We have described the development of a new micro-payment system, NetPay, f- turing different ways of managing electronic money, or e-coins. NetPay provides an off-line, anonymous protocol that supports high-volume, low-cost electronic trans- tions over the Internet. We developed three kinds of e-wallets to manage coins in a NetPay-based system: a sever-side e-wallet allowing multiple computer access to- coins; a client-side e-wallet allowing customer PC management of the e-coins, and a cookie-based e-wallet cache to improve performance of the client-side e-wallet c- munication overhead. Experiences to date with NetPay prototypes have demonstrated it provides an effective micro-payment strategy and customers welcome the ability to manage their electronic coins in different ways. References 1. Dai, X. and Lo, B.: NetPay – An Efficient Protocol for Micropayments on the WWW. Fifth Australian World Wide Web Conference, Australia (1999) 2. Dai, X., Grundy, J. and Lo, B.: Comparing and contrasting micro-payment models for- commerce systems, International Conferences of Info-tech and Info-net (ICII), China (2001) 3. Dai, X., Grundy, J.: Architecture of a Micro-Payment System for Thin-Client Web App- cations. In Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Internet Computing, Las Vegas, CSREA Press, June 24-27, 444--450 4. Dai, X. and Grundy J.: “Customer Perception of a Thin-client Micro-payment System Issues and Experiences”, Journal of End User Computing, 15(4), pp 62-77, (2003).

We have described the development of a new micro-payment system, NetPay, f- turing different ways of managing electronic money, or e-coins. NetPay provides an off-line, anonymous protocol that supports high-volume, low-cost electronic trans- tions over the Internet. We developed three kinds of e-wallets to manage coins in a NetPay-based system: a sever-side e-wallet allowing multiple computer access to- coins; a client-side e-wallet allowing customer PC management of the e-coins, and a cookie-based e-wallet cache to improve performance of the client-side e-wallet c- munication overhead. Experiences to date with NetPay prototypes have demonstrated it provides an effective micro-payment strategy and customers welcome the ability to manage their electronic coins in different ways. References 1. Dai, X. and Lo, B.: NetPay – An Efficient Protocol for Micropayments on the WWW. Fifth Australian World Wide Web Conference, Australia (1999) 2. Dai, X., Grundy, J. and Lo, B.: Comparing and contrasting micro-payment models for- commerce systems, International Conferences of Info-tech and Info-net (ICII), China (2001) 3. Dai, X., Grundy, J.: Architecture of a Micro-Payment System for Thin-Client Web App- cations. In Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Internet Computing, Las Vegas, CSREA Press, June 24-27, 444--450 4. Dai, X. and Grundy J.: “Customer Perception of a Thin-client Micro-payment System Issues and Experiences”, Journal of End User Computing, 15(4), pp 62-77, (2003).

The international conference on current trends in the theory and practice of informatics SOFSEM 2000 was held 25 November–2 December 2000 in the c- ference facilities of the Dev?et Skal (Nine Rocks) Hotel, Milovy, Czech-Moravian Highlands, the Czech Republic. It was already the 27th annual meeting in the series of SOFSEM conferences organized in either the Czech or the Slovak Rep- lic. Since its establishment in 1974, SOFSEM has gone through a long dev- opment in parallel with the entire ?eld of informatics. Currently SOFSEM is a wide-scope, multidisciplinary conference, with stress on the interplay between the theory and practice of informatics. The SOFSEM scienti?c program consists mainly of invited talks which determine the topics of the conference. Invited talks are complemented by short refereed talks contributed by SOFSEM parti- pants. The topics of invited talks are chosen so as to cover the span from theory to practice and to bring interesting research areas to the attention of conf- ence participants. For the year 2000, the following three streams were chosen for presentation by the SOFSEM Steering Committee: – Trends in Algorithmics – Information Technologies in Practice – Computational Perception The above streams were covered through 16 invited talks given by prominent researchers. There were 18 contributed talks also presented, chosen by the int- national Program Committee from among 36 submitted papers. The program also included a panel on lessons learned from the Y2K problem.

