Abstract: A process embodied in apparatus, methods, or software, which, given an identified set and its constituent subsets, identifies which subsets, and their constituent subsets, have been selected or excluded from the given set and the manner of such selection or exclusion. Using a preferred embodiment of the invention in software on a computer system with a graphical display, the process may he used to represent graphically in a “treelike” presentation the entire set of elements along with the identification of the elements selected from the set and the manner in which elements were selected or excluded to arrive at the net selection result.