TRADE SURVEILLANCE AND MONITORING SYSTEMS AND/OR METHODS

• US 20160048914A1
• Filed: 08/12/2014
• Published: 02/18/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Software AG
• Original Assignee: Software AG
• Inventors: SMITH, Gareth
• Granted Patent: US 10,380,687 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

Certain example embodiments relate to trade surveillance and monitoring systems and/or methods that take into account both subjective physical trader emotional attributes, and objective activity measures (e.g., trading activity, financial market activity, etc.). Detect scenarios (which may be thought of as logical sequences that define types or patterns used in detecting unwanted incidents) and context scenarios (which may be thought of as logical sequences that help provide additional context in the investigation stage of an incident) may be defined to take into account such information and be used in these and/or regards.

Claims

1. A surveillance system, comprising:

processing resources including at least one processor;

a first interface over which quantified representations of inferred emotional states of one or more individuals are electronically receivable; and

a second interface over which representations of activities undertaken by one or more individuals are electronically receivable;

wherein the processing resources are configured to at least;

dynamically perform a set of first pre-programmed scenarios in real-time as events continue to stream into the system via the first and second interfaces to determine whether an incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred, each said first scenario being implemented as a logic sequence that takes into account at least an aspect of a representation of an activity and/or an aspect of a representation of an inferred emotional state, at least one of said first scenarios taking into account both an aspect of a representation of an activity undertaken by at least one given individual and an aspect of a representation of an inferred emotional state of the at least one given individual; and

dynamically generate a real-time alert message and/or at least temporarily halt an action before it can be completed, in response to a determination that a given incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred with a likelihood greater than a predetermined threshold.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein representations of activities include trade-related activities and metadata associated therewith, the trade-related activities taking place on a regulated financial market.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein aspects of representations of activities include trade-related activities themselves and/or results from computations applied thereto.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein representations of inferred emotional states include quantifications of perceived subjective emotional feelings of individuals derived from a video of said individuals.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein aspects of representations of inferred emotional states include quantifications of perceived subjective emotional feelings including happiness, sadness, anger, shock, and/or agitation themselves, and/or results from computations applied thereto.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein computations applicable to representations of inferred emotional states in determining aspects thereof include emotional baseline and/or gradient calculations.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein computations applicable to representations of inferred emotional states in determining aspects thereof include aggregation calculations that include aspects of representations of two or more inferred emotional states.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein computations applicable to representations of inferred emotional states in determining aspects thereof include aggregation calculations that include aspects of representations of two or more inferred emotional states and corresponding weights applied thereto.

9. The system of claim 5, wherein at least some quantifications of at least some perceived subjective emotional feelings are provided on a scale of 0-100%.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing resources are further configured to at least perform, in dependence on a determination that a given incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred, a set of second pre-programmed scenarios to determine with greater certainty whether the given incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred, each said second scenario being implemented as a logic sequence, the first and second scenarios being different from one another.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein each said first scenario assigns a score to an incident, and further comprising:

a queue of incidents ordered by score, the queue having incidents added thereto responsive to performance of the first scenarios, wherein the second scenarios are performed on incidents stored in the queue, in order.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein representations are received for a plurality of individuals distributed across a plurality of institutions.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein at least one of the first and/or second scenarios further takes into account information gleaned from outside of the institutions.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the information gleaned from outside of the institutions includes quantified representations of inferred emotional states that are based on social media messages.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing resources are configured to at least temporarily halt a trade before the trade can be acted on by a financial market.

16. A method of conducting surveillance in connection with a computer system that monitors trades made by individuals in connection with at least one market, the method comprising:

receiving, over a first electronic interface of the computer system, quantified representations of inferred emotional states of one or more of the individuals;

receiving, over a second electronic interface of the computer system, representations of activities undertaken by one or more of the individuals;

dynamically performing, using at least one processor, a set of first predefined scenarios in real-time as events continue to stream in to the computer system via the first and second interfaces, to determine whether an illicit incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred in connection with the trades, each said first scenario being representable as program logic that includes at least an aspect of a representation of an activity and/or an aspect of a representation of an inferred emotional state, at least one of said first scenarios including both an aspect of a representation of an activity undertaken by at least one given individual and an aspect of a representation of an inferred emotional state of the at least one given individual, the first scenarios being stored to a non-transitory computer readable storage medium; and

dynamically generating a real-time electronic message in response to a determination that a given illicit incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred with a likelihood greater than a predetermined threshold.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein representations of inferred emotional states include quantifications of perceived subjective emotional feelings of individuals derived from a video of said individuals.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein:

aspects of representations of activities include trade-related activities themselves and/or results from computations applied thereto; and

wherein aspects of representations of inferred emotional states include quantifications of perceived subjective emotional feelings including happiness, sadness, anger, shock, and/or agitation themselves, and/or results from computations applied thereto.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein computations applicable to representations of inferred emotional states in determining aspects thereof include emotional baseline and/or gradient calculations and/or aggregation calculations that include aspects of representations of two or more inferred emotional states.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein at least some quantifications of at least some perceived subjective emotional feelings are provided on a scale of 0-100%.

21. The method of claim 16, further comprising performing, in dependence on a determination that a given illicit incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred, a set of second predefined scenarios to determine with greater certainty whether the given illicit incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred, each said second scenario being representable as program logic, the first and second scenarios being different from one another.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein representations are received for a plurality of individuals distributed across a plurality of institutions.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein at least one of the first and/or second scenarios further takes into account information gleaned from outside of the institutions.

24. The method of claim 16, further comprising using the electronic message to at least temporarily halt a trade associated with the illicit incident before the trade can be acted on.

25. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium tangibly storing instructions that, when executed, perform surveillance in connection with a computer system that monitors trades made by individuals in connection with at least one market by at least:

enabling reception, over a first electronic interface of the computer system, of quantified representations of inferred emotional states of one or more of the individuals;

enabling reception, over a second electronic interface of the computer system, of representations of activities undertaken by one or more of the individuals;

dynamically performing a set of first predefined scenarios in real-time as events continue to stream in to the computer system via the first and second interfaces, to determine whether an illicit incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred in connection with the trades, each said first scenario being representable as program logic that includes at least an aspect of a representation of an activity and/or an aspect of a representation of an inferred emotional state, at least one of said first scenarios including both an aspect of a representation of an activity undertaken by at least one given individual and an aspect of a representation of an inferred emotional state of the at least one given individual;

performing, in dependence on a determination that a given illicit incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred, a set of second predefined scenarios to determine with greater certainty whether the given illicit incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred, each said second scenario being representable as program logic, the first and second scenarios being different from one another; and

dynamically generating a real-time alert message and/or at least temporarily halting an action before it can be completed, in response to a determination that a given illicit incident might be occurring and/or might have occurred with certainty greater than a predefined threshold.

26. A trade surveillance system, comprising:

processing resources including at least one processor;

a first interface over which quantified representations of inferred subjective physical trader emotional attributes are electronically receivable; and

a second interface over which objective trade-related activity events and associated measures are electronically receivable;

wherein the processing resources are configured to at least;

perform in real-time first logical sequences that define respective types or patterns useful in detecting inappropriate trade-related incidents in connection with data types receivable over at least the first interface, using a complex event processing (CEP) engine;

perform in real-time second logical sequences that incorporate data types from the first and/or second interfaces to provide additional context in investigating incidents detected using the first logical sequences; and

generate real-time messages and/or trade interrupt signals, responsive to the performance of the first and/or second logical sequences.