Method for discovering groups of objects having a selectable property from a population of objects

A method for detecting a selectable number of groups of objects having at least one selectable characteristic from a population of objects specifiable by a plurality of attributes, each of said object groups having a quality which, by means of a selectable function, results from the number of objects of the object group and from an unusualness of the distribution of the at least one characteristics within the object group and which is detected by a relation between the distribution of the characteristics of the respective object group and the distribution of the characteristics in a reference population, said method comprising the following steps:

• a) selecting the at least one characteristic by selecting at least one of the attributes specifying the objects of the population,
• b) subdividing the objects of the population into object groups of a first order, on the basis of respectively at least one attribute,
• c) detecting the quality of each object group of this order, on the basis of the total number of its objects and the number of its objects having said at least one characteristic and/or the number of its objects not having said characteristic,
• d) for each object group, including the object group of this order into the number of object groups to be detected, if the object group has a quality higher than the lowest quality of the object group among the object groups detected up to this point,
• e) for each object group of this order, detecting at least one hypothetical first quality on the basis exclusively of those objects of this object group which have at least one of said characteristics, and/or at least one hypothetical second quality on the basis exclusively of those objects of this object group which do not have at least one of said characteristics, wherein the at least one of the first or second qualities is a quality of a hypothetical group derived from the actually processed group and comprising exclusively the objects thereof having one or not having one of said at least one characteristics,
• f) subdividing all those object groups of this order the at least one of the respectively assigned first or second hypothetical qualities of which comprise a selectable quality value and particularly are of the quality of the respective object groups, into object groups of the next lower order, by selecting at least one attribute, and
• g) repeating steps c) to f) as often as a selectable criterion for termination has been reached.