1. A hybrid recommendation system comprising:
an offline testing module to offline test recommendation functions on a dataset and further to adjust the recommendation functions based on performance metrics determined from the offline testing;
an online testing module to facilitate online testing of the recommendation functions by an online testing system;
a recommendation engine executed by a processor to generate recommendation indices from a top-performing set of the recommendation functions determined based on the online and offline testing and store the recommendation indices in a data store;
a selection module to receive dynamic data identifying current activity of a user and perform a lookup on at least one of the recommendation indices to determine candidate recommendations; and
a filter module to select one or more of the candidate recommendations to present to the user based on a filter or rule.
2. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the offline testing module is to generate at least one of the recommendation functions from a training dataset determined from the dataset which is comprised of historic purchase data and to test the recommendation functions from a test dataset determined from the historic purchase data, wherein the training dataset and the test dataset include non-overlapping time periods for transactions for purchases.
3. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 2, wherein the offline testing module is to test the recommendation functions from the test dataset by determining recommendations by the recommendation functions based on information in the test dataset and measuring the performance metrics based on the recommendations.
4. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 3, wherein the performance metrics comprise recall and precision, wherein the recall performance metric is a ratio of items in a shopping cart that are matching recommendations and the precision performance metric is a percentage of the recommendations that were successful.
5. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 3, wherein the offline testing module is to compare the measured performance metrics to benchmarks and to vary an adjustable parameter of the at least one recommendation function if the measured performance metrics do not meet the benchmarks.
6. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the online testing system module is to compare measured metrics for a group of users to whom recommendations have been provided by the online testing system based on the recommendation functions to measured metrics for a control group to whom no recommendations are given, and to evaluate the recommendation functions based on the comparison.
7. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 6, wherein the metrics comprise a macro performance metric including at least one of average shopping cart size per customer, average sales per shopping cart, and average sales per customer and a micro performance metric including at least one items matching a recommendations for a customer and click-through rates for the items.
8. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 6, wherein the online testing module is to select the top-performing set of the recommendation functions from the recommendation functions that have the highest performance based on the evaluation of the metrics.
9. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the recommendation functions include at least one of a support scoring function, a support count scoring function, a confidence scoring function and a cosine metric scoring function.
10. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the recommendation functions include at least one function including parameters for price of items in a shopping cart and distance between a place where a purchase takes place and a location where a recommendation is going to be provided.
11. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the filter module is to apply real-time metrics and a rule to select the candidate recommendations to deliver to the user.
12. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the real-time metrics include current location of the user and recent purchases made by the user.
13. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the recommendations comprise recommendations for products to purchase or a coupon.
14. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the recommendation engine executes the recommendation functions to identify associations between sets of products and associations between users and products based on transaction data for product purchases, user demographics and product information, and the associations are stored in the indices.
15. The hybrid recommendation system of claim 1, wherein the indices are stored on a cluster of servers and map and reduce tasks are executed in parallel to perform the lookup on the indices.
16. A non-transitory computer readable medium including machine readable instructions that are executable by at least one processor to:
offline test recommendation functions on a dataset;
adjust the recommendation functions based on performance metrics determined from the testing;
online testing the recommendation functions by an online testing system;
generate recommendation indices from a top-performing set of the recommendation functions determined based on the online and offline testing;
store the recommendation indices in a data store;
receive dynamic data identifying current activity of a user;
perform a lookup on at least one of the recommendation indices to determine candidate recommendations; and
select one or more of the candidate recommendations to present to the user based on a filter or rule.
17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the machine readable instructions are to:
generate at least one of the recommendation functions from a training dataset determined from the dataset which is comprised of historic purchase data; and
the offline testing includes testing the recommendation functions from a test dataset determined from the historic purchase data, wherein the training dataset and the test dataset include non-overlapping time periods for transactions for purchases.
18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the machine readable instructions for the offline testing include machine readable instructions to determine recommendations by the recommendation functions based on information in the test dataset and measure the performance metrics based on the recommendations.
19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the machine readable instructions for the online testing include machine readable instructions to compare measured metrics for a group of users to whom recommendations have been provided by the online testing system based on the recommendation functions to measured metrics for a control group to whom no recommendations are given, and
evaluate the recommendation functions based on the comparison to select the top-performing set of the recommendation functions.
