Representationally Complete Analogical - Reasoning Systems and Steps Toward Their Application in Political Science

该项目解决了解决问题的一个方面，这对机器和人类都很关键：通过相关先例进行类比推理。提出的研究目标是一个基于先例的类比推理的计算模型，使用一套简单但具有表现力和认知上似是而非的表示来捕获关于实体、类别、原因、价值和沿着真实和抽象轨迹运动的知识。该项目的目标领域是政治学，在情报分析、国际关系和政府政策等领域，专家使用这种基于案例的推理来分析、评估，并根据相关的过去经验对新情况提出建议。该项目建立在类比研究的基础上，类比研究始于美国国家科学基金会（nsf）资助的“桥梁系统”（Bridge System），它将利用专家分析过的、记录良好的政治情景和类比的集合。虽然该项目主要侧重于开发关于通过经验类比推理的计算理论，但将构建一个原型工具，旨在通过解决分析专业知识的一个重要方面来帮助负责评估行动方案的分析师：利用先例推理检测意外后果的能力。原型的“错误阻止器”组件将监视情况和建议的行动，将它们与先例数据库进行匹配，并且，如果合适的话，建议分析师检查相关的先例，以寻找先例所暗示的可能被忽视的可能性。在解决计算机科学和社会科学都感兴趣的问题时，这个项目将有助于一般的基于先例的推理理论，特别是政治科学中的行动过程分析。

This project addresses an aspect of problem solving that is key for both machines and humans: reasoning by analogy with relevant precedents. The goal of the proposed research is a computational model of precedent-based analogical reasoning using a simple but expressive and cognitively plausible suite of representations that capture knowledge about entities, classes, causes, values, and motion along real and abstract trajectories. The project's target domain is political science, where in areas such as intelligence analysis, international relations, and government policy, experts use this type of case-based reasoning to analyze, assess, and make recommendations about new situations based on relevant past experience. The project, which builds on analogy research begun in the NSF-sponsored Bridge System, will make use of collections of well-documented political scenarios and analogies that have been analyzed by experts. While this project focuses primarily on development of a computational theory about reasoning by analogy from experience, a prototype tool will be built that is intended to assist analysts charged with evaluating courses of action by addressing an important aspect of analytical expertise: the ability to detect unintended consequences with precedential reasoning. This "blunder stopper" component of the prototype will monitor situations and proposed actions, match these against a data base of precedents, and, if appropriate, advise the analyst to examine a relevant precedent for possibilities suggested by the precedent that might otherwise be overlooked. In addressing a problem of interest to both computer science and social science, this project will contribute to theories of precedent-based reasoning in general, and course of action analysis in political science in particular.