We hope that all readers will find the papers included in this volume of interest. All were presented at the 14th BCS IRSG Research Colloquium held at Lancaster University on 13th-14th April 1992. The papers display very well the scope and breadth of information retrieval, as indeed did the workshop ilself. They also present a good cross-section of current IR research, and as such provide a useful signpost for trends in information retrieval. Before we finish we must thank the following colleagues: Simon Botley, Paul Rayson and Paul Jones for their help in the organization of the conference. We would also like to extend a special message of thanks to Professor G.N. Leech of the Department of Linguistics at Lancaster and Roger Garside of the Department of Computing at Lancaster for their support during the conference period. Tony McEnery would also like to express his thanks and gratitude to Paul Baker for his help during the production of this book. September 1992 Tony McEnery Chris Paice Contents A Logical Model of Information Retrieval Based on Situation Theory M. La/mas and K. van Rijsbergen ........................................................ .

The Fourth International Workshop on Database Programming Languages - Object Models and Languages (DBPL-4) took place in Manhattan, New York City, 30 August-1 September 1993. The areas of interest and the format of DBPL-4 focused on the integration of programming languages, object models, type systems and database systems. As in the previous DBPL workshops, the setting was informal, allowing the participants to actively discuss and argue about the ideas presented in the talks. The comments and remarks made by the participants during and after the presentations were taken into account in the preparation of the final versions of the papers. The result, we believe, is a set of excellent papers. The DBPL sequence is closely related to the sequence of International Workshops on Persistent Object Systems (POS), first started in 1985. While the DBPL workshops focus on language and model issues, the POS workshops have focused on implementation issues; thus the two sequences complement each other. Many researchers participate in both workshop series. The eight sessions of the technical program of DBPL-4 were as follows: 1. Bulk types and their query languages (two sessions). 2. Object models and languages. 3. Data types with order. 4. Mechanisms to support persistence, reflection, and extensibility. 5. Query optimization and integrity constraints. 6. Logic-based models. 7. Implementation and performance issues.

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 volume contains extended versions of papers presented at the Third International Workshop on Logic Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 93) held in Louvain-la-Neuve in July 1993. Much of the success of the workshop is due to Yves Deville who served as Organizer and Chair. Many people believe that machine support for the development and evolution of software will play a critical role in future software engineering environments. Machine support requires the formalization of the artifacts and processes that arise during the software lifecycle. Logic languages are unique in providing a uniform declarative notation for precisely describing application domains, software requirements, and for prescribing behavior via logic programs. Program synthesis and transfonnation techniques formalize the process of developing correct and efficient programs from requirement specifications. The natural intersection of these two fields of research has been the focus of the LOPSTR workshops. The papers in this volume address many aspects of software develop ment including: deductive synthesis, inductive synthesis, transforma tions for optimizing programs and exploiting parallelism, program analysis techniques (particularly via abstract interpretation), meta programming languages and tool support, and various extensions to Prolog-like languages, admitting non-Horn clauses, functions, and constraints. Despite the progress represented in this volume, the transition from laboratory to practice is fraught with difficulties.

Recent developments in computer visualisation mean that it is now possible to combine computer-generated image sequences with real video, in real time, for broadcast quality production. This will not only revolutionise the broadcast industry, by making "electronic film sets" possible for example, but also has important implications for related fields such as virtual reality, multi-media, industrial vision, and medical image processing. This volume contains papers from the European Workshop on Combined Real and Synthetic Image Processing for Broadcast and Video Production, held in Hamburg, 23-24 November 1994. The papers cover three main aspects of research: hardware, image analysis, and image synthesis, and include several key contributions from the EU RACE II supported MONA LISA (MOdelling NAturaL Images for Synthesis and Animation) project. The resulting volume gives a comprehensive overview of this important area of research, and will be of interest to practitioners, researchers, and postgraduate students.

