This volume results from the regular sessions of the Second International Workshop of the Moscow ACM SIGMOD Chapter "Advances in Databases and Information Systems" (ADBIS'95) that took place 27th-30th June 1995, in Moscow, Russia. ADBIS'95 continues a series of annual Workshops on Advances in Databases and Information Systems organized by the Moscow ACM SIGMOD Chapter in cooperation with the Russian Founda tion for Basic Research. Past successful ADBIS conferences include the ADBIS'93 and ADBIS'94 Workshops that took place in Moscow. The aims of these workshops are to provide a forum for the presentation and in-depth discussion of advanced research directions that will effectively improve the building and use of future information systems and to increase communication between the Eastern and Western research communities which were formerly separated and still have only rare possibilities to interact. Improving of the contacts and exchange of ideas between researchers from the East and from the West will eventually lead to better collaboration between them. The ADBIS'95 Call for Submissions attracted 60 submissions from 15 countries of which 35 submissions were accepted for presentation at the regular sessions, 9 as posters, and 7 as presentations for a special session for the Information Systems for Science. This volume contains the papers presented in the regular sessions."

This volume results from the four-day scientific Second International East/West Database Workshop which took place 25th-28th September 1994, in Klagenfurt, Austria, continuing a series of workshops started in Kiev in 1990 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science No. 504, Springer, "Next Generation Information System Technology"). The aims of this workshop are twofold: first, to provide a forum for the presentation and in-depth discussion of scientific achievements in the field of advanced databases that will effectively improve the building and use of future information systems; second, to establish and increase communication between research communities which were formerly separated and, therefore, had only rare opportunities to interact. It should establish contacts between researchers from the East and from the West to make exchange of ideas possible and to trigger collaborations. However, it is not only political borders which change their perviousness as a result of -or giving rise to -new autonomies or new possibilities for interaction and collaboration. The same happens with the borders between scientific areas, in particular in the dynamically evolving areas of computer science. Databases and programming languages are integrated in object oriented databases, database and information retrieval technology form together the basis for modern (multimedia) information systems. Furthermore, the borders between different information systems change and allow various forms of collaboration while maintaining different degrees of autonomy. Heterogeneous and distributed databases are enabling technologies for these systems.