ABSTRACT
Tier 1 Method (T1M).Replacement reflects the principles of a type of inorganic chemical reaction called single replacement, as well as gene point (substitution) mutation in biology. T2M.Association involves using different rules of association to find a new component to replace the existing one and determining whether it will create value. The logic is that every component is related to many other components in some way; these associations can be viewed as a network. T2M.Association can be thought of as an extension of T2M.Abstraction that is less structured and more general. T2M.RandomChange is even less structured and more general than T2M.Association. As a matter of fact, it involves no structured search process, even though the logic behind it is sound. An explorer randomly identifies a component and evaluates whether it helps to improve the value of the resulting ending point.
