阅读说明：本技术 一种定制客运路线的推荐方法、系统、设备及存储介质 (Recommendation method, system, equipment and storage medium for customized passenger transport route ) 是由 李海波 魏耿乾 许思娜 于 2021-09-16 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明涉及一种定制客运路线方法、系统、设备及存储街介质。属于交通运输管理技术领域,其方法包括获取推荐站点集合S；确定所述站点集合S中的终点；以所述终点为圆心,以α为圆心角划分m个扇形区域,并将所述站点集合S中的除终点外的其余推荐站点划分成m个集合K；以二叉树搜索方法和递归扩展扇形区域方法确定所述m个集合K中的必经站点；将所述必经站点按搜索顺序排序,得到m条客运路线。用以解决传统方法中扇形搜索范围越来越大造成推荐效果变差的问题。(The invention relates to a method, a system, equipment and a storage street medium for customizing a passenger transport route. The method comprises the steps of obtaining a recommended site set S; determining an end point in the site set S; dividing m fan-shaped areas by taking the end point as a circle center and alpha as a circle center angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites except the end point in the site set S into m sets K; determining indispensable stations in the m sets K by a binary tree search method and a recursive expansion sector area method; and sequencing the necessary stations according to the searching sequence to obtain m passenger transport routes. The method is used for solving the problem that the recommendation effect is poor due to the fact that the sector search range is larger and larger in the traditional method.)

1. A method of customizing a passenger transportation route, comprising:

acquiring a recommended site set S;

determining an end point in the site set S;

dividing m fan-shaped areas by taking the end point as a circle center and alpha as a circle center angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites except the end point in the site set S into m sets K;

determining indispensable stations in the m sets K by a binary tree search method and a recursive expansion sector area method;

and sequencing the necessary stations according to the searching sequence to obtain m passenger transport routes.

2. The customized passenger transportation route method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the set of recommended stations S comprises:

acquiring longitude and latitude historical data of a boarding place of a passenger in a time period a;

processing the longitude and latitude historical data by using a hierarchical clustering algorithm to obtain n clusters;

setting the central position of each cluster as a recommended site to obtain n recommended sites;

defining n recommended sites as elements in the recommended site set S to obtain the recommended site set S.

3. The customized passenger transportation route method of claim 1, wherein the determining the destination in the set of stations S comprises:

acquiring longitude and latitude data of a get-off place of a passenger;

sequentially calculating distance values between the longitude and latitude data of the get-off place and the longitude and latitude data of n recommended sites in the site set S;

and setting the recommended station with the minimum distance value as the terminal.

4. The customized passenger transportation route method according to claim 1, wherein the dividing the m fan-shaped areas with the end point as a center and the α as a center angle and dividing the rest recommended stations except the end point in the station set S into m sets K comprises:

setting a set G as a set containing all recommended sites except the terminal in the site set S;

setting a recommended site which is farthest from the end point in the set G as a starting point;

determining a sector area by taking the connecting line of the starting point and the end point as a central line of the sector, taking the end point as a top point of the sector and taking alpha as a central angle of the sector;

adding recommended sites in sector area to set K_iIn the formula, G is G-K_i，i＝i+1；

And returning to the step of setting the recommended site farthest from the end point in the set G as the starting point until the set G is an empty set, and obtaining m sets K.

5. The customized passenger transportation route method of claim 1, wherein the binary tree search method and the recursive expanding sector area method comprise:

set destination as root node R, for set K_iThe number of recommended sites in (1) is judged, and a binary tree T is established_iA model;

if set K_iIf the recommended sites in the binary tree are less than two, the rest sites are directly used as the essential sites of the current root node R, and the binary tree T_iFinishing the establishment;

if set K_iThe recommended sites in (1) are more than or equal to two, and the combination K is selected_iTwo recommended sites with the middle distance to the current root node R, which are sequentially marked as P₁、P₂Calculating a vectorAndthe value of the included angle therebetween;

if the included angle value is larger than alpha, let K_i＝K_i-{P₁}，R＝P₁(ii) a Re-determining m sets K by taking the root node R as a terminal point to obtain a new set K_iReturning to the step of setting the end point as the root node R, and for the set K_iThe number of recommended sites in (1) is judged, and a binary tree T is established_iModel ";

if the included angle value is less than or equal to alpha, setting P₁For the mandatory site of the current root node R, and order K_i＝K_i-{P₁}，R＝P₁Returning to the step of' if set K_iIf the recommended sites in the binary tree are less than two, the rest sites are directly used as the essential sites of the current root node R, and the binary tree T_iAnd after the establishment is finished ", obtaining the compulsory sites in the m sets K.

