Patent ID: 6868409

Claim:
A computer-readable storage controlling a computer to search information and comprising a process of: storing, in a knowledge database, a plurality of causes for a problem to be diagnosed, a plurality of questions having relations with the plurality of causes, correlation levels showing a degree of correlation between the causes and each of the plurality of questions, and predetermined answer choices to the plurality of questions; extracting certain questions from the plurality of questions using an algorithm that compares the correlation levels between the causes and the plurality of questions to a predetermined threshold value to determine the relevancy of the plurality of questions to the problem to be diagnosed; displaying the certain questions to a user; for each of the certain questions displayed to the user, receiving an answer selected by the user from the predetermined answer choices; extracting causes with high correlation levels from the plurality of causes based on the user selected answers to the certain questions displayed to the user and the correlation levels; and displaying the extracted causes to the user.