Combining Connectionist and Symbolic Learning to Refine Certainty Factor Rule Bases

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes RAPTURE—a system for revising probabilistic knowledge bases that combines connectionist and symbolic learning methods. RAPTURE uses a modified version of backpropagation to refine the certainty factors of a probabilistic rule base and it uses ID3's information-gain heuristic to add new rules. Results on refining three actual expert rule bases demonstrate that this combined approach generally performs better than previous methods.