Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5
Case-Based Reasoning
5.1 Overview
In order to solve a new problem, we often recall and search in memory to find
similar problems that have been successfully solved, and reuse the knowledge
required in these problems' solving to solve the new problems. For example, a
doctor treats a patient by recalling another person who exhibited similar
symptoms.
The new problem at hand is termed as target case, while the previous
problems and their solutions in memory are base cases. Briefly speaking,
case-based reasoning (CBR for short) solves new problems by adapting
previously successful solutions to similar problems.
A case is a contextualized piece of knowledge representing an experience. It
contains the past lesson that is the content of the case and the context in which
the lesson can be used (Kolodner,1993). Specifically speaking, a case should
have the following characteristics:
(1) A case contains implicitly some concrete knowledge related to a certain
context; this kind of knowledge is usually concerned with how to do
something.
(2) Cases can be of all kinds, in different forms, and with different granularities.
They can contain time slices large or small, effects of the application of
solution.
(3) Useful experiences are coded in cases. These experiences are helpful for
the reasoners to reach the goal more easily, or predicate the possibility of
failure.
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