13. A computer program product comprising a computer useable storage device having a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to: provide a list of reference terms; break down text and a list of reference terms into tokens; generate at least one acronym candidate in the text for mapping to at least one of the reference terms; compare characters of the acronym candidate to characters of the reference term according to one or more mapping rules; generate a confidence value of the mapping based on said comparison of characters; and rank acronym candidates according to their confidence value.
13. A computer program product comprising a computer useable storage device having a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to: provide a list of reference terms; break down text and a list of reference terms into tokens; generate at least one acronym candidate in the text for mapping to at least one of the reference terms; compare characters of the acronym candidate to characters of the reference term according to one or more mapping rules; generate a confidence value of the mapping based on said comparison of characters; and rank acronym candidates according to their confidence value. 16. The computer program product of claim 13 , wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer further causes the computer to: analyze the mapping of the at least one acronym candidate to at least one reference term based on one or more mapping rules; and increase the error count for each character skipped, wherein said mapping rules comprise at least one of: each initial character of one or more token of the acronym candidates has to match; characters have to occur in the same sequential order in acronym candidate and corresponding reference term; all tokens in an acronym candidate have to match; no token inside an acronym candidate can be skipped; and one or more single characters of a token of an acronym candidate can be skipped.