Despite the volume of research carried out into the design of database systems and the design of user interfaces, there is little cross-fertilization between the two areas. The control of user interfaces to database systems is, therefore, significantly less advanced than other aspects of DBMS design. As database functionality is used in a wider range of areas, such as design applications, the suitability of the user interface is becoming increasingly important. It is, therefore, necessary to begin applying the knowledge developed by HCI researchers to the specialised domain of database systems. This volume contains revised papers from the International Workshop on Interfaces to Database Systems, held in Glasgow, 1-3 July 1992. The workshop aimed to develop an interaction between the design of database systems and user interfaces. It discussed both the production of interfaces tailored to particular applications, and also more general systems within which interfaces can be developed. Some of the papers concentrate on usability aspects, some discuss different interface metaphors, whilst others tackle the question of designing a general conceptual model. The latter topic is of particular importance, as it is only by achieving an abstract model of what the user understands to be in the database that the data can be associated with appropriate interface facilities. Among the contents of the volume are: integrated interfaces to publicly available databases; database query interface for medical information systems; an integrated approach to task oriented database retrieval interfaces; GRADI: a graphical database interface for a multimedia DBMS; cognitive view mechanism for multimedia information systems; a graphical schema representation for object oriented databases; a conceptual framework for error analysis in SQL interfaces; a browser for a version entity relationship database. Interfaces to Database Systems (IDS92) is unique in that it brings together a variety of approaches from the database and HCI research communities. It will provide essential reading for researchers of database systems and also industrial developers of DBMS.

This volume contains the proceedings of the fIrst workshop held by the Theory and Formal Methods Section ofthe Imperial College Department of Computing. It contains papers from almost every member of the Section, from our long-term academic visitors, and from those who have recently left us. The papers fall into four broad areas: • semantics • concurrency • logic • specification with some papers spanning a number of disciplines. The subject material varies from work on mathematical foundations to practical applications of this theory, expressing the Section's commitment to both the foundations of computer science, and the application of theory to real computing problems. In preparing the workshop and these proceedings, care was taken to ensure that there were papers overviewing a field, as well as ones whose primary aim was to present new scientifIc results. This had a dual purpose: to bring our Section members up to speed in some of the areas being worked on by the Section; and to provide the reader of the proceedings not only with a good introduction to many of the specifIc areas being investigated by the Section, but also with details of some of our latest results. All the papers presented at the workshop were revised following comments made by the workshop participants, and all were subsequently reviewed by at least two people before producing the fInal versions contained in this volume.

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.

The Glasgow Functional Programming Group is widely recognised for its research in lazy functional languages. Once again this year, for the fifth time, we retreated to a Scottish seaside town to discuss our latest work, this time spending three days in Ayr. We were joined by a number of colleagues from other universities and from industry, with whom we have been enjoying fruitful collaboration. The workshop serves the dual purpose of ensuring that the whole group remains informed of each other's work, and of providing workshop experience for research students. Most participants presented a short talk about their work, supplemented by papers which appeared in a draft proceedings distributed at the workshop. Since then the papers have been reviewed and the majority are now published here following revision. The workshop also contained a lively discussion session on functional language applications, to which the industrial participants made very helpful contributions. One interesting feature of this volume is the number of papers addressing practical issues of realistic use of functional languages, from benchmarking and profiling, to user interfaces and file handling. It is perhaps indicative that at last lazy functional languages are being used for significantly larger applications than has been typical in the past. This type of paper is likely to feature prominently in relevant conference proceedings for the next few years. Other papers here continue to address more theoretical topics, such as program logic, semantics of non determinism, program analysis, and loop detection.

SoSL was the first International Workshop on Semantics of Specification Languages, held from 25-27 October 1993 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The workshop was organized by the Department of Philosophy of Utrecht University with financial support from the Nationale Faciliteit Informatica of the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), and under the auspices of the British Computer Society'S specialist group in Formal Aspects of Computing Science (BCS FACS). The concern of the workshop was the semantics of specification languages, and the issues closely related to this area, such as type checking and the justification of proof rules and proof obligations. Its aim was the exchange of problems and ideas in this field of formal methods, and the identification of common programs of work for further investigation. The program of SoSL consisted of 3 invited lectures presenting the developments of the semantics of 3 major specification languages. Furthermore, there were 16 presentations of submitted papers. This volume provides a direct account of the workshop. It contains 3 papers that match the invited lectures and the 16 selected papers. The editors want to thank all those who have contributed to the workshop; the Program Committee and the referees for selecting the contributed papers, the invited speakers for their interesting talks, the Organizing Committee for all their efforts, and of course the participants. We have the feeling that the workshop was worthwhile and should be repeated.