In the last decades information modelling and knowledge bases have become hot topics not only in academic communities related to information systems and computer science but also in business areas where information technology is applied.

The 17th European-Japanese Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases, EJC 2007, continues the series of events that originally started as a cooperation between Japan and Finland as far back as the late 1980's. Later (1991) the geographical scope of these conferences expanded to cover all of Europe as well as countries outside Europe other than Japan.

The EJC conferences constitute a world-wide research forum for the exchange of scientific results and experiences achieved in computer science and other related disciplines using innovative methods and progressive approaches. In this way a platform has been established drawing together researches as well as practitioners dealing with information modelling and knowledge bases. Thus the main topics of the EJC conferences target the variety of themes in the domain of information modelling, conceptual analysis, design and specification of information systems, ontologies, software engineering, knowledge and process management, data and knowledge bases. We also aim at applying new progressive theories. To this end much attention is being paid also to theoretical disciplines including cognitive science, artificial intelligence, logic, linguistics and analytical philosophy.

In order to achieve the EJC targets, an international programme committee selected 19 full papers, 8 short papers, 4 position papers and 3 poster papers in the course of a rigorous reviewing process including 34 submissions. The selected papers cover many areas of information modelling, namely theory of concepts, database semantics, knowledge representation, software engineering, WWW information management, context-based information retrieval, ontological technology, image databases, temporal and spatial databases, document data management, process management, and many others.

The conference would not have been a success without the effort of many people and organizations. In the Programme Committee, 37 reputable researchers devoted a good deal of effort to the review process in order to select the best papers and create the EJC 2007 programme. We are very grateful to them. Professors Yasushi Kiyoki and Takehiro Tokuda were acting as co-chairs of the programme committee. The Tampere University of Technology in Pori, Finland, promoted the conference in its capacity as organizer: Professor Hannu Jaakkola acted as conference leader and Ms. Ulla Nevanranta as conference secretary. They took care of both the various practical aspects necessary for the smooth running of the conference and for arranging the conference proceedings in the form of a book. The conference is sponsored by the City of Pori, Satakunnan Osuuskauppa, Satakunnan Puhelin, Secgo Software, Nokia, Ulla Tuominen Foundation and Japan Scandinavia Sasakawa Foundation. We gratefully appreciate the efforts of everyone who lent a helping hand.

We are convinced that the conference will prove to be productive and fruitful toward advancing the research and application of information modelling and knowledge bases.

The Editors, Hannu Jaakkola, Yasushi Kiyoki, Takahiro Tokuda