6. The customized passenger transportation route method of claim 1, wherein the value of α is 15 degrees.

7. The customized passenger routing method of claim 2, wherein the value of n comprises 30, 20, or 10.

8. A customized passenger routing system, comprising:

a recommended site acquisition unit, configured to acquire a recommended site set S;

an end point determining unit, configured to determine an end point in the site set S;

the recommended site dividing unit is used for dividing m fan-shaped areas by taking the end point as a circle center and alpha as a central angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites except the end point in the site set S into m sets K;

a must-pass site determination unit, configured to determine a must-pass site in the m sets K by using a binary tree search method and a recursive extended sector area method;

and the passenger transport route acquisition unit is used for sequencing the necessary stations according to the search sequence to obtain m passenger transport routes.

9. A customized passenger routing device, comprising: memory, processor and computer program stored in the memory and running on the processor, characterized in that the steps of the method according to any of claims 1 to 7 are implemented when the computer program is executed by the processor.

10. A computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, which, when being executed by a processor, carries out the steps of the method according to any one of claims 1 to 7.

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of transportation management, in particular to a method, a system, equipment and a storage medium for customizing a passenger transport route.

Background

In order to reduce operation cost and improve service quality, inter-city network car booking is generally provided with a plurality of fixed stations in a starting city to form a passenger transport line and deliver passengers at regular time. The stations mostly select positions with larger passenger flow, and the sequencing of the stations is the route for the operating vehicles to pick up passengers, and the stations usually drive along the shortest route towards the entrance of the expressway. Therefore, the shortest route and no detour become the basic requirements of route planning and also become the main problems of customizing passenger transport route recommendations.

Through a data mining method, an area with more concentrated passenger boarding places can be obtained, stations are set, and then an optimized recommended route is obtained according to a certain search strategy. In the existing method, an intelligent algorithm cannot guarantee to obtain an optimal solution, even a large number of optimal solutions can be lost, an exhaustion method can obtain the optimal solution, but the time consumption is long, and a sector area segmentation searching method is difficult to guarantee that a line does not detour due to the fact that the range of a sector opening is larger and larger.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a method, a system, equipment and a storage medium for customizing a passenger transport route, wherein through recursive expansion of a sector area, the method can automatically subdivide a search area, and solve the problem that the recommendation effect is poor due to the fact that the sector search range is larger and larger in the traditional method.

In order to achieve the purpose, the invention provides the following scheme:

one aspect of the invention provides a method for customizing a passenger transport route, which comprises the following steps:

acquiring a recommended site set S;

determining an end point in the site set S;

dividing m fan-shaped areas by taking the end point as a circle center and alpha as a circle center angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites except the end point in the site set S into m sets K;

determining indispensable stations in the m sets K by a binary tree search method and a recursive expansion sector area method;

and sequencing the necessary stations according to the searching sequence to obtain m passenger transport routes.

Optionally, the obtaining of the recommended site set S includes:

acquiring longitude and latitude historical data of a boarding place of a passenger in a time period a;

processing the longitude and latitude historical data by using a hierarchical clustering algorithm to obtain n clusters;

setting the central position of each cluster as a recommended site to obtain n recommended sites;

defining n recommended sites as elements in the recommended site set S to obtain the recommended site set S.

Optionally, the determining an end point in the site set S includes:

acquiring longitude and latitude data of a get-off place of a passenger;

sequentially calculating distance values between the longitude and latitude data of the get-off place and the longitude and latitude data of n recommended sites in the site set S;

and setting the recommended station with the minimum distance value as the terminal.

