This paper addresses a problem that may arise in c]assificatzon tasks: the design of procedures for matching an instance with a set ~f criteria for class membership in such a way as to permit the intelligent handling ~f inexact, as well as exact matches. An inexact match is a comparlson between an instance and a set of criteria (or a second instance) which has the result that some, but not all, of the criteria described (or exemplified) in the second are found to be satisfied in the first. An exact match is such a comparison for which all of.
