Foundations of Knowledge Systems: with Applications to Databases and Agents

One of the main uses of computer systems is the management of large amounts of symbolic information representing the state of some application domain, such as information about all the people I communicate with in my personal address database, or relevant parts of the outer space in the knowledge base of a NASA space mission. While database management systems offer only the basic services of information storage and retrieval, more powerful knowledge systems offer, in addition, a number of a...