R.G.MILES XHP Consulting Ltd, Gloucester. This book is one of two volumes containing papers for presentation at the British Computer Society Expert Systems 98 conference. This is the annual conference of th the BCS Specialist Group on Expert Systems and is in its 18 year. During its lifetime it has established itself as the premier Expert Systems conference in the UK. The conference is attracting an increasing number of papers world-wide and this year in excess of 70% were from research groups outside the UK. This volume includes all papers accepted for the Technical Stream of Expert Systems 98 and presented at the conference in December 1998. The papers within this stream present innovative, new research work. The companion volume, Applications and Innovations in Expert Systems VI, includes all papers accepted for the application stream of the conference. This stream has become the premier European conference on applications of Expert Systems. The papers accepted for presentation within the Technical Stream cover a broad range of research within Expert Systems and fit into four broad categories: ontological frameworks, knowledge base development, classifiers and neuro-fuzzy systems. The award for best Technical paper has been made to David McSherry, from the University of Ulster, for his paper entitled "Strategic Induction of Decision Trees".

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, DEXA'98, held in Vienna, Austria, in August 1998.
The 81 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from a total of more than 200 submissions. The papers are organized in sections on active databases, object-oriented systems, data engineering, information retrieval, workflow and cooperative systems, spatial and temporal aspects, document management, spatial databases, adaptation and view updates, genetic algorithms, cooperative and distributed environments, interaction and communication, transcation, advanced applications, temporal aspects, oriented systems, partitioning and fragmentation, database queries, data, data warehouses, knowledge discovery and data mining, knowledge extraction, and knowledge base reduction for comprehension and reuse.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of three workshops held in conjunction with the 10th Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Perth, Australia, in December 1997.
The 17 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed for inclusion in the book. The book is divided into sections on formal methods of agency, reasoning agents, communication and coordination, social interaction, and practical issues for distributed artificial intelligence systems.

The first International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) was held ten years ago in Montreal (ITS '88). It was so well received by the international community that the organizers decided to do it again in Montreal four years later, in 1992, and then again in 1996. ITS '98 differs from the previous ones in that this is the first time the conference has been held outside of Montreal, and it's only been two years (not four) since the last one. One interesting aspect of the ITS conferences is that they are not explicitly bound to some organization (e.g., IEEE or AACE). Rather, the founder of these conferences, Claude Frasson, started them as a means to congregate researchers actively involved in the ITS field and provide a forum for presentation and debate of the most currently challenging issues. Thus the unifying theme is science. This year's "hot topics" differ from those in the earlier ITS conferences as they reflect ever changing trends in ITS research. A few of the issues being examined at ITS '98 include: Web based tutoring systems, deploying ITS in the real world, tutoring and authoring tools, architectures, and knowledge structure and representation.

This two-volume set constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Industrial and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, IEA/AIE-98, held in Benicassim, Castellon, Spain, in June 1998.The two volumes present a total of 187 revised full papers selected from 291 submissions. In accordance with the conference, the books are devoted to new methodologies, knowledge modeling and hybrid techniques. The papers explore applications from virtually all subareas of AI including knowledge-based systems, fuzzyness and uncertainty, formal reasoning, neural information processing, multiagent systems, perception, robotics, natural language processing, machine learning, supervision and control systems, etc..

This two-volume set constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Industrial and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, IEA/AIE-98, held in Benicassim, Castellon, Spain, in June 1998.The two volumes present a total of 187 revised full papers selected from 291 submissions. In accordance with the conference, the books are devoted to new methodologies, knowledge modeling and hybrid techniques. The papers explore applications from virtually all subareas of AI including knowledge-based systems, fuzzyness and uncertainty, formal reasoning, neural information processing, multiagent systems, perception, robotics, natural language processing, machine learning, supervision and control systems, etc..

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Cooperative Information Systems, CIA'98, held in cognition with Agents World in July 1998 in Paris.
The book presents nine invited contributions together with 14 revised full papers selected from a total of 54 submissions. The book is divided in parts on systems and applications; issues of design, querying, and communication; rational cooperation and electronic commerce; adaptive and collaborative information gathering; and mobile information agents in the internet.

