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

• US 7,848,979 B2
• Filed: 08/21/2006
• Issued: 12/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/21/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: New York University
• Original Assignee: New York University
• Inventors: Sundararajan, Arun, Ghose, Anindya, Ipeirotis, Panagiotis G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dass; Harish T.
• Application Number:
  US11/507,809
• Publication Number:
  US 20080046446A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,569 Days
• Field of Search: 705/10, 705 35- 37, 705/400, 705/14, 705/51, 703/2, 709/225, 709/205
• US Class Current: 705/35
• 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 at least one entity; and

using a computing device, establishing fourth information as a function of the second information and the third information to determine at least one quantitative effect of the at least one attribute on the characteristic, wherein the at least one entity includes a plurality of entities, wherein at least one of the first information, the second information, or the third information relates to the entities, wherein the fourth information is established by a performance of a statistical aggregation procedure across the plurality of entities, wherein the second information comprises a plurality of dimension-modifier pairs each having a dimension and a modifier, wherein a numerical weight is associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair for a particular modifier relative to a particular dimension, and wherein the fourth information is further established using the weights.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the quantitative information relates to at least one of a price, a revenue, a profit, a demand 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, or a reliability.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the procedure 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 procedure 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 procedure 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 procedure 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 procedure 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 procedure 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 procedure 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. The method of claim 1, wherein the qualitative information comprises data associated with the sentiment information.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the qualitative information comprises data associated with the opinion information.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the qualitative information comprises data associated with the perspective information.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the qualitative information comprises data associated with the user experience information.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising at least one of displaying or storing the fourth information in a storage arrangement in at least one of a user-accessible format or a user-readable format.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the weights associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair is based on a relative position of a particular portion of the first information in relation to another portion of the first information.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the first information relates to a plurality of postings including textual feedback associated with a plurality of transactions between at least one buyer and at least one seller, wherein each particular posting relates to a particular one of the transactions, and wherein at least one of the weights associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair is based on a rank associated with each particular posting.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising determining a further numerical weight associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair using each particular dimension-modifier pair as a separate regressor, wherein each corresponding further numerical weight includes a measure of an increase or a decrease of a value of an economic variable for a particular seller relative to other sellers having the same dimension-modifier pair associated with the particular transaction, and wherein the fourth information is further established based on the further weights.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the economic variable includes a representation of pricing power.

25. 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 at least one quantitative effect of the at least one attribute on the characteristic, wherein the at least one entity includes a plurality of entities, wherein at least one of the first information, the second information, or the third information relates to the entities, wherein the fourth information is established by a performance of a statistical aggregation procedure across the plurality of entities, wherein the second information comprises a plurality of dimension-modifier pairs each having a dimension and a modifier, wherein a numerical weight is associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair for a particular modifier relative to a particular dimension, and wherein the fourth information is further established using the weights.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the program modules configured to determine second information comprise a part-of-speech tagger module.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the program modules configured to determine second information further comprise a syntactic parser module.

28. The system of claim 25, wherein the program modules configured to establish fourth information comprise statistical regression modules.

29. The system of claim 25, wherein at least one of the weights associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair is based on a relative position of a particular portion of the first information in relation to another portion of the first information.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the first information relates to a plurality of postings including textual feedback associated with a plurality of transactions between at least one buyer and at least one seller, wherein each particular posting relates to a particular one of the transactions, and wherein at least one of the weights associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair is based on a rank associated with each particular posting.

31. The system of claim 30, wherein the modules are further capable of configuring the processing arrangement to determine a further numerical weight associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair using each particular dimension-modifier pair as a separate regressor, wherein each corresponding further numerical weight includes a measure of an increase or a decrease of a value of an economic variable for a particular seller relative to other sellers having the same dimension-modifier pair associated with the particular transaction, and wherein the fourth information is further established based on the further weights.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein the economic variable includes a representation of pricing power.

33. 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 at least one quantitative effect of the at least one attribute on the characteristic, wherein the at least one entity includes a plurality of entities, wherein at least one of the first information, the second information, or the third information relates to the entities, wherein the fourth information is established by a performance of a statistical aggregation procedure across the plurality of entities, wherein the second information comprises a plurality of dimension-modifier pairs each having a dimension and a modifier, wherein a numerical weight is associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair for a particular modifier relative to a particular dimension, and wherein the fourth information is further established using the weights.

34. The software arrangement of claim 33, wherein at least one of the weights associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair is based on a relative position of a particular portion of the first information in relation to another portion of the first information.

35. The software arrangement of claim 34, wherein the first information relates to a plurality of postings including textual feedback associated with a plurality of transactions between at least one buyer and at least one seller, wherein each particular posting relates to a particular one of the transactions, and wherein at least one of the weights associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair is based on a rank associated with each particular posting.

36. The software arrangement of claim 35, further comprising a further module, which when executed by the processing arrangement further causes the processing arrangement to determine a further numerical weight associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair using each particular dimension-modifier pair as a separate regressor, wherein each corresponding further numerical weight includes a measure of an increase or a decrease of a value of an economic variable for a particular seller relative to other sellers having the same dimension-modifier pair associated with the particular transaction, and wherein the fourth information is further established based on the further weights.

37. The software arrangement of claim 36, wherein the economic variable includes a representation of pricing power.

38. 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 procedures 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 at least one quantitative effect of the at least one attribute on the characteristic, wherein the at least one entity includes a plurality of entities, wherein at least one of the first information, the second information, or the third information relates to the entities, wherein the fourth information is established by a performance of a statistical aggregation procedure across the plurality of entities, wherein the second information comprises a plurality of dimension-modifier pairs each having a dimension and a modifier, wherein a numerical weight is associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair for a particular modifier relative to a particular dimension, and wherein the fourth information is further established using the weights.

39. The computer-accessible medium of claim 38, wherein at least one of the weights associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair is based on a relative position of a particular portion of the first information in relation to another portion of the first information.

40. The computer-accessible medium of claim 39, wherein the first information relates to a plurality of postings including textual feedback associated with a plurality of transactions between at least one buyer and at least one seller, wherein each particular posting relates to a particular one of the transactions, and wherein at least one of the weights associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair is based on a rank associated with each particular posting.

41. The computer-accessible medium of claim 40, wherein, when the processing arrangement executes the instructions, the processing arrangement further executes the procedures further comprising determining a further numerical weight associated with each particular dimension-modifier pair using each particular dimension-modifier pair as a separate regressor, wherein each corresponding further numerical weight includes a measure of an increase or a decrease of a value of an economic variable for a particular seller relative to other sellers having the same dimension-modifier pair associated with the particular transaction, and wherein the fourth information is further established based on the further weights.

42. The computer-accessible medium of claim 41, wherein the economic variable includes a representation of pricing power.