Patent ID: 8005733

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, by a processor, an indication of a first partitioning preference with respect to a first subgroup of a population of items from a user; receiving, by the processor, an indication of a first weighting factor that is applicable to said first subgroup from the user; receiving, by the processor, an indication of a second partitioning preference with respect to a second subgroup of the population of items; receiving, by the processor, an indication of a second weighting factor that is applicable to said second subgroup from the user; receiving, by the processor, an indication of a third partitioning preference with respect to a third subgroup of the population of items from the user; receiving, by the processor, an indication of a third weighting factor that is applicable to said third subgroup from the user; multiplying, by the processor, the first weighting factor with a value that corresponds to said first partitioning preference to generate a first product; multiplying, by the processor, the second weighting factor with a value that corresponds to said second partitioning preference to generate a second product; multiplying, by the processor, the third weighting factor with a value that corresponds to said third partitioning preference to generate a third product; using the first, second and third products to generate, by the processor, a respective raw partition score for each of at least some of said items; mapping, by the processor, the raw partition scores to an interval of numbers to generate mapped partition scores for each of said at least some of said items; receiving, by the processor, an indication of a partition threshold from the user; and partitioning, by the processor, the population of items based at least in part on said partition threshold and said mapped partition scores.