A Study on the Reliability of Case-Based Reasoning Systems

Case-based reasoning (CBR) is a methodology for problem solving, which suggests a solution to a new problem based on the previously-solved problems and their associated solutions. A key issue in this methodology is that can we always trust the solutions suggested by a case-based reasoning system? This paper studies the reliability of CBR systems at an overall level first. Factors affecting the reliability of a CBR system are discussed in this section, especially the property that whether its case library is compatible with the foundational assumption that "similar problems have similar solutions." After that, the reliability of an individual suggested solution is studied. Some existing approaches which can be employed to estimate the reliability of a single solution are compared in this section. To illustrate these ideas, some experiments and their results are also discussed in this paper. It is shown that if a case library attains a high compatibility, then a satisfactory result can be expected, and the reliability of a CBR system at an overall level can be improved by identifying the reliable solutions.