Representation of Domain Knowledge in an Intelligent Help System

The SINIX Consultant (SC) is an intelligent help system for the SINIX operating system. * It is supposed to answer natural language questions about SINIX concepts and commands and also give unsolicited advice to the user. The basis, in order to fulfill these tasks, is a rich knowledge base with respect to the SINIX system which reflects the technical aspects of the domain as well as a user's view and her use of the system. The SINIX Knowledge Base consists of a taxonomical hierarchy of concepts according to different views or classifications of the domain concepts. Domain concepts are commands and (virtual) objects of the SINIX system; higher level concepts correspond to natural language terms, mental model entities, or more general abstract actions and objects. A single concept is described with respect to it's function, structure, use, and/or relation to other concepts. The main emphasis is on the representation of commands, which includes characterizations of their application and function used for user-adequate explanations. The main ideas of a formal description of their semantics, necessary in order to enable reasoning and problem solving processes, are outlined.