publications:
- title: "Qualitative Knowledge, Causal Reasoning and the Localization of Failures "
  author:
  - name: "Allen L. Brown"
    link: "http://www.csail.mit.edu/"
  year: "1976"
  doi: "ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AITR-362.pdf"
  abstract: "This report investigates some techniques appropriate to representing the knowledge necessary for understanding a class of electronic machines -- radio receivers. A computational performance model 'WATSON' is presented. WATSON's task is to isolate failures in radio receivers whose principles of operation have been appropriately described in the knowledge base. The thesis of this report is that hierarchically organized representational structures are essential to the understanding of comlex mechanisms. Such structures lead not only to descriptions of machine operation at many levels of detail, but also offer a powerful means of organizing \"specialist\" knowledge for the repair of machines when they are broken."
  tags:
  - "rule-based"
  - "meta-model"
  - "reasoning"
  - "principles"
  - "Meta-Environment"
  researchr: "https://researchr.org/publication/Brown%3A1976"
  cites: 0
  citedby: 0
  advisor:
  - name: "Gerald Jay Sussman"
    link: "http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/"
  kind: "phdthesis"
  key: "Brown:1976"