This book presents the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, CAiSE '96, held in Herakleion, Crete, Greece, in May 1996.
The 30 revised full papers included in the book were selected from a total of some 100 submissions. The book is organised in sections on CASE environments, temporal and active database technologies, experience reports, interoperability in information systems, formal methods in system development, novel architectures, workflow management and distributed information systems, information modelling, object-oriented database design, and semantic links and abstraction.

This reference book documents the scientific outcome of the DIMACS/SYCON Workshop on Verification and Control of Hybrid Systems, held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, in October 1995.
A hybrid system consists of digital devices that interact with analog environments. Computer science contributes expertise on the analog aspects of this emerging field of interdisciplinary research and design. The 48 revised full papers included were strictly refereed; they present the state of the art in this dynamic field with contributions by leading experts. Also available are the predecessor volumes published in the same series as LNCS 999 and LNCS 736.

Evolutionary computing, inspired by the biological world, is one of the emergent technologies of our time. Being essentially a software activity, it has been successfully applied, e.g. for optimization and machine learning in various areas. The tremendous increase in computational power and, more recently, the appearance of a new generation of programmable logic devices allow for a new approach to designing computing machines inspired by biological models: it is now possible to make the hardware itself evolve.
This book is based on a workshop on evolvable hardware, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in October 1995. It reports the state of the art of research in this field and presents two introductory chapters, written with the novice reader in mind.

This book addresses issues concerning the engineering of system prod ucts that make use of computing technology. These systems may be prod ucts in their own right, for example a computer, or they may be the computerised control systems inside larger products, such as factory automation systems, transportation systems and vehicles, and personal appliances such as portable telephones. In using the term engineering the authors have in mind a development process that operates in an integrated sequence of steps, employing defined techniques that have some scientific basis. Furthermore we expect the operation of the stages to be subject to controls and standards that result in a product fit for its intended purpose, both in the hands of its users and as a business venture. Thus the process must take account of a wide range of requirements relating to function, cost, size, reliabili ty and so on. It is more difficult to define the meaning of computing technology. These days this involves much more than computers and software. For example, many tasks that might be performed by software running in a general purpose computer can also be performed directly by the basic technology used to construct a computer, namely digital hardware. However, hardware need not always be digital; we live in an analogue world, hence analogue signals appear on the boundaries of our systems and it can sometimes be advantageous to allow them to penetrate further."

This book presents the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS '96, held in Passau, Germany in March 1996.
The book presents 19 revised full papers selected from a total of 47 submissions together with 11 tool presentations and 3 invited papers. The collection of papers addresses all current aspects of the design and analysis of distributed systems; the volume is organized in topical sections on tools, model checking and testing, security, models and methods, case studies, and logic and programs.

This book has two audiences: the practising Requirements Engineer and the advanced student of software engineering or computer science. The book is unique because it introduces latest research results and, at the same time, presents highly practical and useful techniques. This book is complementary to texts on software requirements and system Requirements Engineering because of its focus on the problems caused by the fact that Requirements Engineering involves people. Throughout this book the author has sought to introduce the reader to a number of techniques which have not previously been included within mainstream computer science literature. The techniques chosen have been shown to work in practice in both commercial and research pro jects. The appendices contain step-by-step guides to particular tech niques; sufficient detail is provided for readers to try the techniques for themselves. The problem faced by the Requirements Engineer is complex, it con cerns meeting the needs of the customer and at the same time meeting the needs of the designer.