Optionally, dividing m sector areas by taking the endpoint as a circle center and α as a circle center angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites in the site set S except the endpoint into m sets K, including:

setting a set G as a set containing all recommended sites except the terminal in the site set S;

setting a recommended site which is farthest from the end point in the set G as a starting point;

determining a sector area by taking the connecting line of the starting point and the end point as a central line of the sector, taking the end point as a top point of the sector and taking alpha as a central angle of the sector;

adding recommended sites in sector area to set K_iIn the formula, G is G-K_i，i＝i+1；

And returning to the step of setting the recommended site farthest from the end point in the set G as the starting point until the set G is an empty set, and obtaining m sets K.

Optionally, the method for searching in a binary tree and recursively expanding a sector area includes:

set destination as root node R, for set K_iThe number of recommended sites in (1) is judged, and a binary tree T is established_iA model;

if set K_iIf the recommended sites in the binary tree are less than two, the rest sites are directly used as the essential sites of the current root node R, and the binary tree T_iFinishing the establishment;

if set K_iPush inSelecting the combination K when the recommended sites are more than or equal to two_iTwo recommended sites with the middle distance to the current root node R, which are sequentially marked as P₁、P₂Calculating a vectorAndthe value of the included angle therebetween;

if the included angle value is larger than alpha, let K_i＝K_i-{P₁}，R＝P₁(ii) a Re-determining m sets K by taking the root node R as a terminal point to obtain a new set K_iReturning to the step of setting the end point as the root node R, and for the set K_iThe number of recommended sites in (1) is judged, and a binary tree T is established_iModel ";

if the included angle value is less than or equal to alpha, setting P₁For the mandatory site of the current root node R, and order K_i＝K_i-{P₁}，R＝P₁Returning to the step of' if set K_iIf the recommended sites in the binary tree are less than two, the rest sites are directly used as the essential sites of the current root node R, and the binary tree T_iAnd after the establishment is finished ", obtaining the compulsory sites in the m sets K.

Optionally, the value of α is 15 degrees.

Optionally, the value of n includes 30, 20 or 10.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a customized passenger transportation route system, comprising:

a recommended site acquisition unit, configured to acquire a recommended site set S;

an end point determining unit, configured to determine an end point in the site set S;

the recommended site dividing unit is used for dividing m fan-shaped areas by taking the end point as a circle center and alpha as a central angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites except the end point in the site set S into m sets K;

a must-pass site determination unit, configured to determine a must-pass site in the m sets K by using a binary tree search method and a recursive extended sector area method;

and the passenger transport route acquisition unit is used for sequencing the necessary stations according to the search sequence to obtain m passenger transport routes.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a customized passenger transportation route apparatus, comprising: memory, processor and computer program stored in the memory and running on the processor, characterized in that the steps of the method as customized passenger transport route are implemented when the computer program is executed by the processor.

In another aspect, the invention also provides a computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored which, when being executed by a processor, carries out the steps of the method, such as customizing a passenger transport route.

According to the specific embodiment provided by the invention, the invention discloses the following technical effects:

the invention provides a method, a system, equipment and a storage medium for customizing a passenger transport route. The method comprises the steps of obtaining a recommended site set S; determining an end point in the site set S; dividing m fan-shaped areas by taking the end point as a circle center and alpha as a circle center angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites except the end point in the site set S into m sets K; determining indispensable stations in the m sets K by a binary tree search method and a recursive expansion sector area method; and sequencing the necessary stations according to the searching sequence to obtain m passenger transport routes. Through the recursive expansion of the sector area, the method can automatically re-divide the search area, and solves the problem that the recommendation effect is poor due to the fact that the sector search range is larger and larger.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings needed in the embodiments will be briefly described below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious for those skilled in the art to obtain other drawings without creative efforts. The following drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a customized passenger transportation route method provided in embodiment 1 of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a principle of dividing a sector area according to embodiment 1 of the present invention;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a binary tree search method according to embodiment 1 of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a binary tree search method and a sector recursive expansion method according to embodiment 1 of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a site distribution location provided in embodiment 1 of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating a principle of establishing a binary tree according to embodiment 1 of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of the customized passenger transportation route equipment provided in embodiment 3 of the present invention.

