Anders Bouwer and Bert Bredeweg, 2002.
Aggregation of Qualitative Simulations for Explanation.
Proceedings of the International workshop on
Qualitative Reasoning, QR'02, pages 11-18, Sitges - Barcelona,
Spain, June 10-12, 2002, N. Angell & J. A. Ortega (editors).
(PDF)
Abstract
Qualitative simulations can be seen as knowledge models
that capture insights about system behaviour that should be
acquired by learners. A problem that learners encounter
when interacting with qualitative simulations is the
overwhelming amount of knowledge detail represented in
such models. As a result, the discovery space grows too
large, which hampers the knowledge construction process
of the learner. In this paper we present an approach to
restructure the output of a qualitative reasoning engine in
order to make it better suited for use in interactive learning
environments. The approach combines techniques for
simplifying state-graphs with techniques for aggregating
causal models within states. The result is an approach that
automatically highlights the main behavioural facts in
terms of simulation events and simplified causal accounts,
while leaving the option for the learner to explore the
aggregated constructs in more detail.