Patent ID: 8229965

Claim:
A method for transforming a set of particles formed by at least part of a set of items in an output set of particles, wherein the set of items represents a set of words suitable for use in an information retrieval system, comprising, for each particle in the set of particles, the steps of: generating combinations of parts of a particle in the set of particles; and replacing the particle in the set of particles with the parts of a combination maximizing a total minimum edit distance (MED) of the set of particles to transform the set of particles in the output set of particles, wherein the steps of the method are performed by a processor, wherein the replacing further comprises: removing the particle from the set of particles; determining, for each combination, a MED of each part of the combination, and the total MED of the set of particles, wherein the total MED includes the MED of the parts of the combination; and adding the parts of the combination into the set of particles corresponding to a maximum value of the total MED.