The Eighth International Conference on Extending Database Technology, EDBT 2002, was held in Prague, Czech Republic, March 25–27, 2002. It marks the 50th anniversary of Charles University’s Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and is the most recent in a series of conferences dedicated to the dissemination and exchange of the latest advances in data management. Previous conferences occurred in Konstanz, Valencia, Avignon, Cambridge, Vienna, and Venice. The topical theme of this year’s conference is Data Management in the New Millennium, which encourages the community to see beyond the management of massive databases by conventional database management systems and to extend database technology to support new services and application areas. The intention is to spur greater interest in more integrated solutions to user problems, which often implies the consideration of data management issues in entire information systems infrastructures. There is data (almost) everywhere, and data access is needed (almost) always and everywhere. New technologies, services, and app- cations that involve the broader notion of data management are emerging more rapidly than ever, and the database community has much to o?er. The call for papers attracted numerous submissions, including 207 research papers, which is a new record for EDBT. The program committee selected 36 research papers, 6 industrial and applications papers, 13 software demos, and 6 tutorials for presentation at the conference. In addition, the conference program includes three keynote speeches, by Jari Ahola, Ian Horrocks, and Hans-J¨org Schek, and a panel.

The international conference on current trends in the theory and practice of informatics SOFSEM 2000 was held 25 November–2 December 2000 in the c- ference facilities of the Dev?et Skal (Nine Rocks) Hotel, Milovy, Czech-Moravian Highlands, the Czech Republic. It was already the 27th annual meeting in the series of SOFSEM conferences organized in either the Czech or the Slovak Rep- lic. Since its establishment in 1974, SOFSEM has gone through a long dev- opment in parallel with the entire ?eld of informatics. Currently SOFSEM is a wide-scope, multidisciplinary conference, with stress on the interplay between the theory and practice of informatics. The SOFSEM scienti?c program consists mainly of invited talks which determine the topics of the conference. Invited talks are complemented by short refereed talks contributed by SOFSEM parti- pants. The topics of invited talks are chosen so as to cover the span from theory to practice and to bring interesting research areas to the attention of conf- ence participants. For the year 2000, the following three streams were chosen for presentation by the SOFSEM Steering Committee: – Trends in Algorithmics – Information Technologies in Practice – Computational Perception The above streams were covered through 16 invited talks given by prominent researchers. There were 18 contributed talks also presented, chosen by the int- national Program Committee from among 36 submitted papers. The program also included a panel on lessons learned from the Y2K problem.

The Eighth International Conference on Extending Database Technology, EDBT 2002, was held in Prague, Czech Republic, March 25–27, 2002. It marks the 50th anniversary of Charles University’s Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and is the most recent in a series of conferences dedicated to the dissemination and exchange of the latest advances in data management. Previous conferences occurred in Konstanz, Valencia, Avignon, Cambridge, Vienna, and Venice. The topical theme of this year’s conference is Data Management in the New Millennium, which encourages the community to see beyond the management of massive databases by conventional database management systems and to extend database technology to support new services and application areas. The intention is to spur greater interest in more integrated solutions to user problems, which often implies the consideration of data management issues in entire information systems infrastructures. There is data (almost) everywhere, and data access is needed (almost) always and everywhere. New technologies, services, and app- cations that involve the broader notion of data management are emerging more rapidly than ever, and the database community has much to o?er. The call for papers attracted numerous submissions, including 207 research papers, which is a new record for EDBT. The program committee selected 36 research papers, 6 industrial and applications papers, 13 software demos, and 6 tutorials for presentation at the conference. In addition, the conference program includes three keynote speeches, by Jari Ahola, Ian Horrocks, and Hans-J¨org Schek, and a panel.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 23rd International Seminar on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Informatics, SOFSEM '96, held in Milovy, Czech Republic, in November 1996.The volume presents a unique collection of 19 invited papers competently surveying the field. These papers are organized in sections on fundamentals, distributed and parallel computing, AI and control systems, databases and electronic documents, scientific computing and visualization, programming and software engineering. Also included are 22 refereed and thoroughly revised contributed research papers selected by the program committee for inclusion in the proceedings.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 24th Seminar on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Informatics, SOFSEM'97, held in Milovy, Czech Republic, in November 1997. SOFSEM is special in being a mix of a winter school, an international conference, and an advanced workshop meeting the demand for ongoing education in the area of computer science. The volume presents 22 invited contributions by leading experts together with 24 revised contributed papers selected from 63 submissions. The invited presentations are organized in topical sections on foundations, distributed and parallel computing, software engineering and methodology, and databases and information systems.

