Patent ID: 8744985

Claim:
A method for managing data, the method comprising: responsive to receiving data for a plurality of components, identifying information about the plurality of components using the data to form a plurality of instances for a plurality of nodes in which each node in the plurality of nodes corresponds to a component in the plurality of components; forming a number of variables having a range of values, in which each value in the range of values indicates a point in time at which a change to the information for a particular node occurs between a first instance and a second instance in the plurality of instances to form a data structure, wherein more than one change between two consecutive instances is absent; and using the data structure to identify probability information about the plurality of components associated with the plurality of nodes, wherein the probability information comprises probabilities of when a state of a component X in the plurality of components changes, based on when a number of states for a number of components in the plurality of components changes, calculated such that: each entry in a conditional probability table of a modified network corresponds to a probability that a value of component X changes precisely at a particular time, given that, a state of components, on which the state of the component X depends, the parents, changes at a particular combination of times, being based on: a probability of a change in the state of the component X being conditioned on: the state of the parents changing their state by a product of: a number of negative elementary transition probabilities, and a positive elementary transition probability.