It is probably an overstatement to say that the discipline of telecommunication systems is becoming an application of digital signal processing (DSP). However, there is no doubt that by the mid-I980s integrated circuit technology has advanced to such an extent that revolutionary advances in telecommunications are fostered by the introduction of new and poweiful DSP algorithms. Actually, DSP has been recently playing a major role in the development of telecommuni cations systems: to name just one of the most widespread applications where this interaction has been most effective, we may mention the use of intelligent DSP to improve the peiformance of transmission systems by allowing sophisticated algorithm to be implemented in radio transmitters and receivers for personal communications. Other areas have equally benefited by the latest advances of DSP: speech coding and synthesis, speech recognition and enhancement, radar, sonar, digital audio, and remote sensing, just to cite afew. With this in mind, when choosing the topic for the 7th Tyrrhenian Workshop on Digital Communications, whose contributions are collected in this book, we aimed at focusing on the state of the art and the perspectives of the interaction between DSP and telecommunications, two disciplines that are becoming increasingly intertwined. Although by no means exhaustive of all the applications of DSP to telecommu nications, we believe that the material presented in this book pinpoints the most interesting among them, and hence it will be considered as a useful tool for investigating this complex and highly challenging field."

This book presents the refereed proceedings of the Sixth European Symposium on Programming, ESOP '96, held in Link ping, Sweden, in April 1996.
The 23 revised full papers included were selected from a total of 63 submissions; also included are invited papers by Cliff B. Jones and by Simon L. Peyton Jones. The book is devoted to fundamental issues in the specification, analysis, and implementation of programming languages and systems; the emphasis is on research issues bridging the gap between theory and practice. Among the topics addressed are software specification and verification, programming paradigms, program semantics, advanced type systems, program analysis, program transformation, and implementation techniques.

This book developed from an IFIP workshop which brought together methods and architecture researchers in Human Computer Interaction and Software Engineering. To an extent this introduction is a little unfair to the authors, as we have distilled the results of the workshop to give the reader a perspective of the problems within integrated approaches to usability engineering. The papers could not hope to address all ofthe issues; however, we hope that a framework will help the reader gainfurther insights into current research andfuture practice. The initial motivation was to bring together researchers and practitioners to exchange their experiences on Graphical User Interface (Gill) design problems. The two groups represented methodological and architecture/tools interests, so the workshop focused on intersection of how methods can support user interface development and vice versa, how tools, architectures and reusable components can empower the design process. There is, we believe, a constructive tension between these two communities. Methodologists tend to approach the design problem with task/domain/organisational analysis while the tool builders suggest design empowerment/envisioning as a means ofimproving the way users work rather than relying on analysis ofcurrent systems. This debate revolves around the questions of whether users' current work is optimal, or whether designers have the insight to empower users by creating effective solutions to their problems. Tool builders typically want to build something, then get the users to try it, while the methodologists want to specify something, validate it and then build it.

This book presents 12 revised refereed papers selected as the best from 32 submissions for the First International Workshop on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS '95, held in Aarhus, Denmark, in May 1995.
The workshop brought together 46 researchers interested in the development and application of tools and algorithms for specification, verification, analysis, and construction of distributed systems. The papers included in the book are devoted to refinement-based and compositional verification, construction techniques, analysis and verification via theorem proving, process algebras, temporal and modal logics, techniques for real-time, hybrid and probabilistic systems, and value-passing systems.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Static Analysis Symposium, SAS '96, held in Aachen, Germany, in September 1996 in conjunction with ALP and PLILP.
The volume presents 22 highly-quality revised full papers selected from a total of 79 submissions; also included are three system descriptions and invited contributions by Alex Aiken (abstract only), Flemming Nielson, and Bernhard Steffen. Among the topics addressed are program analysis, incremental analysis, abstract interpretation, partial evaluation, logic programming, functional programming, and constraint programming.

