Patent ID: 8099453

Claim:
A method for data clustering, comprising: a) providing data in a computer network, said data having a plurality of modalities expressed therein and said network comprising a master processor, an array of slave processors, and two cluster seats associated with each slave processor; b) executing a master process with the master processor, said master process comprising: i) dividing the data into clusters; ii) sending each cluster to one of the slave processors, so that each slave processor holds a cluster pair; iii) initializing an optimization cycle, including parallel execution by the slave processors of a slave process comprising exchanging data between clusters in each cluster pair so as to increase an objective function based on two modalities; iv) re-sorting the cluster pairs, wherein a cluster of at least one of the cluster pairs is passed to another cluster seat at random or in sequence, and wherein the slave process is repeated for a plurality of possible cluster pairs; and v) computing the objective function.