لخّصلي

1 Introduction
Virtual organizations are taking shape and expanding
in all different aspects of our societies. Organizations
are no longer limited by geographic borders.
E-commerce and E-business enable companies operate
globally on a limited physical resources. They
no longer have to expand physical resources to expand
business. E-learning enables universities operate
virtually, turning the entire globe to a classroom.
E-governments can now serve citizens on a 24-hour
basis. This is how virtual societies are taking shape,
making it possible to get the answer for any question,
anywhere, anytime, provided that such an answer does
exist. In other words, if the information we need does
exist, it is available, anywhere, anytime. We are indeed
living in information age, where all human societies
are turning to one global Information Society.
2 Information
The most valuable commodity in this age is information.
Information provides awareness, knowledge,
and power! We live in a competitive world and in any
area of competition, friendly or otherwise, the most
informed party has the upper hand. An “informed”
person generally makes the most appropriate decision.
Information is the key word in our age.
Considering the role and significance of “information”,
it is necessary that we give a proper definition
for information.
2.1 What is Information?
Information is defined in different ways by different
scholars [1]. Shannon [2], Pratt [3], Peters [4],
Resnikoff [5], Dretske [6], and others [7, 8, 9] have
their own definition of information. Robert Losee
presents a comprehensive and critical discussion of
the various definitions given for information [10]. He
considers all other definitions as field-specific, and
provides a discipline-independent definition of his
own. For Losee, information is produced by all processes
and it is the values of characteristics in the process’
output that are information [10].
I take an entity/representation approach to define
information [1]. I say, any “representation” of an entity
is information about the entity.
Formally, r is the (ρ, t)-representation of e, if
there exists a function ρ and a point in time t, such that
ρ(e, t) = r. Notice that different functions may produce
different representations of a given entity; and
a function may produce different representations of a
given entity at different times. Using a convention that
r refers to the current value of the function, we can
eliminate t, simplifying the definition. Thus, we can