Description of the symbols: 1 to 13 represent recommended sites, and 14 represents an end point.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be obtained by a person skilled in the art without any inventive step based on the embodiments of the present invention, are within the scope of the present invention.

As used in this disclosure and in the claims, the terms "a," "an," "the," and/or "the" are not intended to be inclusive in the singular, but rather are inclusive in the plural, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. In general, the terms "comprises" and "comprising" merely indicate that steps and elements are included which are explicitly identified, that the steps and elements do not form an exclusive list, and that a method or apparatus may include other steps or elements.

Although the present invention makes various references to certain modules in a system according to embodiments of the present invention, any number of different modules may be used and run on a user terminal and/or server. The modules are merely illustrative and different aspects of the systems and methods may use different modules.

Flow charts are used in the present invention to illustrate the operations performed by a system according to embodiments of the present invention. It should be understood that the preceding or following operations are not necessarily performed in the exact order in which they are performed. Rather, the various steps may be processed in reverse order or simultaneously, as desired. Meanwhile, other operations may be added to the processes, or a certain step or several steps of operations may be removed from the processes.

The invention aims to provide a method, a system, equipment and a storage medium for customizing a passenger transport route, which are used for solving the technical problem of poor recommendation effect caused by the fact that the sector search range is larger and larger in the traditional method.

In order to make the aforementioned objects, features and advantages of the present invention comprehensible, embodiments accompanied with figures are described in further detail below.

Example 1

As shown in fig. 1, the present embodiment provides a method for customizing a passenger transportation route, which specifically includes:

s1: and acquiring a recommended site set S.

Specifically, the obtaining of the recommended site set S includes:

s11: acquiring longitude and latitude historical data of a boarding place of a passenger in a time period a;

s12: processing the longitude and latitude historical data by using a hierarchical clustering algorithm to obtain n clusters;

s13: setting the central position of each cluster as a recommended site to obtain n recommended sites;

s14: defining n recommended sites as elements in the recommended site set S to obtain the recommended site set S.

Wherein, the value of alpha is 15 degrees, the radius of the cluster is 1 kilometer, and n is selected according to the following rules: n is 30 (prefecture city), n is 20 (provincial city), n is 10 (prefecture city), and n is 5 (county city); each cluster center is a recommended station, and n stations in the time period are obtained in total and are recorded as a set S { S1, S2, …, sn }.

S2: and determining an end point in the site set S. The method specifically comprises the following steps:

s21: acquiring longitude and latitude data of a get-off place of a passenger;

s22: sequentially calculating distance values between the longitude and latitude data of the get-off place and the longitude and latitude data of n recommended sites in the site set S;

s23: and setting the recommended station with the minimum distance value as the terminal.

As shown in fig. 2, the principle of dividing the sector area includes the following specific steps:

s3: and dividing m fan-shaped areas by taking the end point as a circle center and alpha as a circle center angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites except the end point in the site set S into m sets K. The method specifically comprises the following steps:

s31: setting a set G as a set containing all recommended sites except the terminal in the site set S;

s32: setting a recommended site which is farthest from the end point in the set G as a starting point;

s33: determining a sector area by taking the connecting line of the starting point and the end point as a central line of the sector, taking the end point as a top point of the sector and taking alpha as a central angle of the sector;

s34: adding recommended sites in sector area to set K_iIn the formula, G is G-K_i，i＝i+1；

S35: and returning to the step S32 until the set G is an empty set, and obtaining m sets K.