Reasoning with incomplete information constitutes a major challenge for any intelligent system. In fact, we expect such systems not to become paralyzed by missing information but rather to arrive at plausible results by bridging the gaps in the information available.
A versatile way of reasoning in the absence of information is to reason by default. This book aims at providing formal and practical means for automating reasoning with incomplete information by starting from the approach taken by the framework of default logic. For this endeavor, a bridge is spanned between formal semantics, over systems for default reasoning, to efficient implementation.

This book provides a systematic in-depth investigation of a class of multiple-context assumption-based multiagent reasoning problems, typical, e.g., for distributed planning, scheduling, and control. First, logical and architectural foundations are provided to construct the two systems XFRMS and MXFRMS allowing the development of more complex utilities. Then the technology developed for XFRMS in the single-agent case is further enhanced to the multiagent situation. The multiagent RMS MXFRMS provides, along with XFRMS, a solid foundation for building more complex utilities, such as plan or schedule maintenance systems. In the final chapter, the software engineer confronted with the task of building a practicable multiagent system can find a discussion of potential uses and future extensions of the systems provided.

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, DEXA '97, held in Toulouse, France, September 1997. The 62 revised full papers presented in the book, together with three invited contributions, were selected from a total of 159 submissions. The papers are organized in sections on modeling, object-oriented databases, active and temporal aspects, images, integrity constraints, multimedia databases, deductive databases and knowledge-based systems, allocation concepts, data interchange, digital libraries, transaction concepts, learning issues, optimization and performance, query languages, maintenance, federated databases, uncertainty handling and qualitative reasoning, and software engineering and reusable software.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Case-Based Reasoning, ICCBR-97, held in Providence, RI, USA, in July 1997.
The volume presents 39 revised full scientific papers selected from a total of 102 submissions; also included are 20 revised application papers. Among the topics covered are representation and formalization, indexing and retrieval, adaptation, learning, integrated approaches, creative reasoning, CBR and uncertainty. This collection of papers is a comprehensive documentation of the state of the art in CBR research and development.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Conceptual Structures, ICCS '97, held in Seattle, Washington, USA, in August 1997.
The 39 full papers presented were carefully selected and revised for inclusion in the volume. Also included are 9 abstracts of conceptual graphs tools. The papers are organized in sections on knowledge representation, knowledge modeling, formal concept analysis, formal reasoning, applications of conceptual graphs, and conceptual graphs tools. This book competently documents the progress achieved in the area since the predecessor conference ICCS '96, the proceedings of which have been published as LNAI 1115.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th European Workshop on Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World, MAAMAW'97, held in Ronneby, Sweden, in May 1997.
MAAMAW'97 is devoted to multi-agent rationality, thus reflecting the fact that there is presently a transition in the multi-agent community from the study of individual rationality to the study of group rationality. The volume presents 15 revised full papers selected from a total of 51 submissions; also included are the abstracts of three invited talks. The volume covers all current issues in multi-agent rationality.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods, TABLEAUX'97, held in Pont-a-Mousson, France, in May 1997.
The volume presents 22 revised full papers selected from a total of 49 submissions. Also included are two invited papers and two system descriptions. The volume covers the whole spectrum of tableaux-based theorem proving and its applications including theoretical foundations, methodological issues, implementation techniques, and system development. Besides classical logics, among the logics dealt with are modal, intuitionistic, many-valued, and temporal logic.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Joint Conference on Qualitative and Quantitative Practical Reasoning, ECSQARU-FAPR'97, held in Bad Honnef, Germany, in June 1997.
The volume presents 33 revised full papers carefully selected for inclusion in the book by the program committee as well as 12 invited contributions. Among the various aspects of human practical reasoning addressed in the papers are nonmonotonic logics, default reasoning, modal logics, belief function theory, Bayesian networks, fuzzy logic, possibility theory, inference algorithms, dynamic reasoning with partial models, and user modeling approaches.

