Patent ID: 6321225
Filing Date: 2001-11-20
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A computer-implemented method comprising:inputting a data set comprising a plurality of records into a system, each record having a value for each of a plurality of raw transactional variables, the variables organized into a hierarchy of nodes such that each node of the hierarchy of nodes other than a number of bottom nodes is a parent node to a plurality of child nodes, the parent node corresponding to a category of which each of the plurality of child nodes is a sub-category,where a concept is defined over the hierarchy of nodes as one of a root node of the hierarchy, a node in the hierarchy, and a set of nodes in the hierarchy having a same parent node;abstracting the raw transactional variables into a lesser number of cooked transactional variables by successfully refining the hierarchy a number of times starting with a first concept equal to the root node, each cooked transactional variable corresponding to an unrefined concept after the hierarchy has been successively refined the number of times,where a refined concept is defined as an initial concept refined into two subsequent concepts such that one of the two second concepts is a most populous node of the hierarchy as measured by the plurality of records having non-zero values for a raw transactional variable corresponding to the most populous node and the two subsequent concepts contain a same set of nodes of the hierarchy as the initial concept does; and,outputting the cooked transactional variables.