Synergy and Commonality in Case-Based and Constraint-Based Reasoning

Although Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is a natural formulation for many problems, our previous work on CBR as applied to design made it apparent that here were elements ofthe CBR paradigm that prevented it from being more widely applied. At the same time, we were evaluating Constraint Satisfaction techniques for design, and found a commonality in motivation between repair-based constraint sa isfaction problems (CSP) and case adaptation. This led us to combine the two methodologies in order to gain the advantages of CSP for case-based reasoning, allowing CBR to be more widely and flexibly applied. In combining the two methodologies, we found some unexpected synergy and commonality between the approaches. This paper describes the synergy and commonality hat emerged as we combined case-based and constraintbased reasoning, andgives a brief overview ofour continuing and future work on exploiting the emergent synergy when combining these reasoning modes.