Patent ID: 8484215

Claim:
A method for clustering data elements stored in a data storage system, the method including: reading data elements from the data storage system; forming clusters of data elements with each data element being a member of at least one cluster and with assignment of a given data element as a member of a given cluster being based at least in part on contents of one or more objects in the given data element; associating at least one data element with two or more clusters, with memberships of the data element belonging to respective ones of the two or more clusters being represented by a measure of ambiguity that quantifies partial membership of a given data element in a given cluster based at least in part on a comparison between contents of the given data element and contents of at least one other data element in the given cluster, the contents of the given data element including at least one of: one or more of words in one or more objects in the given data element, and variants of the one or more words; storing information in the data storage system to represent the formed clusters; and performing a data operation that uses values of the measure of ambiguity representing the memberships; wherein the data operation includes a rollup that calculates a weighted subtotal of a quantity of the one or more clusters, the quantity being associated with the data element, and the subtotal being calculated by summing the products of the value of the quantity associated with each of the data elements in the first cluster and the respective value of the measure of ambiguity representing the membership of the data elements in the first cluster.