Understanding case-based reasoning

This chapter discusses the processes of case-based reasoning (CBR) cycle. CBR is all about experiences. It is described by six activities occurring in a cycle. This cycle is made up of six processes including retrieve, reuse, revise, review, retain, and refine. Cases are records of experiences that contain knowledge that can be both explicit and tacit. They can be cases in the legal sense; they can be case histories of patients in the medical sense, details of bank loans, or descriptions of equipment troubleshooting situations. Each of these—a legal case, a medical case history, a bank loan—and the troubleshooting record comprises of a description (the legal problem, the patient's symptoms, the details of the loan, and the equipment's problem) and the respective outcome or solution (the verdict or ruling, the treatment, the outcome of the loan, and the technical fix). Therefore, a case typically comprises of a problem and solution pairing. A collection of cases is called a case base, just as a collection of data records is called a database.