large sources of content and quickly process data, some personal assistant computing systems include dozens of servers, each of which include thousands of processor cores (e.g., 2, 870) and a large quantity of random access memory (RAM) (e.g., 16 terabytes). Such personal assistant computing systems can process around 500 gigabytes--the equivalent of a million books--per second.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent application, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “One or more embodiments are directed to a computer-implemented method, a computing system, and a computer program product. In some embodiments, a computing system is configured to process at least one voice input of a user and output an audio result. The computing system may also include at least one microphone configured to receive the voice input from the user. The computing system may further include at least one processor configured to at least interpret the voice input and generate the audio result. The computing system may also include an output speaker device configured to output the audio result. The audio result may include a description of whether one or more behavioral health states associated with the user have been detected.

“In some embodiments, a computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium having program code embodied therewith. The program code may be executable/readable by a computing device to receive a user request to download one or more health plugins. The one or more health plugins may correspond to one or more respective user health states that will be monitored. In response to the downloading of the one or more health plugins, one or more sensor devices may be registered. The one or more sensor devices may be for use in measuring one or more health attributes of the user. One or more output devices may also be registered. The one or more output devices may be activated in response to the one or more respective user health states being detected. The activation of the one or more output devices may help to remedy or cope with the one or more respective user health states that the user is experiencing.

“In yet other embodiments, a computer-implemented method comprises receiving, over one or more computing networks and from one or more devices, a first set of sensor data corresponding to one or more behavioral attributes of a user. It may be determined, via a processor-based inference technique and based on analyzing the first set of sensor data, that at least one of the one or more behavioral attributes indicates one or more emotional or mental states of the user. At least one trigger estimate may be generated, via a predictive technology method. The generating of the trigger estimate may include identifying one or more variables as at least one potential cause for why the user is in the one or more emotional or mental states.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions configured to be executed by a processor to cause the processor to perform a method comprising: downloading, in response to a user selection, a health plugin for a behavioral health application installed on the user’s mobile device, the selected health plugin configured for use with the behavioral health application in monitoring a first type of health state, the health plugin selected for download from among a plurality of health plugins that are each configured for use with the behavioral health application in monitoring a respective type of health state of a corresponding plurality of types of health states; registering, in response to the downloading and based on user health attributes that the selected health plugin is configured to monitor, a plurality of sensor devices to the behavioral health application, wherein the plurality of sensor devices include a microphone and an accelerometer; registering, in response to the downloading and based on remedial actions that the selected health plugin is configured to initiate, a plurality of output devices to the behavioral health application, wherein the plurality of output devices include a speaker and a treadmill; querying, by the behavioral health application, a health record service for historical data about the user that is associated with the health attributes that the selected health plugin is configured to monitor; generating, based on the queried historical data, a Bayesian network configured to utilize a directed acyclic graph to predict triggering causes of health event episodes of the user that are associated with the first type of health state; detecting, by the registered plurality of sensor devices, real-time information about the health attributes of the user, wherein the detecting the real-time information includes detecting, by the microphone, a volume level of the user’s voice and further includes detecting, by the accelerometer, movements of the user; determining, by the behavioral health application and based on the detected information, that a first health event episode is occurring; using the Bayesian network to predict a triggering cause of the first health episode; selecting, based on the predicted triggering cause, a particular remedial action; and initiating, by the behavioral health application, the selected remedial action by activating at least one of the plurality of registered output devices to generate outputs for completing the selected remedial action, wherein the activating the at least one of the plurality of registered devices includes causing the speaker to play a particular song and further includes causing the treadmill to become activated.”

For additional information on this patent application, see: Anumalasetty, Kiran K.; Ayyagari, Phani Kumar V.U.; Bhide, Manish A. Personal Assistant Computing System Monitoring. Filed June 1, 2018 and posted April 11, 2019. Patent URL: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220190108911%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20190108911&RS=DN/20190108911

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