Redesign of local area networks using similarity-based adaptation

This paper describes the design of a case-based reasoning system for the redesign of local area networks. It introduces a mechanism for solution adaptation based on a hierarchy of possible actions, each of which is associated with background knowledge about its suitability. A novel similarity measure is used to rank actions where multiple alternative actions are found for an action that cannot be applied in the current problem context. The measure uses a heuristic weighting function between the degree of abstraction and the degree of specificity. It is shown how other measures for closeness may be derived as specializations of the one presented