lansky@VENICE.AI.SRI.COM (Amy Lansky) (08/04/87)
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!
Note: Change in day of week and location.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Dan Weld (WELD@XEROX.ARPA)
MIT and Xerox PARC
11:00 AM, WEDNESDAY, August 5
SRI International, Building E, Room EK242
Comparative analysis is the problem of predicting how a system will
react to perturbations in its parameters, and why. For example,
comparative analysis could be asked to explain why the period of an
oscillating spring/block system would increase if the mass of the
block were larger. This talk formalizes the problem of comparative
analysis and presents a technique, differential qualitative (DQ)
analysis, which solves the task.
DQ analysis uses inference rules to deduce qualitative information
about the relative change of system parameters. Multiple perspectives
are used to represent relative change values over intervals of time.
Differential analysis has been implemented, tested on a dozen
examples, and proven sound. Unfortunately, the technique is
incomplete; it always terminates, but does not always return an
answer.
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