Patent ID: 7277574

Claim:
A method for feature selection, comprising: a) creating a plurality of initial feature subsets from data; b) inducing said initial feature subsets on training data to obtain induced feature subsets; c) sorting said induced feature subsets obtained in b) in order of performance to obtain sorted feature subsets, d) identifying induced feature subsets having similar performance and sorting said induced features subsets having similar performance using a heuristic technique; e) merging said sorted feature subsets obtained in d) or h) to obtain merged feature subsets; f) inducing said merged feature subsets obtained in e) on training data to obtain induced feature subsets; g) sorting said induced feature subsets obtained in f) in order of performance, h) identifying induced feature subsets having similar performance and sorting said induced features subsets having similar performance using a heuristic technique; and i) repeating at least one of e), f), g), and h) until a desired user specified criterion is satisfied.