Knowledge is an interesting concept that has attracted the attention of philosophers for thousands of years. In more recent times, researchers have investigated knowledge in a more applied way with the chief aim of bringing knowledge to life in machines. Artificial Intelligence has provided some degree of rigour to the study of knowledge and Expert Systems are able to use knowledge to solve problems and answer questions. Current business, social, political and technological pressures have forced organisations to take greater control of the knowledge asset. Software suppliers and others, offering valuable solutions in this area have unfortunately clouded the issue of knowledge. Information and data control are seen as implicit knowledge management tools and many have abandoned the search for explicit knowledge management methods. Knowledge representation schemes help to identify knowledge. They allow for human understanding and machine application and they can support the automated use...
John L. Gordon