Patent ID: 8170906

Claim:
A method implemented by an information resource manager executed in a memory by a processor of a data processing system to conduct an information survey of an information resource that represents at least a single informational entity, the method comprising: initializing, by a processor a survey niche having a set of at least one predicate, wherein the predicate represents at least one of a property, attribute, trait, characteristic, function, relation, relationship, measurement, constraint, semantic property, action, coding sequence, objective, goal, and criteria of an information survey problem; transforming, by said processor, the survey niche by applying a first computable function to the initial set of predicates to produce a transformed set of predicates not identical to the initial set and not a proper subset of the initial set such that the transformed set is not satisfiable when evaluated against the information resource, wherein not satisfiable means that no entities of the information resource satisfy all predicates in the transformed set of predicates; and executing an algorithm, by said processor, to identify a characterized partition of the transformed survey niche where said partition is a survey lattice element wherein the survey lattice represents a partial order of subsets of the transformed set of predicates; repeat executing an algorithm, by said processor, to generate the survey lattice element that is a satisfiable subset of the transformed set of predicates that results in at least one entity of the information resource that satisfies all predicates in subset, and identifying at least a portion of the characterized partition of the transformed survey niche the as an option to the information survey problem.