18. A computerized system comprising: a knowledge management system including a hierarchical knowledge structure that categorizes information according to cognitive and semantic qualities within a knowledge domain, the hierarchical knowledge structure including discrete knowledge types included within a common information category of the hierarchical knowledge structure, the discrete knowledge types including knowledge represented explicitly through domain vocabulary words and relationships among the domain vocabulary words, and the discrete knowledge types including knowledge represented as designated sample data to be processed using statistical machine learning analysis, wherein the knowledge management system includes a computer program product operable to cause data processing apparatus to process the discrete knowledge types and to effect a programming interface used to access the hierarchical knowledge structure; and a document handling system configured to use the programming interface to access and obtain information from the knowledge management system; wherein the computer program product is operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operation comprising: extracting attributes from the sample data; calculating a statistical concept-distance metric for the attributes; selecting a first subset of the attributes that are more distinguishing with respect to the sample data based on the calculated statistical concept-distance metric for the attributes and a first user-controllable input; and selecting a second subset of the first attribute subset based on the given category and a relevance measure for attributes in the first attribute subset with respect to the given category, the relevance measure being affected by a second user-controllable input; and augmenting the hierarchical knowledge with the second attribute subset.
18. A computerized system comprising: a knowledge management system including a hierarchical knowledge structure that categorizes information according to cognitive and semantic qualities within a knowledge domain, the hierarchical knowledge structure including discrete knowledge types included within a common information category of the hierarchical knowledge structure, the discrete knowledge types including knowledge represented explicitly through domain vocabulary words and relationships among the domain vocabulary words, and the discrete knowledge types including knowledge represented as designated sample data to be processed using statistical machine learning analysis, wherein the knowledge management system includes a computer program product operable to cause data processing apparatus to process the discrete knowledge types and to effect a programming interface used to access the hierarchical knowledge structure; and a document handling system configured to use the programming interface to access and obtain information from the knowledge management system; wherein the computer program product is operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operation comprising: extracting attributes from the sample data; calculating a statistical concept-distance metric for the attributes; selecting a first subset of the attributes that are more distinguishing with respect to the sample data based on the calculated statistical concept-distance metric for the attributes and a first user-controllable input; and selecting a second subset of the first attribute subset based on the given category and a relevance measure for attributes in the first attribute subset with respect to the given category, the relevance measure being affected by a second user-controllable input; and augmenting the hierarchical knowledge with the second attribute subset. 22. The system of claim 18 , wherein the document handling system comprises a resource management system.