Patent ID: 7089250

Claim:
A method for associating events, comprising the steps of: providing an event dataset that includes a plurality of events occurring in each of N successive time intervals, said N≧3, said event dataset being stored on a computer readable medium; deducing from the event dataset a plurality of association rules, each association rule E K E L of the plurality of association rules expressing an association between events E K and E L respectively occurring in two successive time intervals of the N time intervals, said events E K and E L being in the event dataset; generating a plurality of sequences of events, each sequence of the plurality of sequences being generated from at least two sequentially ordered association rules of the plurality of association rules; forming a plurality of clusters from the plurality of sequences in accordance with a clustering algorithm, each cluster of the plurality of clusters including at least two sequences of the plurality of sequences; creating S C sequences of clusters from the plurality of clusters, said S C ≧1, each sequence of the S C sequences including at least two clusters of the plurality of clusters; and after the creating step, at least one of: identifying at least one event occurring in a first time interval of the N time intervals as being a probable cause of at least one event occurring in a later-occurring time interval of the N time intervals; and predicting an occurrence of at least one event in a time interval occurring after the N time intervals, wherein the at least one event had occurred within the N time intervals.