Case-Based Reasoning in Design

Case-based reasoning in design is becoming an important approach to computer-support for design as well as an important component in understanding the design process. Design has become a major focus for problem solving paradigms due to its complexity and open-ended nature. This book presents a clear description of how case-based reasoning can be applied to design problems, including the representation of design cases, indexing and retrieving design cases, and the range of paradigms for adapting design cases. With a focus on design, this book differs from others that provide a generalist view of case-based reasoning.

This volume provides two important contributions to the area:

* a general description of the issues and alternatives in applying case-based reasoning to design, and

* a description of specific implementations of case-based design.

Through this combination, the reader will learn about both the general issues and the practical problems in supporting design through case-based reasoning. This book was prepared to fill a gap in the literature on the unique problems that design introduces to computational paradigms developed in computer science. It also addresses the needs of computational support for design problem solving from both theoretical and practical perspectives.