Patent ID: 7426557

Claim:
A method of inducing a pattern of communication among a plurality of parties communicating information, comprising: for a first episode: receiving, for each party of a plurality of parties, information that describes a topic discussed by at least some parties of the plurality of parties and a time of occurrence of discussion; preparing a transmission graph illustrative of the pattern of communication, wherein the transmission graph illustrates at least some of the parties as nodes and a plurality of edges that interconnect at least some of the nodes, and wherein the transmission graph establishes a pattern of distribution of propagation of discussion of the topic among the plurality of parties; and storing the transmission graph on a storage repository; and for a subsequent second episode: receiving an initial fragment of propagation of discussion among the plurality of parties; using the pattern of distribution of propagation established for the first episode and the initial fragment of propagation of discussion for the second episode, predicting a propagation pattern for the second episode; and outputting the propagation pattern for the second episode transmission graph; and wherein the preparing the transmission graph begins by computing a frequency of transmission of the topic and a probability that a node communicates the topic to another node; and wherein recursively updating the transmission graph until the transmission graph meets a predetermined criterion by recomputing the frequency of transmission and probability for each one of the plurality of edges.