Patent Document ID: 8949072
Application ID: 13122801
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of determining and displaying an index of novelty representing the state of a system based on measurements of a plurality of different parameters of the system, the system being a physical system or a biological system, the plurality of parameters defining respective dimensions of a multi-dimensional measurement space, the method being performed by a processor, and the method comprising the steps of: receiving sets of values each value in a set being a measurement of a different one of said plurality of parameters, each set defining a data point in said multi-dimensional measurement space; calculating the index of novelty for each data point by comparing the position in said multi-dimensional measurement space of each data point to a set of prototype data points comprising measurements of said parameters representative of the system being in a normal state, wherein in the event of receipt of a deficient data point missing one or more of said parameter values of said set, the method further comprises the steps of: calculating a marginal index of novelty of the deficient data point based on the position of the deficient data point in a reduced dimensionality space omitting the dimensions corresponding to the missing parameter values, using a predefined relationship, calculated for said reduced dimensionality space, between the marginal index of novelty and the marginal probability of different states of the system to find a marginal probability value representing the probability of the system being at least as close to said normal state as the state represented by the deficient data point, using a further predefined relationship, calculated for said multi-dimensional measurement space, between the index of novelty and the probability of different states of the system to find the index of novelty in said multi-dimensional measurement space corresponding to a probability equal to said marginal probability value; and displaying the index of novelty so found as the index of novelty for the deficient data point.