Towards Databases for Knowledge Representation

This chapter discusses architectural aspects of Distributed Knowledge Base Management Systems. We investigate how research results on knowledge representation from the artificial intelligence side and on massive data management from the database side may be effectively combined in the design and development of a future distributed knowledge base management system architecture. In particular we address the incorporation of preexisting, autonomously created and administered, heterogeneous database systems as components in a Distributed Knowledge Base Management System and we illustrate how a relational data base schema may be translated into a semantic data model using the Temporal Hierarchy Model [FN85, SCHI83b] as the representation tool.