9. A system as in claim 1, comprising a case base which has been constructed substantially by adding new cases in response to a set of unmatched problem templates.
1. A case-based reasoning system, comprising a rule base having a plurality of inferential rules; a case base having a plurality of exemplar cases; a data base having a plurality of data records having a plurality of data items external to a set of facts in a problem template and external to a set of derived facts concluded from said set of facts; and an inference engine comprising means for performing case-based reasoning steps on said cases and said problem template, and comprising means for performing rule-based reasoning steps on said data items external to said set of facts in said problem template and external to said derived facts using said rules in a unified automated reasoning system; wherein said inference engine comprises means for matching said problem template having a set of facts to said case base; and means for applying said rules to said cases, said data items in said data records external to said set of facts in said problem template and external to said derived facts, and said facts in said problem template; wherein said inference engine comprises a set of software objects which correspond to said cases and said data items and wherein said system comprises a data interface comprising means for maintaining a mapping between said data items and a first set of representative software objects, and means for maintaining a mapping between said cases and a second set of representative software objects.