The areas of active and real-time databases have seen a tremendous growth of interest in the past few years, particularly with regard to their support of time-critical and embedded applications. ARTDB-95 provided, therefore, an important forum for researchers from both communities to discuss research results, and also to chart new directions for the future. As well as the 11 submitted papers presented at the workshop, this volume also contains 4 invited papers on the following topics: the impact of active databases on commercial practice; the optimization of active database transactions; the need for better language, compiler and tool support for real-time databases; and the origin of time constraints associated with data, events and actions. Together the papers give a comprehensive overview of current research, and will provide invaluable reading for academic and industrial researchers and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Static Analysis, SAS '95, held in Glasgow, UK, in September 1995. Static Analysis is increasingly recognized as a foundation for high-performance implementations and verification systems of high-level programming languages.
22 full revised papers selected from a total of 55 submissions are presented; they address static analysis issues for different programming paradigms; in particular concurrent, constraint, functional, imperative, logic, and object-oriented programming are addressed. In addition there are abstracts or full papers for three invited presentations and two system descriptions.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Memory Management, IWMM '95, held in Kinross, Scotland, in September 1995. It contains 17 full revised papers on all current aspects of memory management; among the topics addressed are garbage collection for parallel, real-time, and distributed memory systems, memory management of distributed and of persistent objects, programming language aspects, hardware-assisted garbage collection, and open-network garbage collection.
In addition, the book presents the invited paper "Dynamic Storage Allocation: A Survey and Review" by a team of four authors from the University of Texas at Austin, which surveys the literature on allocators between 1961 and 1995.

Practical Usage of ISPF Dialog Manager is a concise and comprehensive source of information for the development of applications using IBM's Dialog Management package. Dialog Manager is a vehicle for implementing dialogue applications (such as PDF - Program Development Facility) and is very well suited to the implementation of individual dialogue systems and those systems which are required to run from the TSO/ISPF environment. It is also ideally suited for prototyping.
This book is intended for both beginners and experts. With its carefully chosen blend of theory and practice, and extensive use of examples and case studies, this book will provide an invaluable guide to all those needing to learn about or using the ISPF Dialog Manager.

This book is the final outcome of the Eurographics Workshop on Design, Specification and Verification of Interactive Systems, that was held in Bonas, from June 7 to 9, 1995. This workshop was the second of its kind, following the successful first edition in Italy in 1994. The goal of this ongoing series of meetings is to review the state of the art in the domain of tools, notations and methodologies supporting the design of Interactive Systems. This acknowledges the fact that making systems that are friendlier to the user makes the task ever harder to the designers of such systems, and that much research is still needed to provide the appropriate conceptual and practical tools. The workshop was located in the Chateau de Bonas, in the distant countryside of Toulouse, France. Tms location has been selected to preserve the quiet and studious atmosphere that was established in the monastery of Santa Croce at Bocca di Magra for the first edition, and that was much enjoyed by the participants. The conversations initiated during the sessions often lasted till late at night, in the peaceful atmosphere of the Gers landscape.

This book presents two major research results on the fast implementation of graph rewriting systems (GRS). First, it explores the class of so-called UBS-GRS, where the complexity of a rewriting step is linear instead of NP, showing for example that visual programming is possible by UBS graph rewriting. Second, an abstract machine for graph rewriting is defined providing an instruction set sufficient for the execution of GRS.
The basic definitions of GRS in the algorithmic approach are introduced and extended by attribution and control structures to comprise a formalism for an operational specification. The translation of a functional programming language to graph rewriting shows the capabilities of UBS-GRS.

This book presents the proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on large Spatial Databases, SSD '95, held in Portland, Maine, USA in August 1995.
The 23 refereed full papers presented were selected from more than 60 submissions and describe the state-of-the-art in the expanding field of large spatial databases, with a certain emphasis on an upcoming new generation of spatial database management systems. The volume is organized in sections on spatial data models, spatial data mining, spatial query processing, multiple representations, open GIS, geo-algorithms, reasoning about spatial relations, spatial joins, and benchmarks.

