Patent ID: 8423493

Claim:
A method for identifying patterns in symbolic interval data contained in an interval sequence database , the method comprising: in a processor, converting the interval sequence database into a semi-interval sequence database comprising a plurality of semi-interval itemsets [I, t], each having a unique timestamp t; and in a processor, identifying closed semi-interval sequence patterns (SISPs) S i in , wherein the closed SISPs contain at least one interval that does not have both start and end points; wherein converting the interval sequence database into a semi-interval sequence database further comprises converting each sequence of to a semi-interval sequence by initially determining all semi-intervals S in the interval sequence database as S={[σ + ,s],[σ − ,e]|[σ,s, e]εI}, where σ + , σ − represent the start and end of a symbolic interval with symbol σ, and s and e are start and end times of an interval.