20. A hybrid recommendation system to determine recommendations to present to a user for online shopping, the system comprising:
an offline testing module to offline test recommendation functions on a dataset and further to adjust the recommendation functions based on performance metrics determined from the offline testing;
an online testing module to facilitate online testing of the recommendation functions by an online testing system;
a recommendation engine executed by a processor to generate recommendation indices from a top-performing set of the recommendation functions determined based on the online and offline testing and store the recommendation indices in a data store;
a selection module to receive dynamic data identifying current activity of a user, purchase history of the user and preferences for the user and to perform a lookup on at least one of the recommendation indices to determine candidate recommendations based on the current activity of the, the purchase history and the preferences, wherein the indices include product item-to-product item associations and customer-to-product associations; and
a filter module to select one or more of the candidate recommendations to present to the user based on a filter or rule.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. An electric connector comprising:
a tubular coupler having
a front end;
a rear end being opposite to the front end; and
two paths defined through the coupler for communicating the front end with the rear end; and
two metallic pipes respectively disposed in the two paths in the coupler and each pipe having
a tubular portion disposed in a corresponding path in the tubular coupler and having a first end and a second end opposite to the first end; a channel defined through the tubular portion and extending along a longitudinal axis of the tubular portion for communicating the first end with the second end of the tubular portion;
a baffle sheet formed on the second end of the tubular portion to shield the channel and to prevent the channel from plugging; and
a connecting sheet extending from the second end of the tubular portion and located adjacent to the baffle sheet.
2. The electric connector as claimed in claim 1, wherein each pipe has two wings protruding from two sides of the pipe for fixing the pipe in the corresponding path in the coupler.
3. The electric connector as claimed in claim 2, wherein each path has a shoulder annularly extending from an inner periphery of the path and located adjacent to the rear end; each of the two wings is elastic and gradually outwardly extends from the first end toward the second end of the pipe to abut against the shoulder and to prevent the pipe being detached from the rear end of the tubular coupler.
4. The electric connector as claimed in claim 3, wherein the rear end of the coupler is connected with a casing; the casing has a cavity, an electric conductor, two conducting blades and a cap; the cavity is defined in the casing and communicates with the two paths in the tubular coupler; the electric conductor is received in the cavity in the casing; the two conducting blades are mounted through the casing and are electrically connected with the electric conductor; the cap is mounted on the casing to close the cavity in the casing; the two connecting sheets of the two pipes are welded on and are electrically connected with the electric conductor.
5. The electric connector as claimed in claim 2, wherein the rear end of the coupler is connected with a casing; the casing has a cavity, an electric conductor, two conducting blades and a cap; the cavity is defined in the casing and communicates with the two paths in the tubular coupler; the electric conductor is received in the cavity in the casing; the two conducting blades are mounted through the casing and are electrically connected with the electric conductor; the cap is mounted on the casing to close the cavity in the casing; the two connecting sheets of the two pipes are welded on and are electrically connected with the electric conductor.
6. The electric connector as claimed in claim 1, wherein the rear end of the coupler is connected with a casing; the casing has a cavity, an electric conductor, two conducting blades and a cap; the cavity is defined in the casing and communicates with the two paths in the tubular coupler; the electric conductor is received in the cavity in the casing; the two conducting blades are mounted through the casing and are electrically connected with the electric conductor; the cap is mounted on the casing to close the cavity in the casing; the two connecting sheets of the two pipes are welded on and are electrically connected with the electric conductor.
7. The electric connector as claimed in claim 1, wherein the two connecting sheets of the two pipes are respectively electrically connected with two conducting wires; the tubular coupler is injection molded on the two pipes and the two conducting wires; the two channels in the first ends of the two pipes communicate with the front end of the tubular coupler and the two conducting wires protrude from the rear end of the tubular coupler.
8. The electric connector as claimed in claim 7, wherein each of the two connecting sheets has two fixing strips respectively extending from two sides of the connecting sheet for winding on and electrically connecting to a corresponding conducting wire.
9. The electric connector as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of the two connecting sheets has two fixing strips respectively extending from two sides of the connecting sheet.