Modeling diagnosis at multiple levels of abstraction. II. Diagnostic reasoning at multiple levels of abstraction

Abstract

Diagnostic reasoning at multiple levels of abstraction is an efficient problem-solving strategy. It enables diagnostic problem-solvers (human or automated) to efficiently form plausible high-level diagnostic hypotheses while avoiding the explicit consideration of unnecessary details. This article describes a domain-independent inference mechanism for diagnostic reasoning at multiple levels of abstraction. the inference mechanism uses the causal knowledge representation framework described in an earlier companion article.1 This inference strategy has been tested through the implementation of a prototype diagnostic system with encouraging results.