The role of knowledge in an active information environment

Some innovative concepts which influence the design and development of active information systems are presented. The data representation, reasoning, and language facilities for an active information system are presented. It is argued that the notion of knowledge and metaknowledge improves the overall system functionality by supporting the user during the process of problem solving and by providing the milestones for automating limited and well-understood portions of the problem domain or administrative services. The prime purpose of an active information system is to support users during the process of problem solving by exploiting information relevant to decision making. This work is also closely associated with research in the area of symbiotic man-machine systems. The kernel of an active information system is its object-oriented modeling substrate, based on the high-level data model Cosmos, which offers numerous advanced features and is capable of representing factual and conceptual knowledge concerning a specific problem domain