Patent ID: 7559057

Claim:
A method for generating one or more computer-executable procedures, comprising the steps of: recording at least one trace of at least one instance of a procedure, wherein the at least one trace comprises a plurality of steps; simultaneously performing an alignment and generalization of the plurality of steps, wherein the alignment of the plurality of steps identifies a set of steps in the plurality of steps that are equivalent once generalized, and wherein the generalization of the plurality of steps predicts differences between individual steps belonging to the identified set of steps in the plurality of steps and determines that the identified set of steps perform a distinct action in the procedure; determining a procedural model based on the alignment; computing a set of possible alignments and generalizations based on the procedural model; selecting an updated alignment and an updated generalization from the set of possible alignments and generalizations according to an alignment-generalization functional that determines a rate at which the steps of the procedure are correctly predicted for the set possible alignments and generalizations; and generating the one or more computer-executable procedures consistent with the updated alignment and the updated generalization.