A knowledge base (or knowledgebase; abbreviated KB, kb or Δ) is a special kind of database for knowledge management. It provides the means for the computerized collection, organization, and retrieval of knowledge. The term database originated within the computer industry, though its meaning has been broadened by popular use,includes non-electronic databases within its definition. ... Knowledge Management (KM) refers to a range of practices used by organizations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness and learning across the organization. ... Look up retrieval in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Personification of knowledge (Greek Επιστημη, Episteme) in Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey. ...

Just as it has become standard practice to write database as one word it is increasingly common in computer science to write knowledgebase as one word (an interim approach was to write the term with a hyphen).

Types

Knowledgebases are categorized into two major types:

• Machine-readable knowledgebases store knowledge in a computer-readable form, usually for the purpose of having automated deductive reasoning applied to them. They contain a set of data, often in the form of rules that describe the knowledge in a logically consistent manner. Logical operators such as And (conjunction), Or (disjunction), material implication and negation may be used to build it up from the atomic knowledge. Consequently classical deduction can be used to reason about the knowledge in the knowledge base.

• Human-readable knowledgebases are designed to allow people to retrieve and use the knowledge they contain, primarily for training purposes. They are commonly used to capture explicit knowledge of an organization, including troubleshooting, articles, white papers, user manuals and others. The primary benefit of such a knowledge base is to provide a means to discover solutions to problems that have known solutions which can be re-applied by others, less experienced in the problem area.

The most important aspect of a knowledgebase is the quality of information it contains. The best knowledge bases have carefully written articles that are kept up to date, an excellent information retrieval system (search engine), and a carefully designed content format and classification structure. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Logical disjunction (usual symbol or) is a logical operator that results in true if either of the operands is true. ... In logical calculus of mathematics, the logical conditional (also known as the material implication, sometimes material conditional) is a binary logical operator connecting two statements, if p then q where p is a hypothesis (or antecedent) and q is a conclusion (or consequent). ... Negation (i. ... An organization or organisation (read more about -ize vs -ise) is a formal group of people with one or more shared goals. ... Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving. ... A white paper is an authoritative report; a government report outlining policy; or a document whose purpose is to educate industry customers or collect leads for a company. ... Look up manual in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Classification may refer to: Taxonomic classification See also class (philosophy) Statistical classification Security classification Hint: Language use may refer to a taxonomic classification that is used for statistical purposes also as a statistical classification (like International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems). ...

A knowledge base may use an ontology to specify its structure (entity types and relationships) and its classification scheme. An ontology, together with a set of instances of its classes constitutes a knowledge base. In both computer science and information science, an ontology is a data model that represents a domain and is used to reason about the objects in that domain and the relations between them. ...

Determining what type of information is captured, and where that information resides in a knowledge base is something that is determined by the processes that support the system. A robust process structure is the backbone of any successful knowledge base.

Some knowledge bases have an artificial intelligence component. These kinds of knowledge bases can suggest solutions to problems sometimes based on feedback provided by the user, and are capable of learning from experience. See expert system. Knowledge representation, automated reasoning and argumentation are active areas of research at the forefront of artificial intelligence. // Hondas intelligent humanoid robot AI redirects here. ... An expert system also known as a knowledge based system, is a computer program that contains some of the subject-specific knowledge of one or more human experts. ... // Hondas intelligent humanoid robot AI redirects here. ...

Implementations

Tufts University School of Medicine has created a software infrastructure called the Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase, TUSK. It serves as a knowledgebase for curricular information for the health sciences schools at Tufts (medical, dental,veterinary, public health, nutrition, graduate biomedical sciences). This infrastructure has been shared with three medical schools in the U.S., three in Africa and soon, one in India. The infrastructure enables institutions to create a knowledgebase serving local needs. ^[1] The Tufts University School of Medicine is one of the eight schools that comprise Tufts University. ...

See also

• Ontology (computer science)
• Cyc, OpenCyc
• RuleML
• Computability logic
• Semantic Web
• faq
• how-to
• tutorial
• Wiki
• Ideas bank

In both computer science and information science, an ontology is a data model that represents a domain and is used to reason about the objects in that domain and the relations between them. ... Cyc is an artificial intelligence project that attempts to assemble a comprehensive ontology and database of everyday common sense knowledge, with the goal of enabling AI applications to perform human-like reasoning. ... Cyc is an artificial intelligence project which attempts to assemble a comprehensive ontology and database of everyday common-sense knowledge, with the goal of enabling AI applications to perform human-like reasoning. ... The Rule Markup Language (RuleML) is defined by the Rule Markup Initiative in permitting both forward (bottom-up) and backward (top-down) rules in XML for deduction, rewriting, and further inferential-transformational tasks. ... Computability logic is a formal theory of computability, introduced by Giorgi Japaridze in 2003. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... FAQ is an abbreviation for Frequently Asked Question(s). The term refers to listed questions and answers, all supposed to be frequently asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. ... A how-to is an informal, often short, description of how to accomplish some specific task. ... // Academia In British academic parlance, a tutorial is a small class of one, or only a few, students, in which the tutor (a professor or other academic staff member) gives individual attention to the students. ... A wiki (IPA: <WICK-ee> or <WEE-kee>[1]) is a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. ... An ideas bank is a website where people post, exchange, discuss, and polish new ideas. ...

Notes

1. ^ Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase vision

External links

• Whatis.com definition of Knowledge Base
• High Performance Knowledge Bases
• Content Repository API
• Computability Logic Homepage
• Protégé, an open source ontology editor and knowledge-base framework
• SustainLane Government, an open source knowledge-base framework for best practices in state and local government sustainability management