Information modelling and knowledge bases have become important topics in academic communities related to information systems and computer science. The amount and complexity of information itself, the number of abstraction levels of information, and the size of databases and knowledge bases are continuously growing.

The aim of this series of Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases is to make progress in research communities with scientific results and experiences achieved using innovative methods and systems in computer science and other disciplines, which have common interests in understanding and solving problems on information modelling and knowledge bases, as well as applying the results of research to practice. The research topics in this series are mainly concentrated on a variety of themes in the important domains: conceptual modelling, design and specification of information systems, multimedia information modelling, multimedia systems, ontology, software engineering, knowledge and process management, knowledge bases, cross-cultural communication and context modelling. Much attention is also paid to theoretical disciplines including cognitive science, artificial intelligence, logic, linguistics and analytical philosophy.

The selected papers cover many areas of information modeling and knowledge bases, namely theory of concepts, semantic computing, data mining, context-based information retrieval, ontological technology, image databases, temporal and spatial databases, document data management, software engineering, cross-cultural computing, environmental analysis, social networks, WWW information management, and many others. This new issue also contains a paper initiated by panels “Cross-cultural communication with icons and images” and “Conceptual Modelling of Collaboration for Information Systems”.

We believe that this series of Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases will be productive, valuable and fruitful in the advance of research and applications of those academic areas.

The Editors

Takehiro Tokuda

Yasushi Kiyoki

Hannu Jaakkola

Naofumi Yoshida