Automated Modeling for Answering Prediction Questions: Selecting the Time Scale and System Boundary

The ability to answer prediction questions is crucial to reasoning about physical systems. A prediction question poses a hypothetical scenario and asks for the resulting behavior of variables of interest. Prediction questions can be answered by simulating a model of the scenario. An appropriate system boundary, which separates aspects of the scenario that must be modeled from those that can be ignored, is critical to achieving a simple yet adequate model. This paper presents an e cient algorithm for system boundary selection, it shows the important role played by the model's time scale, and it provides a separate algorithm for selecting this time scale. Both algorithms have been implemented in a compositional modeling program called tripel and evaluated in the plant physiology domain.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1994
• Where: AAAI
• Authors: Jeff Rickel, Bruce W. Porter
• Keywords: AAAI 1994, Hypothetical Scenario, Intelligent Agents, Prediction Questions, Time Scale