  Evidence-based reasoning is at the core of many problem-solving and
decision-making tasks in a wide variety of domains. Generalizing from the
research and development of cognitive agents in several such domains, this
paper presents progress toward a computational theory for the development of
instructable cognitive agents for evidence-based reasoning tasks. The paper
also illustrates the application of this theory to the development of four
prototype cognitive agents in domains that are critical to the government and
the public sector. Two agents function as cognitive assistants, one in
intelligence analysis, and the other in science education. The other two agents
operate autonomously, one in cybersecurity and the other in intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance. The paper concludes with the directions of
future research on the proposed computational theory.
