Re: Has this been done before or have I found something new

>> The basic idea is that a user wants to identify a particular object
from a
large set that all share common characteristics ... the program also eliminates all attributes that are no longer relevant to objects that share the selected attribute's value. For example if all birds with yellow eyes happen to have the same kind of beaks, the beak attribute would be eliminated since it will not help reduce the search any further. <<

It sounds like he has re-discovered functional dependency or determiners. "If I know A then I can determine B", written as A -> B.  You look for a minimal set of attributes that can determine all the others.

Or he might have re-discovered statistical correlations. Did you know that people with big ears have better math abiliies than people with small ears? The reason is that grown ups have bigger ears than kids ... Received on Sat Jan 25 2003 - 17:04:18 CST