Patent ID: 7908438

Claim:
A method, comprising: observing an association among observed attributes into a compressed association matrix in a memory that contains a plurality of counts that indicate associations among a plurality of pairs of attributes, the compressed association matrix comprising identifications of segments of the association matrix that have at least one count that is associated therewith, and at least one bit plane representation of the at least one count that is associated with a respective identified segment, the at least one bit plane representation identifying a value of the at least one associated count for a bit position of the count that corresponds to the associated bit plane, wherein observing the association comprises: adding the association among the observed attributes to the at least one bit plane representation that corresponds to the observed attributes, if the observed attributes exist in the identification of segments of the association matrix that have at least one count that is associated therewith; and creating at least one bit plane representation for the observed attributes, if the observed attributes do not exist in the identification of segments of the association matrix that have at least one count that is associated therewith.