Applications of Object - Oriented Database Technology in Knowledge - Based Integrated Information Systems

Knowledge-based integrated information systems (KBIIS) denote a class of systems that involve the integration of heterogeneous information resources. These information resources may include heterogeneous distributed database systems, knowledge-based systems (such as expert systems) involving heterogeneous knowledge representations, and conventional application programs and their associated processors. Heterogeneous distributed database technology and object-oriented database technology have extended conventional database technology in an attempt to deal with some of the issues involved in integrating these information sources. This paper describes applications of object-oriented database technology in KBIIS, including the integration of heterogeneous (and distributed) system components, and heterogeneous data and knowledge representations. The paper also describes a further extension of object-oriented database technology, which we call distributed object management technology, and which focuses on the need to integrate data and knowledge processing, as well as the data and knowledge itself. The paper surveys current technology and research areas which we believe contribute to the development of these technologies, and presents an overview of some of the research issues that must be addressed within these research areas.