Ralph Bergmann, Wolfgang Wilke

• Although several systematic analyses of existing approaches to adaptation have been published recently, a general formal adaptation framework is still missing. This paper presents a step into the direction of developing such a formal model of transformational adaptation. The model is based on the notion of the quality of a solution to a problem, while quality is meant in a more general sense and can also denote some kind of appropriateness, utility, or degree of correctness. Adaptation knowledge is then defined in terms of functions transforming one case into a successor case. The notion of quality provides us with a semantics for adaptation knowledge and allows us to define terms like soundness, correctness and completeness. In this view, adaptation (and even the whole CBR process) appears to be a special instance of an optimization problem.