Patent ID: 7483864

Claim:
A label prediction method for predicting a label value of unknown data using a storage device for storing a set of known data and a set of unknown data, and a plurality of learning machines, said known data being data having known label values, and said unknown data being data having unknown label values, said method comprising: (a) sampling, using said plurality of learning machines, the known data from said storage device independently of one another, to learn the known data; (b) integrating and delivering output results of said plurality of learning machines; (c) retrieving, using said plurality of learning machines, the unknown data from said storage device to make a prediction of a label value of said unknown data by using the results of the learning machines; (d) selecting data to be next learned based on the result of the prediction of the label value of the unknown data; (e) entering a label value corresponding to the selected data to be next learned; and (f) deleting the data, the label value of which has been entered, from the set of unknown data, and adding the data to the set of known data, wherein the method further comprises performing at least one of: (i) non-uniform weighting of the known data at the time of sampling the known data; (ii) non-uniform weighting of the results of the learning machines at the time of integrating the results of the learning by said plurality of learning machines; and (iii) non-uniform weighting of the data to be next learned at the time of selecting the data to be next learned based on the predictions by said plurality of learning machines.