RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

This mechanism makes use of plausibility information concerning the sub-hypotheses, along with information about what a sub-hypothesis can explain in the particular situation, to build toward a complete explanation. The novel capability arises of confirming a sub-hypothesis on the basis of its ability to explain some feature for which there is no other plausible explanation. The mechanism we have developed accommodates several types of hypothesis interaction: additive hypothesis cooperation in accounting for the features of the situation, substantive hypothesis interactions of mutual compatibility and incompatibility, and interactions of the sort where one hypothesis, if it, is accepted, suggests some other hypothesis. Prospects seem good for extending the mechanism to accommodate other forms of interaction too. We have used this mechanism successfully as the basis for an expert system, called Red, designed to solve realworld problems of red-cell antibody identification.