Patent Document ID: 20080234976
Application ID: 12047977
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A statistical method for the analysis of inexact ordinal data having one or more variables to compare populations comprising the steps of: (a) at least partially ordering data by determining for all pairs of data the order of a first datum compared to a second datum as (i) superior, (ii) inferior, (iii) equal, or (iv) undecided to produce ordered data; (b) factorizing the partially ordered data; (c) generating a score for each datum based on the at least partially ordered data; (d) estimating an information content for each of the scores; (e) generating a weight for each score based on the information content; (f) aggregating the scores and weights of all data using statistical methods for weighted rank scores, wherein the statistical methods comprise ranking, positioning, comparing, discriminating/regressing, and clustering; and (g) deciding which category the inexact ordinal data should be assigned to as part of the analysis thereby allowing the decision maker to act on the assignment to the category.