Context-based knowledge support for problem-solving by rule-inference and case-based reasoning

Problem-solving is an important process that enables corporations to create competitive business advantages. Traditionally, case-based reasoning techniques have been widely used to help workers solve problems. However, conventional approaches focus on identifying similar problems without exploring relevant context of problem situations. Situation features are generally occurred according to the context characteristics of problems. Moreover, situation features collected are usually partial or incomplete. Workers need to use knowledge inferred from relevant context information and previous problem-solving experience to clarify the causes and take appropriate action effectively. In this paper, we propose to use rule inference to infer possible situation features based on context information. Association rule mining is used to discover context-based inference rules from historical problem-solving logs. The discovered patterns identify frequent associations between context information and situation features, and therefore, can be used to infer more situation features. By considering the inferred situation features, case-based reasoning can then be employed to identify similar situations effectively. Moreover, we employ information retrieval techniques to extract context-based situation profiles to model workers' information needs when handling problem situations in certain context. Effective knowledge support can thus be facilitated by providing workers with situation-relevant information based on the profiles. We develop a prototype system to demonstrate the effectiveness of providing context-based relevant information and decision-making knowledge to help workers solve problems.