looking for a network of business relationships, and assessing the relevance of a relationship

摘要

There is provided a method that includes (a) examining records that describe transactions between entities, (b) constructing, in a database, a data structure that represents a relationship network, based on the transactions, where the relationship network represents (i) a first entity and (ii) a second entity that is separated from the first entity by N tiers, and where N is a whole number greater than or equal to 1, and (c) calculating a relevance of the second entity to the first entity as a function of, i.e., based on, a characteristic of the second entity. There is also provided a system that performs the method, and a storage medium that contains instructions for controlling a processor to perform the method.