Concurrent design, or co-design of hardware and software is extremely important for meeting design goals, such as high performance, that are the key to commercial competitiveness. Hardware/Software Co-Design covers many aspects of the subject, including methods and examples for designing: (1) general purpose and embedded computing systems based on instruction set processors; (2) telecommunication systems using general purpose digital signal processors as well as application specific instruction set processors; (3) embedded control systems and applications to automotive electronics. The book also surveys the areas of emulation and prototyping systems with field programmable gate array technologies, hardware/software synthesis and verification, and industrial design trends. Most contributions emphasize the design methodology, the requirements and state of the art of computer aided co-design tools, together with current design examples.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, CAV '95, held in Li ge, Belgium in July 1995.
The book contains the 31 refereed full research papers selected for presentation at CAV '95 as well as abstracts or full papers of the three invited presentations. Originally oriented towards finite-state concurrent systems, CAV now covers all styles of verification approaches and a variety of application areas. The papers included range from theoretical issues to concrete applications with a certain emphasis on verification tools and the algorithms and techniques needed for their implementations. Beyond finite-state systems, real-time systems and hybrid systems are an important part of the conference.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, CAiSE '95, held in Jyvaskyla, Finland in June 1995.
The 26 full papers presented in this volume were selected from more than 100 submissions; in addition there are three invited papers. Among the contributing authors are academics as well as information system practitioners from industry and administration. The volume is organized in sections on behaviour modelling, requirements engineering, 00 concepts and applications, work and communication modelling, meta modelling, user interface issues, CASE integration, reuse, conceptual modelling issues, and software development issues."

This book is the proceedings of the Workshop on the Performance Engineering of Computer and Telecommunications Systems. The workshop Was held at Liverpool John Moores University, England on the 5th and 6th September 1995. The workshop follows a series organised by the British Computer Society (BCS) Special Interest Group on Performance Engineering. The workshop addressed most techniques and experieI1ces in the Engineering of Computer and Telecommunications Systems that provide a guaranteed quality of service. Techniques such as measurements, simulation, and analytical models and their applications to ATM networks, Multimedia Systems, Distributed Systems, Access and Wide Area Networks were presented. In addition a number of papers dealt with advances in the development of analytical models, simulation architectures and the application of formal methods, stich as Process Algebra, to the specification and building of performance biased computer systems. The book is suitable for systems designers, engineers, researchers and postgraduate students interested in the design and implementation of Computer Systems, Networks and Telecommunications. Many people assisted in the arrangements and success of this workshop. I would like to thank them all and in particular the reviewers. I would also like to particularly thank our industrial sponsors GPT Public Networks Group, Liverpool and BICC Cables, Chester, England for their generous financial and material support.

This book, based on extensive experience teaching VHDL to undergraduate students at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and to engineers in industry through short courses run by Mentor Graphics Corporation, USA, enables students and engineers to master VHDL. Introduction to VHDL covers all aspects of the VHDL language, including the latest information on the VHDL standard as of April 1995 and the fundamentals of design constructs and modelling.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Deductive and Object-Oriented Databases, DOOD '95, held in Singapore in December 1995.
Besides two keynote papers by Stefano Ceri and Michael Kifer, the book contains revised full versions of 28 papers selected from a total of 88 submissions. The volume gives a highly competent state-of-the-art report on DOOD research and advanced applications. The papers are organized in sections on active databases, query processing, semantic query optimization, transaction management, authorization, implementation, and applications.

Computing, despite the relative brevity of its history, has already evolved into a subject in which a fairly large number of subdisciplines can be identified. Moreover, there has been a noticeable tendency for the different branches of the subject each to develop its own intellectual culture, tradition and momentum. This is not, of course, to suggest that any individ ual subdiscipline has become a watertight compartment or that developments in one branch of the subject have tended to take place in total isolation from developments in other related areas. Nevertheless, it does mean that a deliberate effort is required in order to bring different subdisciplines together in a fruitful and beneficial manner. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Computer Supported Coopera tive Work (CSCW) jointly constitute a good example of two branches of computing that have emerged separately and given rise to largely distinct research communities and initiatives. On the one hand, the history of AI can be traced back to the 1950s, the term II Artificial Intelligence" being generally attributed to John McCarthy, who first used it in print in 1956. "Computer Supported Cooperative Work," on the other hand, is a term of more recent coinage, having'been devised by Irene Greif and Paul Cashman in 1984."