Knowledge management: an abstraction of knowledge base and database management systems

KNOMAD, a knowledge management design system, is a collection of tools built in layers. The layered architecture provides two major benefits: the ability to flexibly apply only those tools that are necessary for an application, and the ability to deep overhead, and thus inefficiency, to a minimum. KNOMAD is designed to manage many knowledge bases in a distributed environment. Three very different knowledge agents have been defined so far. The Freight Agency Knowledge Base is the simplest. However, it was made more complex by using a meta-rule group for its control strategy. The `monkeys and bananas´ problem has been defined; it consists of about twenty rules, uses qualification extensively and has been very useful to drive out limitations and inadequacies of the rule system. Finally, a large knowledge base consisting of three rule groups and a total of about 160 rules has been defined that performs fault diagnosis in a power management and distribution system for a space-station-like platform