System, method, software arrangement and computer-accessible medium for incorporating qualitative and quantitative information into an economic model

• US 20080046446A1
• Filed: 08/21/2006
• Published: 02/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: New York University
• Original Assignee: New York University
• Inventors: Sundararajan, Arun, Ghose, Anindya, Ipeirotis, Panagiotis G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,848,979 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/105 involving programming of a portable memory device, e.g. IC cards, "electronic purses"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

A system, method, software arrangement and computer-accessible medium can be provided for incorporating quantitative and qualitative information into an economic model is provided. An exemplary method for analyzing qualitative information associated with a characteristic of at least one entity based on associated quantitative information, includes, obtaining first information which contains at least in part a qualitative information relating to at least one of the at least one entity; determining second information associated with at least one attribute of the characteristic obtained from the first information; obtaining third information which contains at least in part quantitative information associated with at least one of at least one entity; and establishing fourth information as a function of the second information and the third information to determine which of at least one attribute affects the characteristic. For example, an observable economic variable can be characterized using numerical and qualitative information associated with one or more of the entities. The influence of the quantitative and qualitative information on the observable economic variable for a given entity relative to other entities may be determined using statistical regressions.

Claims

1. A method for analyzing qualitative information associated with a characteristic of at least one entity based on associated quantitative information, comprising:

obtaining first information which contains at least in part a qualitative information relating to at least one of the at least one entity;

determining second information associated with at least one attribute of the characteristic obtained from the first information;

obtaining third information which contains at least in part quantitative information associated with at least one of the at least one entity; and

establishing fourth information as a function of the second information and the third information to determine which of at least one attribute affects the characteristic.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the quantitative information relates to at least one of a price, information associated with revenue, information associated with profit, information associated with or an economic variable.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one entity comprises at least one of a seller, a buyer, a merchant, a firm, a product, a service, or a location.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the characteristic comprises at least one of a reputation, a quality level, a level of reliability, or a product or service characteristics.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of obtaining the first information comprises collecting a textual feedback associated to the at least one entity.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the step of determining the second information comprises parsing the textual feedback to identify the at least one attribute of the characteristic.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of parsing the textual feedback comprises retrieving nouns, noun phrases, verbs, and verbal phrases as dimensions of reputation of the least one entity.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the step of determining the second information comprises determining at least one dimension-modifier pair associated with the at least one attribute.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of determining the at least one dimension-modifier pair comprises retrieving adjectives and adjectival phrases modifying the nouns and the noun phrases as modifiers to the dimensions of the reputation.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising retrieving adverbs and adverbial phrases modifying the verbs and the verbal phrases as modifiers to the dimensions of the reputation.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of obtaining the third information comprises collecting a numerical feedback associated to the at least one entity, and identifying numerical variables adapted to form the numerical feedback.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the numerical variables comprise one or more of:

a product price, a sale price, a rating, a product condition, or a number of competitors.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of establishing the fourth information comprises establishing statistical regressions using the fourth information as a dependent variable, and the numerical variables and the at least one dimension-modifier pair as independent variables.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the fourth information is associated to the at least one entity and measured relative to further entities.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising analyzing results from a regression procedure associated with the third information to identify the at least one dimension-modifier pair that is statistically significant in affecting the fourth information.

16. A system for analyzing qualitative information associated with a characteristic of one or more entities based on associated quantitative information, comprising:

a storage arrangement having modules provided thereon which are capable of configuring a processing arrangement to;

obtain first information which contains at least in part qualitative information relating to at least one entity;

determine second information associated with at least one attribute of the characteristic obtained from the first information;

obtain third information which contains at least in part quantitative information associated with at least one of the at least one entity; and

establish fourth information as a function of the second information and the third information to determine which of the at least one attribute affect the characteristic.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the program modules configured to determine second information comprise a part-of-speech tagger module.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the program modules configured to determine second information further comprise a syntactic parser module.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the program modules configured to establish fourth information comprise statistical regression modules.

20. A software arrangement provided for analyzing qualitative information associated with a characteristic of one or more entities based on associated quantitative information, comprising:

a first module, which when executed by a processing arrangement causes the processing arrangement to obtain first information which contains at least in part qualitative information relating to at least one entity;

a second module, which when executed by a processing arrangement causes the processing arrangement to determine second information associated with at least one attribute of the characteristic obtained from the first information;

a third module, which when executed by a processing arrangement causes the processing arrangement to obtain third information which contains at least in part quantitative information associated with at least one of the least one entity; and

a fourth module, which when executed by a processing arrangement causes the processing arrangement to establish fourth information as a function of the second information and the third information to determine which of the at least one attribute affect the characteristic.

21. A computer-accessible medium which includes a set of instructions that are provided for analyzing qualitative information associated with a characteristic of one or more entities based on associated quantitative information, wherein, when a processing arrangement executes the instructions, the processing arrangement executes the steps comprising of:

obtaining first information which contains at least in part qualitative information relating to at least one entity;

determining second information associated with at least one attribute of the characteristic obtained from the first information;

obtaining third information which contains at least in part quantitative information associated with at least one of the at least one entity; and

establishing fourth information as a function of the second information and the third information to determine which of the at least one attribute affect the characteristic.