Report Number: CS-TR-73-387
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: Analysis of behavior of chemical molecules: rule formation on non-homogeneous classes of objects.
Author: Buchanan, Bruce G.
Author: Sridharan, Natesa S.
Date: August 1973
Abstract: An information processing model of some important aspects of inductive reasoning is presented within the context of one scientific discipline. Given a collection of experimental (mass spectrometry) data from several chemical molecules the computer program described here separates the molecules into "well-behaved" subclasses and selects from the space of all explanatory processes the "characteristic" processes for each subclass. The definitions of "well-behaved" and "characteristic" embody several heuristics which are discussed. Some results of the program are discussed which have been useful to chemists and which lend credibility to this approach.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/73/387/CS-TR-73-387.pdf