Since 1981, the British National Conferences on Databases (BNCOD) have p- vided a forum for database researchers to report the latest progress and explore new ideas. Over the last 28 years, BNCOD has evolved from a predominantly national conference into one that is truly international, attracting research c- tributions from all over the world. This volume contains the proceedings of BNCOD 2008. We received 45 s- missions from 22 countries. Each paper was reviewed by three referees, and 14 full papers and 7 posters were accepted. All the research papers and posters are included in this volume, and they are organized into ?ve sections: data mining and privacy, data integration, stream and event data processing, query proce- ing and optimization, and posters. The keynote was delivered by Monica Marinucci, EMEA Programme Dir- tor for Oracle in R&D. She has been involved in various advanced developments concerning Oracle, and participated in EC-funded projects as an expert, es- cially the CHALLENGERS special support action to propose the future of grid computing. In her keynote presentation,she addressedthe audience on the topic of the power of data, emphasizing that the ability to store, handle, manipulate, distribute and replicate data and information can provide a tremendous asset to organizations. She also explored some of the latest directions and developments in the database ?eld, and described how Oracle contributes to them partnering up with other leading organizations in di?erent sectors.

We have described the development of a new micro-payment system, NetPay, f- turing different ways of managing electronic money, or e-coins. NetPay provides an off-line, anonymous protocol that supports high-volume, low-cost electronic trans- tions over the Internet. We developed three kinds of e-wallets to manage coins in a NetPay-based system: a sever-side e-wallet allowing multiple computer access to- coins; a client-side e-wallet allowing customer PC management of the e-coins, and a cookie-based e-wallet cache to improve performance of the client-side e-wallet c- munication overhead. Experiences to date with NetPay prototypes have demonstrated it provides an effective micro-payment strategy and customers welcome the ability to manage their electronic coins in different ways. References 1. Dai, X. and Lo, B.: NetPay – An Efficient Protocol for Micropayments on the WWW. Fifth Australian World Wide Web Conference, Australia (1999) 2. Dai, X., Grundy, J. and Lo, B.: Comparing and contrasting micro-payment models for- commerce systems, International Conferences of Info-tech and Info-net (ICII), China (2001) 3. Dai, X., Grundy, J.: Architecture of a Micro-Payment System for Thin-Client Web App- cations. In Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Internet Computing, Las Vegas, CSREA Press, June 24-27, 444--450 4. Dai, X. and Grundy J.: “Customer Perception of a Thin-client Micro-payment System Issues and Experiences”, Journal of End User Computing, 15(4), pp 62-77, (2003).

