Alexandre Hanft

Case factory: maintaining experience to learn

In this paper, we outline our vision of a case factory that deals with developing (future) knowledge-based systems. The functionality of such a system is provided by different kinds of agents. We focus especially on case-based-reasoning agents, which play an important part within our vision and the corresponding architecture. Our method of constructing a case-based reasoning system using agents is based on integration with the experience factory approach. We define a single architecture adopting ideas from the concept of software product-lines with a focus on combining technical and organizational knowledge. Finally, the paper closes with a brief overview of the current state of our work and a conceptual evaluation of its components with respect to related work.

The Life Cycle of Test Cases in a CBR System

In this article, a case-based approach for managing cases with a life cycle is introduced. The authors present an application for the accompaniment and support of software engineers in their work of specifying test cases. Some general aspects of corporate knowledge editing are discussed. The model of life cycles provides a solution for editing and retrieving cases with several degrees of maturity. It is realised by persistent case numbers, explicit revision states, and a multi-layered similarity function. Some experiments are performed with a prototypical system.

CookIIS – A Successful Recipe Advisor and Menu Creator

CookIIS is a successful Case-Based Reasoning web application that recommends and adapts recipes or creates a complete menu regarding to the user’s preferences like explicitly excluded ingredients or previously defined diets. The freely available application CookIIS won the 2nd Computer Cooking Contest (CCC) in 2009 after winning the Menu Challenge at the 1st Computer Cooking Contest in 2008. The chapter explains the realisation of CookIIS starting with the requirements of the first CCC until the final CCC‘09 version. CookIIS uses a an industrial strength CBR tool, the empolis Information Access Suite (e:IAS). However, it goes beyond the standard way of building a CBR application based on e:IAS. This chapter will describe the CookIIS system in detail, especially the knowledge modelling, case representation and adaptation processes.

Intelligent information systems for knowledge work(ers)

Our society needs and expects more high-value services. Such “knowledge-intensive” services can only be delivered if the necessary organizational and technical requirements are fulfilled. In addition, the cost-benefit analysis from the service provider point of view needs to be positive. Continuous improvement and goal-directed (partial) automation of such services is therefore of crucial importance. As a contribution to this we describe our current research vision for (partially) automated support of knowledge work(ers) based on intelligent information systems focusing on the use of experience. For the implementation of such a vision we base on the integration of approaches from artificial intelligence and software engineering. A “deep” integration of case-based reasoning and experience factory is a first successful step in this direction [33, 28]. We envision the further integration of software product-lines and multi-agent systems as the next one.