A fundamental objective of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the creation of in telligent computer programs. In more modest terms AI is simply con cerned with expanding the repertoire of computer applications into new domains and to new levels of efficiency. The motivation for this effort comes from many sources. At a practical level there is always a demand for achieving things in more efficient ways. Equally, there is the technical challenge of building programs that allow a machine to do something a machine has never done before. Both of these desires are contained within AI and both provide the inspirational force behind its development. In terms of satisfying both of these desires there can be no better example than machine learning. Machines that can learn have an in-built effi ciency. The same software can be applied in many applications and in many circumstances. The machine can adapt its behaviour so as to meet the demands of new, or changing, environments without the need for costly re-programming. In addition, a machine that can learn can be ap plied in new domains with the genuine potential for innovation. In this sense a machine that can learn can be applied in areas where little is known about possible causal relationships, and even in circumstances where causal relationships are judged not to exist. This last aspect is of major significance when considering machine learning as applied to fi nancial forecasting."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents - DAI Meets Databases, CIA-97, held in Kiel, Germany, in February 1997.
The book opens with 6 invited full papers by internationally leading researchers surveying the state of the art in the area. The 16 revised full research papers presented were carefully selected during a highly competitive round of reviewing. The papers are organized in topical sections on databases and agent technology, agents for database search and knowledge discovery, communication and cooperation among information agents, and agent-based access to heterogeneous information sources.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third European Workshop on Case-Based Reasoning, EWCBR-96, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in November 1996.
Case-based reasoning is an appealing technique for dealing with the knowledge acquisition bottleneck in computer applications; solutions to new problems are found by adapting similar experience from the past, called cases. The 38 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from a broad variety of submissions after a thorough refereeing process. The volume refleats the state of the art in case-based reasoning research and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, DEXA '96, held in Zurich, Switzerland, in September 1996.
The 77 revised full papers included were selected from a total of nearly 200 submissions. They report on a broad spectrum of advanced applications and the design of database and expert systems. Among the topics addressed are object-oriented databases, active databases, temporal databases, transactions and concurrency, relational databases, CSCW and workflow systems, parallel and distributed systems, expert systems, knowledge-based systems, and information retrieval.

This book presents the refereed proceedings of the 9th European Knowledge Acquisition Workshop, EKAW '96, held in Nottingham, UK, in May 1996.
The 23 revised full papers included address the most relevant theoretical and applicational aspects of knowledge acquisition with a certain emphasis on the acquisition of knowledge for the modelling or automation of complex problem-solving behaviour. The volume is organized in sections on theoretical and general issues, eliciting knowledge from textual or other sources, data-mining, group elicitation, and planning.

This book is based on the second International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages, held in conjunction with the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI'95 in Montreal, Canada in August 1995.
The 26 papers are revised final versions of the workshop presentations selected from a total of 54 submissions; also included is a comprehensive introduction, a detailed bibliography listing 355 relevant publications, and a subject index. The book is structured into seven sections, reflecting the most current major directions in agent-related research. Together with its predecessor, Intelligent Agents, published as volume 890 in the LNAI series, this book provides a timely and comprehensive state-of-the-art report.

This book is based on the author's PhD thesis which was selected during the 1993 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Competition as one of the three best submissions.
The focus of this work is on the issue of availability in distributed file systems. It presents the important new technique called disconnected operation, in which clients mask failures and voluntary network detachments by emulating the functionality of servers where actual server-oriented solutions are inadequate. This permits client operation even under complete isolation from the server; the clean integration of mobile computers into the system is an important side-effect of the new technique. The design and implementation of disconnected file service in a working system, the Coda file system, is described in detail.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, DEXA '95, held in London, UK in September 1995.
The 60 full revised papers presented in the volume were carefully selected from a total of almost 200 submissions and give a comprehensive view over advanced applications of information systems. Among the topics covered are object-oriented databases, advanced database applications, parallel and distributed systems, object-oriented modeling, information retrieval, theoretical aspects, extended relational databases, expert and knowledge-based systems, and physical aspects.

This book is the final report on a comprehensive basic research project, named GOSLER on algorithmic learning for knowledge-based systems supported by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Technology during the years 1991 - 1994. This research effort was focused on the study of fundamental learnability problems integrating theoretical research with the development of tools and experimental investigation.
The contributions by 11 participants in the GOSLER project is complemented by contributions from 23 researchers from abroad. Thus the volume provides a competent introduction to algorithmic learning theory.

This book presents a topical selection of full refereed research papers presented during the 5th International Conference on Information Processing and Management of Uncertainty in Knowledge-Based Systems, IPMU '94, held in Paris, France in July 1994. The topical focus is on the role of uncertainty in the contruction of intelligent computing systems and it is shown how the concepts of AI, neural networks, and fuzzy logic can be utilized for that purpose.
In total, there are presented 63 thoroughly revised papers organized in sections on fundamental issues; theory of evidence; networks, probabilistic, statistical, and informational methods; possibility theory, logics, chaos, reusability, and applications.