S4: and determining the mandatory sites in the m sets K by a binary tree search method and a recursive expanding sector area method. Fig. 3 and 4 show the principles of a binary tree search method and a recursive sector area expansion method, and the processing steps specifically include:

s41: set destination as root node R, for set K_iThe number of recommended sites in (1) is judged, and a binary tree T is established_iA model;

s42: if set K_iIf the recommended sites in the binary tree are less than two, the rest sites are directly used as the essential sites of the current root node R, and then the binary treeT_iFinishing the establishment;

s43: if set K_iThe recommended sites in (1) are more than or equal to two, and the combination K is selected_iTwo recommended sites with the middle distance to the current root node R, which are sequentially marked as P₁、P₂Calculating a vectorAndthe value of the included angle therebetween;

s44: if the included angle value is larger than alpha, let K_i＝K_i-{P₁}，R＝P₁(ii) a Re-determining m sets K by taking the root node R as a terminal point to obtain a new set K_iReturning to step S41;

s45: if the included angle value is less than or equal to alpha, setting P₁For the mandatory site of the current root node R, and order K_i＝K_i-{P₁}，R＝P₁Returning to step S42, the mandatory sites in m sets K are obtained.

S5: and sequencing the necessary stations according to the searching sequence to obtain m passenger transport routes.

Selecting longitude and latitude data of a certain time period of a city as historical data, clustering the longitude and latitude of passengers getting on the bus to obtain a plurality of clusters, wherein the cluster center is a recommended station; determining a destination, typically a station closest to the highway; determining a starting point, namely a point which is farthest from the end point in a straight line; selecting a central angle degree alpha to construct a sector area by taking the end point as a circle center and taking the end point to the starting point as a central line; connecting stations in the sector area according to a shortest path principle, firstly, starting from an end point, solving a must-pass point by adopting a binary tree, when a first non-must-pass point is encountered, expanding a new sector area by taking the last must-pass point as a circle center, alpha as a circle center angle number and the farthest point from the circle center to the rest points in the sector area as a central line, and repeating the path searching process until all the points are divided into different sector areas. The method only depends on the satellite positioning device to obtain the getting-on longitude and latitude information, has strong universality and can be applied to the field of urban customized passenger line recommendation.

The execution flow of the method is demonstrated by taking the network appointment car order data from Fuzhou to Tankan as an example, and 2495 orders are taken as historical data in a daily range of 08:00-12:00 in 2019-07-01 to 2019-09-01.

And clustering the 2495 boarding places by taking the spatial distance as a clustering distance and 2 kilometers as a radius, and selecting the first 15 largest clusters after clustering to obtain a station set S, wherein the station longitude and latitude, the historical number of boarding people, the cluster radius and the number of vehicles are shown in the table 1.

TABLE 1

And selecting longitude and latitude of the get-off place of another city as (119.80136,25.50723), and comparing to obtain the recommended site with the number 14 as the terminal in the site set S.

As shown in fig. 5, a sector center line is connected according to the station set S and the end point, and then a sector area is divided by using 15 degrees as a sector angle degree, so that the station set S is divided into six groups as shown in table 2:

TABLE 2

Group number	Sector center line	Site numbering within a group
			1	6-14	6,2,5,8,11
2	4-14	4，9
			3	13-14	13，10
4	1-14	1，0，12
			5	3-14	3
6	7-14	7

As shown in fig. 6, binary trees are respectively established for different station groups, wherein tree nodes are indispensable stations of the passenger transportation route. After sorting tree nodes, 9 lines can be obtained as shown in table 3:

TABLE 3

And visualizing the result of the table 3 to obtain the customized passenger transport route in the map.

According to the method for customizing the passenger transport route, provided by the embodiment, through the recursive expansion of the sector area, the search area can be automatically subdivided, and the problem that the recommendation effect is poor due to the fact that the sector search range is larger and larger is solved. The method only relies on the satellite positioning device to obtain the longitude and latitude information of the getting-on bus, has strong universality and can be applied to the field of urban customized passenger line recommendation.

Example 2

The embodiment provides a customized passenger transport route system applying the method of the embodiment 1, which comprises the following steps:

a recommended site acquisition unit, configured to acquire a recommended site set S;

an end point determining unit, configured to determine an end point in the site set S;

the recommended site dividing unit is used for dividing m fan-shaped areas by taking the end point as a circle center and alpha as a central angle, and dividing the rest recommended sites except the end point in the site set S into m sets K;

a must-pass site determination unit, configured to determine a must-pass site in the m sets K by using a binary tree search method and a recursive extended sector area method;

and the passenger transport route acquisition unit is used for sequencing the necessary stations according to the search sequence to obtain m passenger transport routes.