We have described the development of a new micro-payment system, NetPay, f- turing different ways of managing electronic money, or e-coins. NetPay provides an off-line, anonymous protocol that supports high-volume, low-cost electronic trans- tions over the Internet. We developed three kinds of e-wallets to manage coins in a NetPay-based system: a sever-side e-wallet allowing multiple computer access to- coins; a client-side e-wallet allowing customer PC management of the e-coins, and a cookie-based e-wallet cache to improve performance of the client-side e-wallet c- munication overhead. Experiences to date with NetPay prototypes have demonstrated it provides an effective micro-payment strategy and customers welcome the ability to manage their electronic coins in different ways. References 1. Dai, X. and Lo, B.: NetPay – An Efficient Protocol for Micropayments on the WWW. Fifth Australian World Wide Web Conference, Australia (1999) 2. Dai, X., Grundy, J. and Lo, B.: Comparing and contrasting micro-payment models for- commerce systems, International Conferences of Info-tech and Info-net (ICII), China (2001) 3. Dai, X., Grundy, J.: Architecture of a Micro-Payment System for Thin-Client Web App- cations. In Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Internet Computing, Las Vegas, CSREA Press, June 24-27, 444--450 4. Dai, X. and Grundy J.: “Customer Perception of a Thin-client Micro-payment System Issues and Experiences”, Journal of End User Computing, 15(4), pp 62-77, (2003).

The international conference on current trends in the theory and practice of informatics SOFSEM 2000 was held 25 November–2 December 2000 in the c- ference facilities of the Dev?et Skal (Nine Rocks) Hotel, Milovy, Czech-Moravian Highlands, the Czech Republic. It was already the 27th annual meeting in the series of SOFSEM conferences organized in either the Czech or the Slovak Rep- lic. Since its establishment in 1974, SOFSEM has gone through a long dev- opment in parallel with the entire ?eld of informatics. Currently SOFSEM is a wide-scope, multidisciplinary conference, with stress on the interplay between the theory and practice of informatics. The SOFSEM scienti?c program consists mainly of invited talks which determine the topics of the conference. Invited talks are complemented by short refereed talks contributed by SOFSEM parti- pants. The topics of invited talks are chosen so as to cover the span from theory to practice and to bring interesting research areas to the attention of conf- ence participants. For the year 2000, the following three streams were chosen for presentation by the SOFSEM Steering Committee: – Trends in Algorithmics – Information Technologies in Practice – Computational Perception The above streams were covered through 16 invited talks given by prominent researchers. There were 18 contributed talks also presented, chosen by the int- national Program Committee from among 36 submitted papers. The program also included a panel on lessons learned from the Y2K problem.

The Eighth International Conference on Extending Database Technology, EDBT 2002, was held in Prague, Czech Republic, March 25–27, 2002. It marks the 50th anniversary of Charles University’s Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and is the most recent in a series of conferences dedicated to the dissemination and exchange of the latest advances in data management. Previous conferences occurred in Konstanz, Valencia, Avignon, Cambridge, Vienna, and Venice. The topical theme of this year’s conference is Data Management in the New Millennium, which encourages the community to see beyond the management of massive databases by conventional database management systems and to extend database technology to support new services and application areas. The intention is to spur greater interest in more integrated solutions to user problems, which often implies the consideration of data management issues in entire information systems infrastructures. There is data (almost) everywhere, and data access is needed (almost) always and everywhere. New technologies, services, and app- cations that involve the broader notion of data management are emerging more rapidly than ever, and the database community has much to o?er. The call for papers attracted numerous submissions, including 207 research papers, which is a new record for EDBT. The program committee selected 36 research papers, 6 industrial and applications papers, 13 software demos, and 6 tutorials for presentation at the conference. In addition, the conference program includes three keynote speeches, by Jari Ahola, Ian Horrocks, and Hans-J¨org Schek, and a panel.

