<p>A knowledge processing apparatus comprises an application processor (101) which executes a knowledge application that provides a user service in response to knowledge data which may be stored in distributed knowledge components (203,205,207). The application processor (101) is coupled to a knowledge processor (103) which processes knowledge data in response to instructions from the application processor (101) and provides the result of the process to the application processor (101). In particular, a reasoning processor (105) may perform reasoning based on knowledge data and provide the result to the application processor (101). The knowledge processor 103 also comprises a configuration processor (107) which dynamically configures the processing in response to configuration rules and configuration models. The configuration models may specify how the knowledge processing should be performed and the configuration rules may specify how the configuration models are dynamically selected or modified. The configuration is furthermore controlled by the instructions received from the application processor (101).</p>
