DM: information on diagnosis

[Shlomo Urbach]

Hello,

Is anyone out there using DM (or Multivariate Regression or whatever)
in combination with some domain knowledge for diagnostic purposes ?

I'm working on extrating "probable cause" from large (100 - 100000 
records) datasets.
The target is to understand which of the many (~100) variables (X's) 
affect
the outcome of a (single known) target variable (Y).
The algorithm is used to diagnose behavior of a large system, and
tell the user what causes poor behavior.
Some limited domain knowledge is available. It may be formulated as
hierarchies and loose cause/effect relationships between the various
X's.
NOTE: Y and most X's are numeric. Some X's are categorical.

I'm interested in any papers, books, algorithms, etc. about similar
experiences.
Especially:
        1. Which algorithms used to detect the "interesting" (cause) 
X's ?
        2. How domain knowledge is integrated in the algorithms?
        3. How are results (which are always somewhat uncertain) 
shown to the
           novice user, who only wants to know the cause, and not any 
DM mumbo-jumbo ?

Thanks,

Shlomo Urbach
Neptune Software
shlomo@neptune.co.il