Patent ID: 7657396

Claim:
A method for forecasting whether a plurality of records are associated with an outcome, the method comprising: for a first record: a) obtaining a pre-assigned classifier associated with the first record; b) analyzing characters in the first record to determine n-grams appearing in the first record; c) incrementing a record counter associated with each n-gram determined to be in the first record; d) determining whether a pre-assigned classifier is associated with a possible outcome; and e) if the pre-assigned classifier is determined to be associated with a possible outcome, incrementing an outcome counter associated with each n-gram in the first record; if more records are available, accessing a next record and carrying out steps (a)-(e); determining a predictive value associated with each n-gram based on a respective outcome counter and a record counter associated with each respective n-gram; and creating an ordered set of predictors corresponding to n-grams appearing in a minimum number of records.