Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
1997-07-02
2002-01-22
Stamber, Eric W. (Department: 2765)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
C700S108000, C434S238000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06341267
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There is a tremendous need for more reliable, comprehensive and generalizable measures of individual's behavioral capabilities and better techniques for their attainment. Means to measure the status and changes in status of behavioral capabilities are required to evaluate the effects of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent every year for education, training, therapy and medical services in the United States alone. Employers in business, government and other kind organizations evaluate staff and new hire capabilities attempting to increase successes and avoid failures. Individuals pursuing a desired lifestyle inevitably confront the need to assure being capable to undertake vocational, social and community responsibilities. The rise and fall of businesses, nation powers and of entire civilizations has been consistently attributed to changes in the relative match between required and available capabilities. In these times, human capabilities, rather than ownership of land or military might, is projected to be the basis of future power and wealth.
Available measures of behavioral capabilities inadequately meet this need. They are unreliable, depending on uncontrolled subjective judgements. They are irrelevant to the capabilities actually required, using test scores based on different skills. They are not comprehensive, only addressing some of the types of required capabilities and, therefore of very limited potential validity as predictors of success. They are misleading and destructive, indicating an individual's deviation from normative behavior rather than the status of an individual's capability attainment. They are often useless, not providing information on individual's status on the path to a needed capability. And, for all of these reasons, decisions based on available measures effecting opportunity denials to individuals are often unfair and unjust.
It is common in the prior art to evaluate and enhance behavioral capabilities through measurement methods, systems and apparatuses. U.S. Pat. No. 5,365,425 issued to Torma discloses a method and system for measuring management effectiveness. U.S. Pat. No. 5,344,324 issued to O'Donnell discloses a method and apparatus for testing capability to perform tasks requiring switching of skills. U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,399 issued to Ryan describes a method for evaluating and teaching motivation skills. U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,416 issued to Sclan discloses a process for the adaptation of cognitive and psychological tests for use in the assessment of dementia patients. U.S. Pat. No. 4,770,636 issued to Buschke discloses instrumentation for measuring memory and concentration. U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,140 issued to Rimland discloses a hand held apparatus and method to measure reaction time and awareness. U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,818 issued to Von Fellenberg discloses a self-assessment method and apparatus for measuring relative disposition towards particular tasks. It is apparent from even this brief summary of prior art and confirmed by more extensive search by the inventor that available measures of behavioral capabilities address disparate dimensions and that there is no existing overall typology of capabilities to operationally define the boundaries of a specific behavioral capability dimension or the necessary and sufficient set of capability requirements for a particular role.
It is also common in the prior art to use algorithms to match sets of data involving non-standardized dimensions. U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,278 issued to Graybill uses an algorithm to match sets of data for compression. An algorithm is a specific numerical process comprising a series of operations for arriving at a useful outcome. U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,299 issued to Atkinson discloses an algorithm to compare common and uncommon bits of video data for compression. U.S. Pat. No. 5,323,309 issued to Taylor discloses an algorithm for comparing motion data to switch data sampling rates. U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,633 issued to Geyer discloses an algorithm and device for generating a topology map. U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,558 issued to Acorn discloses an algorithm for prescribing an optimum exercise regimen. U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,829 issued to Dunlap discloses an algorithm for comparing current and previous addresses of network targets. There is no known prior art, however, using an algorithm for comparing data for the evaluation of behavioral capabilities.
Current means for the evaluation and control of individuals' attainment of behavioral capabilities depend on subjective judgements and psychological testing. Subjective judgements are inherently unreliable and depend on the skills of the person exercising the judgement and his or her understanding of the individual being evaluated and of specific role requirements, all capabilities, in themselves, requiring more reliable, comprehensive and generalizable measures and better techniques for attainment. Psychological testing largely depends on comparing an individual's score with norms of scores on the identical test obtained from some reference sample of individuals, inherently involving the issue of the relevancy of the test score to the capabilities required for a specific role and situation. Also, current techniques employed in psychological testing do not address all the types of behavioral capabilities required in most roles and, therefore, are of very limited potential validity for predicting success or failure in most roles.
There are no known generalizable means, for example, for measuring the enabling aesthetic capabilities that are required in every person for their own artful living and for many vocational responsibilities. Effective personal, family, organizational and national policies increasingly involve complex trade-offs requiring strategic capabilities for which there are no existing generalizable measurement means. Families, communities and nations are struggling with the destructive effects of inadequate means to evaluate and foster attainment of the ethical and moral capabilities that enable individuals to enter and maintain trusting relationships. And, ultimately, the success of nations and civilizations depend on individual abilities to adopt and contribute to values based on presently unmeasured spiritual attainments.
Existing tests of individual capabilities have been developed around the limited needs and resources of particular users. Intelligence tests were originally developed to identify individuals with below normal mental abilities for admittance to mental institutions. Subsequently, the use of intelligence tests were expanded to identify individuals with minimum or superior mental abilities required for success in schools, military service and jobs. As the single score on intelligence tests was found to mask the status of individuals' abilities important to users, multiple aptitude tests were developed to identify individuals' readiness, achievement tests were developed to measure the effects of education and training programs, and personality tests were developed to identify individuals with propensities for desirable and undesirable behaviors. With all these tests, individuals scoring below norms are unfairly labeled as abnormal or as having special needs whereas, in reality, it is the measurement method which is inadequate. The inadvertent labeling of individuals as inadequate, however, effectively discourages individuals from pursuing success at situations using such testing to screen individuals.
Whereas specific individuals and institutions often achieve desired success without explicit measures of behavioral capabilities, those unable to so succeed are more dependent on valid measures for analysis of the lack in required capabilities and for the effective management of their attainment. Without the effective means to attain capabilities for desired, socially acceptable successes, individuals tend to undertake developing the more attainable capabilities for succeeding in socially unacceptable undertakings.
OBJECTIVES OF THE INVENTION
In ad
Enhancement of Human Potential, Inc.
Kazimi Hani M.
Kilpatrick & Stockton LLP
Marcou George T.
Stamber Eric W.
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