REPORT BY R. GREINER

	What is this document?
I am currently searching (?floundering?) for a precise thesis topic,
rather that doing any "real" research.
The ideas now considered are very rough and preliminary -- most are
(at best) but first passes, needing much refining.
Hence, this description will NOT be
along the lines of Roget paper which Jim submitted;
not only would this be very difficult to produce,
but I can't imagine how such contorted answers would be useful.
In leiu of that, 
below are a list of (hopefully) relevant questions and their answers.

	Who am I?
Russell Greiner
5th year Grad student

	What am I doing?
I am just beginning work on an application program 
which will allow domain experts to use analogies when enterring
domain knowledge into a growing expert system.

	Why is this is useful to HPP?
Most HPPer agree that knowledge acquisition is the current main problem facing
expert systems today.
Analogy is consider one strong method of solving this problem -- it would
allow the expert to communicate with the program in a natural manner; one
which saves him much of the drudgery of filling in "obvious" details.

	What will the program (eventually) do?
Concocted scenario: An expert quickly teaches Mycin about a new class of
organism, X, by stating that X is just like streptococis, except that ...
The "analogizing" program now examing Mycin's KB of rules, and
proposes new rules to cover this X case, each generated from an existing rule, R,
using a proportional analogy
	Streptococis:X :: R:<the new rule>.

	Why am I doing this?
First, I believe a successful analogizing program will have a major impact
throughout AI.  
The scenario shown above indicates how useful it is for building and
expanding an expert systems;  mutatis mutandis it could be used in
other AI "learning" tasks as well.
I also feel this system may provide the groundwork for other analogy-related tasks:
using analogies to teach or explain a concept new to the student 
(to TEACH about X, describe how it is similar to streptococis, ...), 
and for predictions and conjectures 
-- knowing that streptococis did this, expect X may do likewise
(or else that this X will have a similar effect - where the nature of the
similarity was determined from X's likeness to streptococis).

The second reason is more personal:  I've fascinated by our human ability
to generate and understand analogies.
This seems a very fundamental and immensely powerful tool --
a capability which I believe any intelligent entity must have,
both to reason effectively and to communicate efficiently.
I'm excited at the prospect of working in this area.

	How I intend to do it?
My research programme begins with a massive "knowledge acquisition" phase --
both from advisors and the available literature.
Finding input from the former sparse (though quite useful when transmitted),
I've spent the last month or two reading what I can find on analogy/metaphor,
from diverse fields - philosophy, psychology, AI (and here in learning and
more directly titled analogy papers).
In addition, I've been working through some dry-lab examples, and assembling
(and refining) a few proto-papers, including a thesis proposal to be.

	How and where will the program fit into HPP?
Programs: Perhaps it will eventually be plugged into Eurisko; and/or written up
as a module which an MRS user can load in.
Personnel:
Perhaps TGD and/or MRG will need what this program provides for their respective
tasks.  I feel a close collaboration would be profitable for me, and suspect
they might gain as well.
(We certainly should, in any case, avoid stepping on each other's toes.)

	What do I need?
Better guidance -- I've found the faculty all but unapproachable.   I will step
up my harrassment.

A few crisp, solid examples -- despite the HPP gospel quoted above, nobody
seems able to remember a single example of when they could have used a program
such as the one described above.