Example 3

As shown in fig. 7, the present embodiment provides a customized passenger transportation route device, which specifically includes:

a memory N1, a processor N2, and a computer program N3 stored in the memory and running on the processor.

The steps of the customized passenger transport route method as in embodiment 1 are implemented when the computer program N3 is executed by the processor N2.

Furthermore, the method according to an embodiment of the invention may also be implemented by means of the architecture of the device shown in fig. 7. Fig. 7 shows the architecture of the device. As shown in fig. 7, the device may include a memory N1, a processor N2, a computer program N3 stored in the memory and running on the processor, etc., and may also include other hardware devices. The memory N1 in the identification device may be a ROM, a usb disk, a mechanical hard disk, a solid state disk, or a removable hard disk. Various data or files and program instructions executed by processor N2 may be stored for use in the processing and/or communication of the customized passenger transportation route method provided by the present invention. Of course, the architecture shown in fig. 7 is only exemplary, and when different devices are implemented, one or at least two components in the identification device shown in fig. 7 may be omitted or added to the identification device of fig. 7 according to actual needs, and specific types of components include, but are not limited to, the hardware described above.

Example 4

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer readable instructions which, when executed by a computer, can perform the method as described above.

Similarly, the storage medium may be a ROM, a usb disk, a mechanical hard disk, a solid state hard disk, or a removable hard disk. The readable state can be read and operated by any one or more mobile terminals of a computer, a mobile phone, a tablet computer and the like. Of course, this embodiment merely provides an infrastructure, and one or at least two components are added to the storage medium of fig. 7, and the specific types of the components include, but are not limited to, the hardware described above. Any hardware or software that can implement one or more of the steps of the method of example 1 is within the scope of the present invention.

Portions of the technology may be considered "articles" or "articles of manufacture" in the form of executable code and/or associated data, which may be embodied or carried out by a computer readable medium. Tangible, non-transitory storage media may include memory or storage for use by any computer, processor, or similar device or associated module. For example, various semiconductor memories, tape drives, disk drives, or any similar device capable of providing a storage function for software.

All or a portion of the software may sometimes communicate over a network, such as the internet or other communication network. Such communication may load software from one computer device or processor to another. For example: from a server or host computer of the video object detection device to a hardware platform of a computer environment, or other computer environment implementing a system, or similar functionality related to providing information needed for object detection. Thus, another medium capable of transferring software elements may also be used as a physical connection between local devices, such as optical, electrical, electromagnetic waves, etc., propagating through cables, optical cables, air, etc. The physical medium used for the carrier wave, such as an electric, wireless or optical cable or the like, may also be considered as the medium carrying the software. As used herein, unless limited to a tangible "storage" medium, other terms referring to a computer or machine "readable medium" refer to media that participate in the execution of any instructions by a processor.

The present invention has been described using specific terms to describe embodiments of the invention. Such as "first/second embodiment," "an embodiment," and/or "some embodiments" means a feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with at least one embodiment of the invention. Therefore, it is emphasized and should be appreciated that two or more references to "an embodiment" or "one embodiment" or "an alternative embodiment" in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, some of the features, structures, or characteristics of one or more embodiments of the present invention may be combined as suitable.

Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that aspects of the invention may be illustrated and described as embodied in several forms or conditions of patentability, including any new and useful combination of processes, machines, manufacture, or materials, or any new and useful improvement thereof. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may be embodied entirely in hardware, entirely in software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or in a combination of hardware and software. The above hardware or software may be referred to as "data block," module, "" engine, "" unit, "" component, "or" system. Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may be represented as a computer product, including computer readable program code, embodied in one or more computer readable media.

Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

The foregoing is illustrative of the present invention and is not to be construed as limiting thereof. Although a few exemplary embodiments of this invention have been described, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that many modifications are possible in the exemplary embodiments without materially departing from the novel teachings and advantages of this invention. Accordingly, all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of this invention as defined in the claims. It is to be understood that the foregoing is illustrative of the present invention and is not to be construed as limited to the specific embodiments disclosed, and that modifications to the disclosed embodiments, as well as other embodiments, are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. The invention is defined by the claims and their equivalents.