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Abstract

A method and system for assisting a user in solving a new problem case within a selected domain, such as a complex apparatus. The method comprises the steps of providing a case database comprising domain knowledge for the selected domain and previously solved cases, each previously solved case including a plurality of case attributes, said case attributes comprising case attribute names and associated values, prompting the user to select from the case attributes a set of new problem case attributes considered to be relevant to the new problem case and to provide current values for each of the new problem case attributes, searching the database of solved cases for candidate solved cases that have one or more of the new problem case attributes selected by the user and generating a list of said candidate solved cases, matching the candidate solved cases to the new problem case by comparing the value for each of the case attributes in the new problem case to the value for the same case attribute in each of the candidate solved cases, ranking the candidate solved cases in descending order of similarity and presenting a list of candidate solved cases in order of relevance based upon the ranking, generating additional questions based upon unanswered attributes of the candidate solved cases for which values have not yet been provided by the user, to assist the user to select and provide values for the unanswered attributes and thereby appropriately order the candidate solved cases; and repeating the above steps until the user is satisfied with the list of candidate solved cases.

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