The refitting of plans by a human expert

During the course of the development of a Case-Oriented Expert System for situated applications additional cases were needed. The required cases were obtained by having a human expert refit old solutions to new problems and the structural relations between source and target cases were analyzed: A higher degree of reuse of the old cases was found when the expert could apply derivational reasoning and a uniform design rationale (i.e. the solution of the source was generated by the expert himself) than when the expert could only analyze structural relationships (i.e. the source solution was constructed by some one else). Except with very obvious cases, it was also found, that different experts perceive different cases as the most similar source to a given target problem. The results also indicate for user-situated applications of expert systems

On case-based learnability of languages

Case-based reasoning is deemed an important technology to alleviate the bottleneck of knowledge acquisition in Artificial Intelligence (AI). In case-based reasoning, knowledge is represented in the form of particular cases with an appropriate similarity measure rather than any form of rules. The case-based reasoning paradigm adopts the view that an Al system is dynamically changing during its life-cycle which immediately leads to learning considerations. Within the present paper, we investigate the problem of case-based learning of indexable classes of formal languages. Prior to learning considerations, we study the problem of case-based representability and show that every indexable class is case-based representable with respect to a fixed similarity measure. Next, we investigate several models of case-based learning and systematically analyze their strengths as well as their limitations. Finally, the general approach to case-based learnability of indexable classes of formal languages is prototypically applied to so-called containmet decision lists, since they seem particularly tailored to case-based knowledge processing

Chances and Limitations of Wild Bird Monitoring for the Avian Influenza Virus H5N1 — Detection of Pathogens Highly Mobile in Time and Space

Highly pathogenic influenza virus (HPAIV) H5N1 proved to be remarkably mobile in migratory bird populations where it has led to extensive outbreaks for which the true number of affected birds usually cannot be determined. For the evaluation of avian influenza monitoring and HPAIV early warning systems, we propose a time-series analysis that includes the estimation of confidence intervals for (i) the prevalence in outbreak situations or (ii) in the apparent absence of disease in time intervals for specified regional units. For the German outbreak regions in 2006 and 2007, the upper 95% confidence limit allowed the detection of prevalences below 1% only for certain time intervals. Although more than 25,000 birds were sampled in Germany per year, the upper 95% confidence limit did not fall below 5% in the outbreak regions for most of the time. The proposed analysis can be used to monitor water bodies and high risk areas, also as part of an early-warning system. Chances for an improved targeting of the monitoring system as part of a risk-based approach are discussed with the perspective of reducing sample sizes

Case-Based and Symbolic Classification Algorithms? - A Case Study using Version Space

Contrary to symbolic learning approaches, that represent a learned concept explicitly, case-based approaches describe concepts implicitly by a pair (CB; sim), i.e. by a measure of similarity sim and a set CB of cases. This poses the question if there are any differences concerning the learning power of the two approaches. In this article we will study the relationship between the case base, the measure of similarity, and the target concept of the learning process. To do so, we transform a simple symbolic learning algorithm (the version space algorithm) into an equivalent case-based variant. The achieved results strengthen the hypothesis of the equivalence of the learning power of symbolic and casebased methods and show the interdependency between the measure used by a case-based algorithm and the target concept

Learning in Case-Based Classification Algorithms

While symbolic learning approaches encode the knowledge provided by the presentation of the cases explicitly into a symbolic representation of the concept, e.g. formulas, rules, or decision trees, case-based approaches describe learned concepts implicitly by a pair (CB; d), i.e. by a set CB of cases and a distance measure d. Given the same information, symbolic as well as the case-based approach compute a classification when a new case is presented. This poses the question if there are any differences concerning the learning power of the two approaches. In this work we will study the relationship between the case base, the measure of distance, and the target concept of the learning process. To do so, we transform a simple symbolic learning algorithm (the version space algorithm) into an equivalent case-based variant. The achieved results strengthen the conjecture of the equivalence of the learning power of symbolic and casebased methods and show the interdependency between the measure used by a case-based algorithm and the target concept

ON Case-Based Representability and Learnability of Languages ?

Within the present paper we investigate case-based representability as well as case-based learnability of indexed families of uniformly recursive languages. Since we are mainly interested in case-based learning with respect to an arbitrary fixed similarity measure, case-based learnability of an indexed family requires its representability, first. We show that every indexed family is case- based representable by positive and negative cases. If only positive cases are allowed the class of representable families is comparatively small. Furthermore, we present results that provide some bounds concerning the necessary size of case bases. We study, in detail, how the choice of a case selection strategy influences the learning capabilities of a case-based learner. We define different case selection strategies and compare their learning power to one another. Furthermore, we elaborate the relations to Gold-style language learning from positive and both positive and negative examples

A Case Study on Case-Based and Symbolic Learning

Contrary to symbolic learning approaches, which represent a learned concept explicitly, case-based approaches describe concepts implicitly by a pair (CB; sim), i.e. by a measure of similarity sim and a set CB of cases. This poses the question if there are any differences concerning the learning power of the two approaches. In this article we will study the relationship between the case base, the measure of similarity, and the target concept of the learning process. To do so, we transform a simple symbolic learning algorithm (the version space algorithm) into an equivalent case- based variant. The achieved results strengthen the hypothesis of the equivalence of the learning power of symbolic and case-based methods and show the interdependency between the measure used by a case-based algorithm and the target concept

Fallbasiertes und symbolisches Lernen

In den letzten Jahren wurden Methoden des fallbasierten Schliessens häufig in Bereichen verwendet, in denen traditionell symbolische Verfahren zum Einsatz kommen, beispielsweise in der Klassifikation. Damit stellt sich zwangsläufig die Frage nach den Unterschieden bzw. der Mächtigkeit dieser Lernverfahren. Jantke [Jantke, 1992] hat bereits Gemeinsamkeiten von Induktiver Inferenz und fallbasierter Klassifikation untersucht. In dieser Arbeit wollen wir einige Zusammenhänge zwischen der Fallbasis, dem Ähnlichkeitsmass und dem zu erlernenden Begriff verdeutlichen. Zu diesem Zweck wird ein einfacher symbolischer Lernalgorithmus (der Versionenraum nach [Mitchell, 1982]) in eine äquivalente, fallbasiert arbeitende Variante transformiert. Die vorgestellten Ergebnisse bestätigen die Äquivalenz von symbolischen und fallbasierten Ansätzen und zeigen die starke Abhängigkeit zwischen dem im System verwendeten Mass und dem zu lernenden Begriff

Fallbasiertes und symbolisches Lernen

In den letzten Jahren wurden Methoden des fallbasierten Schliessens häufig in Bereichen verwendet, in denen traditionell symbolische Verfahren zum Einsatz kommen, beispielsweise in der Klassifikation. Damit stellt sich zwangsläufig die Frage nach den Unterschieden bzw. der Mächtigkeit dieser Lernverfahren. Jantke [Jantke, 1992] hat bereits Gemeinsamkeiten von Induktiver Inferenz und fallbasierter Klassifikation untersucht. In dieser Arbeit wollen wir einige Zusammenhänge zwischen der Fallbasis, dem Ähnlichkeitsmass und dem zu erlernenden Begriff verdeutlichen. Zu diesem Zweck wird ein einfacher symbolischer Lernalgorithmus (der Versionenraum nach [Mitchell, 1982]) in eine äquivalente, fallbasiert arbeitende Variante transformiert. Die vorgestellten Ergebnisse bestätigen die Äquivalenz von symbolischen und fallbasierten Ansätzen und zeigen die starke Abhängigkeit zwischen dem im System verwendeten Mass und dem zu lernenden Begriff