Method and apparatus for partitioning a database upon a timestamp, support values for phrases and generating a history of frequently occurring phrases

A signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform a method far discovering trends in a database, said method comprising:

• mapping words in a plurality of words to a data-sequence of data contained in a data field and identifiable by a position identifier, the data-sequence having transactions where a transaction includes a set of items, a word being mapped to a single-item transaction in a data-sequence;
• and
• mapping phrases to a sequential-pattern of data contained in a data field and identifiable by a position identifier, the sequential-pattern of data having sets of items, a phrase being mapped to a sequential-pattern having one item in each set of items;
• partitioning a database into data fields based upon a timestamp, the timestamp specifying a data field location within the database;
• determining support values for phrases;
• identifying frequent phrases in a partition, a phrase being frequent if the presence of the phrase in data fields included in the partition exceeds a support value for the phrase;
• generating a history of the frequency of occurrence of each phrase;
• and
• finding phrases in the- history that satisfy a trend.

A digital processing machine used to discover trends in a database, the device comprising:

• a database;
• a digital processing apparatus, the digital processing apparatus configured to receive data and commands from a signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions executable by the digital processing apparatus and used to discover trends in a database by:
• mapping words in a plurality Of Words to a data-sequence of data contained in a data field and identifiable by a position identifier, the data-sequence having transactions where a transaction includes a set of items, a word being mapped to a single-item transaction in a data-sequence;
• and
• mapping phrases to a sequential-pattern of data contained in a data field and identifiable by a position identifier, the sequential-pattern of data having sets of items, a phrase being mapped to a sequential-pattern having one item in each set of items;
• partitioning a database into data fields based upon a timestamp, the timestamp specifying a data field location within the database;
• determining support values for phrases;
• identifying frequent phrases in a partition, a phrase being frequent if the presence of the phrase in data fields included in the partition exceeds a support value for the phrase;
• generating a history of the frequency of occurrence of each phrase;
• and finding phrases in the history that satisfy a trend.