This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Mobile Data Management, MDM 2003, held in Melbourne, Australia, in January 2003. The 21 revised full papers and 15 revised short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 87 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on storage management, location tracking, information management, location-aware services, context-aware services, resource discovery, location management, storage management and query processing, and context-aware information services.

This volume of Annals of Information Systems will acknowledge the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the International Society for Decision Support Systems (ISDSS) by documenting some of the current best practices in teaching and research and envisioning the next twenty years in the decision support systems field. The volume is intended to complement existing DSS literature by offering an outlet for thoughts and research particularly suited to the theme of describing the next twenty years in the area of decision support.

Several subthemes are planned for the volume. One subtheme draws on the assessments of internationally known DSS researchers to evaluate where the field has been and what has been accomplished. A second subtheme of the volume will be describing the current best practices of DSS research and teaching efforts. A third subtheme will be an assessment by top DSS scholars on where the DSS discipline needs to focus in the future. The tone of this volume is one of enthusiasm for the potential contributions to come in the area of DSS; contributions that must incorporate an understanding of what has been accomplished in the past, build on the best practices of today, and be integrated into future decision making practices.