The international conference on current trends in the theory and practice of informatics SOFSEM 2000 was held 25 November–2 December 2000 in the c- ference facilities of the Dev?et Skal (Nine Rocks) Hotel, Milovy, Czech-Moravian Highlands, the Czech Republic. It was already the 27th annual meeting in the series of SOFSEM conferences organized in either the Czech or the Slovak Rep- lic. Since its establishment in 1974, SOFSEM has gone through a long dev- opment in parallel with the entire ?eld of informatics. Currently SOFSEM is a wide-scope, multidisciplinary conference, with stress on the interplay between the theory and practice of informatics. The SOFSEM scienti?c program consists mainly of invited talks which determine the topics of the conference. Invited talks are complemented by short refereed talks contributed by SOFSEM parti- pants. The topics of invited talks are chosen so as to cover the span from theory to practice and to bring interesting research areas to the attention of conf- ence participants. For the year 2000, the following three streams were chosen for presentation by the SOFSEM Steering Committee: – Trends in Algorithmics – Information Technologies in Practice – Computational Perception The above streams were covered through 16 invited talks given by prominent researchers. There were 18 contributed talks also presented, chosen by the int- national Program Committee from among 36 submitted papers. The program also included a panel on lessons learned from the Y2K problem.

The Eighth International Conference on Extending Database Technology, EDBT 2002, was held in Prague, Czech Republic, March 25–27, 2002. It marks the 50th anniversary of Charles University’s Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and is the most recent in a series of conferences dedicated to the dissemination and exchange of the latest advances in data management. Previous conferences occurred in Konstanz, Valencia, Avignon, Cambridge, Vienna, and Venice. The topical theme of this year’s conference is Data Management in the New Millennium, which encourages the community to see beyond the management of massive databases by conventional database management systems and to extend database technology to support new services and application areas. The intention is to spur greater interest in more integrated solutions to user problems, which often implies the consideration of data management issues in entire information systems infrastructures. There is data (almost) everywhere, and data access is needed (almost) always and everywhere. New technologies, services, and app- cations that involve the broader notion of data management are emerging more rapidly than ever, and the database community has much to o?er. The call for papers attracted numerous submissions, including 207 research papers, which is a new record for EDBT. The program committee selected 36 research papers, 6 industrial and applications papers, 13 software demos, and 6 tutorials for presentation at the conference. In addition, the conference program includes three keynote speeches, by Jari Ahola, Ian Horrocks, and Hans-J¨org Schek, and a panel.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 23rd International Seminar on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Informatics, SOFSEM '96, held in Milovy, Czech Republic, in November 1996.The volume presents a unique collection of 19 invited papers competently surveying the field. These papers are organized in sections on fundamentals, distributed and parallel computing, AI and control systems, databases and electronic documents, scientific computing and visualization, programming and software engineering. Also included are 22 refereed and thoroughly revised contributed research papers selected by the program committee for inclusion in the proceedings.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 24th Seminar on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Informatics, SOFSEM'97, held in Milovy, Czech Republic, in November 1997. SOFSEM is special in being a mix of a winter school, an international conference, and an advanced workshop meeting the demand for ongoing education in the area of computer science. The volume presents 22 invited contributions by leading experts together with 24 revised contributed papers selected from 63 submissions. The invited presentations are organized in topical sections on foundations, distributed and parallel computing, software engineering and methodology, and databases and information systems.

Since 1981, the British National Conferences on Databases (BNCOD) have p- vided a forum for database researchers to report the latest progress and explore new ideas. Over the last 28 years, BNCOD has evolved from a predominantly national conference into one that is truly international, attracting research c- tributions from all over the world. This volume contains the proceedings of BNCOD 2008. We received 45 s- missions from 22 countries. Each paper was reviewed by three referees, and 14 full papers and 7 posters were accepted. All the research papers and posters are included in this volume, and they are organized into ?ve sections: data mining and privacy, data integration, stream and event data processing, query proce- ing and optimization, and posters. The keynote was delivered by Monica Marinucci, EMEA Programme Dir- tor for Oracle in R&D. She has been involved in various advanced developments concerning Oracle, and participated in EC-funded projects as an expert, es- cially the CHALLENGERS special support action to propose the future of grid computing. In her keynote presentation,she addressedthe audience on the topic of the power of data, emphasizing that the ability to store, handle, manipulate, distribute and replicate data and information can provide a tremendous asset to organizations. She also explored some of the latest directions and developments in the database ?eld, and described how Oracle contributes to them partnering up with other leading organizations in di?erent sectors.