A computer-implemented method for identifying at least one herbal ingredient effective in treating at least one illness classified under Traditional Chinese Medicine, TCM, wherein the computer comprises: at least one database or access to at least one database that stores TCM data sets, at least one relevance index program module involved with the analysis of data in the database, and at least one artificial neural network, ANN, the method comprising: (a) obtaining TCM data sets from said database, the data sets comprising: TCM illnesses, TCM herbal ingredients for treatment, and a set of patient cases C comprising symptoms associated with TCM illnesses or TCM herbal ingredients; (b) computing a 3-D relevance index, 3-D RI, for each (TCM herbal ingredient, TCM illness)-pair, where a 3-D relationship is realized by conceptually combining elements from the sets i) TCM illnesses, ii) TCM herbal ingredients and iii) recognizable symptoms, by: pruning those cases from C not relevant for said TCM illness to obtain a pruned training set, and training a dedicated ANN for the TCM herbal ingredient by taking the symptoms of each patient case in the pruned training set sequentially as input to the dedicated ANN until the ANN output neuron converges to the 3-D RI that reflects the relevance of the TCM herbal ingredient to the TCM illness; (c) identifying at least one TCM herbal ingredient effective in treating the TCM illness based on comparison of the computed 3-D RI. at least one database or access to at least one database that stores TCM data sets, at least one relevance index program module involved with the analysis of data in the database, and at least one artificial neural network, ANN, the method comprising: (a) obtaining TCM data sets from said database, the data sets comprising: TCM illnesses, TCM herbal ingredients for treatment, and a set of patient cases C comprising symptoms associated with TCM illnesses or TCM herbal ingredients; (b) computing a 3-D relevance index, 3-D RI, for each (TCM herbal ingredient, TCM illness)-pair, where a 3-D relationship is realized by conceptually combining elements from the sets i) TCM illnesses, ii) TCM herbal ingredients and iii) recognizable symptoms, by: pruning those cases from C not relevant for said TCM illness to obtain a pruned training set, and training a dedicated ANN for the TCM herbal ingredient by taking the symptoms of each patient case in the pruned training set sequentially as input to the dedicated ANN until the ANN output neuron converges to the 3-D RI that reflects the relevance of the TCM herbal ingredient to the TCM illness; (c) identifying at least one TCM herbal ingredient effective in treating the TCM illness based on comparison of the computed 3-D RI. (a) obtaining TCM data sets from said database, the data sets comprising: TCM illnesses, TCM herbal ingredients for treatment, and a set of patient cases C comprising symptoms associated with TCM illnesses or TCM herbal ingredients; (b) computing a 3-D relevance index, 3-D RI, for each (TCM herbal ingredient, TCM illness)-pair, where a 3-D relationship is realized by conceptually combining elements from the sets i) TCM illnesses, ii) TCM herbal ingredients and iii) recognizable symptoms, by: pruning those cases from C not relevant for said TCM illness to obtain a pruned training set, and training a dedicated ANN for the TCM herbal ingredient by taking the symptoms of each patient case in the pruned training set sequentially as input to the dedicated ANN until the ANN output neuron converges to the 3-D RI that reflects the relevance of the TCM herbal ingredient to the TCM illness; pruning those cases from C not relevant for said TCM illness to obtain a pruned training set, and training a dedicated ANN for the TCM herbal ingredient by taking the symptoms of each patient case in the pruned training set sequentially as input to the dedicated ANN until the ANN output neuron converges to the 3-D RI that reflects the relevance of the TCM herbal ingredient to the TCM illness; (c) identifying at least one TCM herbal ingredient effective in treating the TCM illness based on comparison of the computed 3-D RI.