Battlefield Essex is the eighth book on the county we have produced in the Essex Hundred series and we are pleased to say most are still in print and available from book shops or cyber retailers. Although part of the title is called Battlefield, it is not a military reference book. In the last 2,000 years there have been a number of bloody battles on Essex soil, but there too have been several conflicts that although sometimes violent didn't involve the loss of life. In many cases these conflicts have been hyped in contemporary media as a 'battles' and the term has stuck. The prime example of this was the long running dispute in the 1920s in Thaxted in what was known the 'Battle of the Flags'. To our knowledge although there was damage to property, no one was killed or even seriously injured during this battle. Apart from the battles, Essex has been a front line county in England since the time of the Saxons and the Viking raiders 1,500 years ago, so accordingly it is proper to examine the various defences put in place to thwart potential invaders and to look at whether these forts and other defensive measures set up were much of a deterrent.Fortunately in recent times what might be called 'foreign' invaders have never set foot in Essex Nevertheless the county, with its munitions factories, arms development and weapons testing facilities, has played a major part in defence of the realm during the course of both World Wars, as well as suffering from the effects of enemy bombings. As the tide of the World War II swung in favour of the allies, Essex became a launching pad to strike the enemy. The US Air Force arrived in strength and stately homes were requisitioned by the military to train clandestine forces for missions in occupied Europe. Following the end of World War II, (a hot war), a cold war commenced almost immediately and a site near Ongar became a key installation for planning the aftermath of a nuclear strike. In writing this book it was never our intention to create an academic reference work. In Battlefield Essex as in our other Essex Hundred titles, we have done our best to record some of the memorable events, people and places that have played a role in the development of the county of Essex.

The Second Symposium on Professional Practice in AI 2006 is a conference within the IFIP World Computer Congress 2006, Santiago, Chile. The Symposium is organised by the IFIP Technical Committee on Artificial Intelligence (Technical Committee 12) and its Working Group 12.5 (Artificial Intelligence Applications). The First Symposium in this series was one of the conferences in the IFIP World Computer Congi-ess 2004, Toulouse France. The conference featured invited talks by Rose Dieng, John Atkinson, John Debenham and Max Bramer. The Symposium was a component of the IFIP AI 2006 conference, organised by Professor Max Bramer. I should like to thank the Symposium General Chair, Professor Bramer for his considerable assistance in making the Symposium happen within a very tight deadline. These proceedings are the result of a considerable amount of hard work. Beginning with the preparation of the submitted papers, the papers were each reviewed by at least two members of the international Program Committee. The authors of accepted papers then revised their manuscripts to produce their final copy. The hard work of the authors, the referees and the Program Committee is gratefully aclaiowledged. The IFIP AI 2006 conference and the Symposium are the latest in a series of conferences organised by IFIP Technical Committee 12 dedicated to the techniques of Aitificial Intelligence and their real-world applications. Further infoirmation about TC12 can be found on our website http;//www.ifiptcI2.org.

The 'Histories' follows on from the Essex Hundred and has been inspired by the ancient land system of hundreds. It delves into one hundred events or personalities from 2,000 years of the county's history. This newly updated edition explores the possibility that Shakespeare may actually have been an Essex boy and examines myths about dragon slaying in the north of Essex. Beginning with the sacking of Roman Colchester by Boadicea and travelling through time to Ford of Dagenham's modern day windmills, the diversity of Essex as well as its pivotal role in the nation's development are brought to life and presented in an informative and entertaining manner.www.essex100.com

A monograph for specialists interested in building maintainable knowledge based systems, giving a unified methodology for the design of such systems

The Second Symposium on Professional Practice in AI 2006 is a conference within the IFIP World Computer Congress 2006, Santiago, Chile. The Symposium is organised by the IFIP Technical Committee on Artificial Intelligence (Technical Committee 12) and its Working Group 12.5 (Artificial Intelligence Applications). The First Symposium in this series was one of the conferences in the IFIP World Computer Congi-ess 2004, Toulouse France. The conference featured invited talks by Rose Dieng, John Atkinson, John Debenham and Max Bramer. The Symposium was a component of the IFIP AI 2006 conference, organised by Professor Max Bramer. I should like to thank the Symposium General Chair, Professor Bramer for his considerable assistance in making the Symposium happen within a very tight deadline. These proceedings are the result of a considerable amount of hard work. Beginning with the preparation of the submitted papers, the papers were each reviewed by at least two members of the international Program Committee. The authors of accepted papers then revised their manuscripts to produce their final copy. The hard work of the authors, the referees and the Program Committee is gratefully aclaiowledged. The IFIP AI 2006 conference and the Symposium are the latest in a series of conferences organised by IFIP Technical Committee 12 dedicated to the techniques of Aitificial Intelligence and their real-world applications. Further infoirmation about TC12 can be found on our website http;//www.ifiptcI2.org.

DEXA 2005, the 16th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, was held at the Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark, from August 22 to 26, 2005. The success of the DEXA series has partly been due to the way in which it has kept abreast of recent developments by spawning specialized workshops and conferences each with its own proceedings. In 2005 the DEXA programme was co-located with the 7th International Conference on Data Warehousing and Knowledge Discovery [DaWaK 2005], the 6th International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Web Technologies [EC-Web 2005], the 4th International Conference on Electronic Government [EGOV 2005], the 2nd International Conference on Trust, Privacy, and Security in Digital Business [TrustBus 2005], the 2nd International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-agent Systems [HoloMAS 2005], as well as 19 specialized workshops. These proceedings are the result of a considerable amount of hard work. Beginning with the preparation of submitted papers, the papers went through the reviewing process. This process was supported by online discussion between the reviewers to determine the final conference program. The authors of accepted papers revised their manuscripts to produce this fine collection. DEXA 2005 received 390 submissions, and from those the Program Committee selected the 92 papers in these proceedings. This year the reviewing process generated more than 1000 referee reports. The hard work of the authors, the referees and the Program Committee is gratefully acknowledged.

Together With Remarks And Observations Useful To All Who Navigate The Ocean.