Information Modeling and Knowledge bases have become an important technology contributor for the 21st century’s academic and industry research that address the complexities of modeling in digital transformation and digital innovation reaching beyond the traditional boarders of information systems and computer science academic research. 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. Conceptual modelling is one of the sub-areas of information modelling. The aim of this conference is to bring together experts from different areas of computer science and other disciplines, who have a common interest in understanding and solving problems on information modelling and knowledge bases, as well as applying the results of research to practice. We also aim to recognize and study new areas on modelling and knowledge bases to which more attention should be paid. Therefore, philosophy and logic, cognitive science, knowledge management, linguistics and management science as well as the emerging fields of data science and machine learning are relevant areas, too. In the conference, there will be three categories of presentations, i.e. full papers, short papers and position papers.

The international conference on information modelling and knowledge bases originated from the co-operation between Japan and Finland in 1982 as the European Japanese conference (EJC). Then professor Ohsuga in Japan and Professors Hannu Kangassalo and Hannu Jaakkola from Finland (Nordic countries) did the pioneering work for this long tradition of academic collaboration. Over the years, the organization extended to include European countries as well as many other countries. In 2014, with this expanded geographical scope the European Japanese part in the title was replaced by International. The conference characteristics include opening with the appetizer session that allows participants to introduce their topic in a three minute short presentation followed by presentation sessions with enough time for discussions. The limited number of participants is typical for this conference.

The 30th International conference on Information Modeling and Knowledge Bases (EJC2020) held at Hamburg, Germany constitutes a research forum exchanging of scientific results and experiences drawing academics and practitioners dealing with information and knowledge.

The main topics of EJC2020 cover a wide range of themes extending the knowledge discovery through Conceptual Modelling, Knowledge and Information Modelling and Discovery, Linguistic Modelling, Cross-Cultural Communication and Social Computing, Environmental Modeling and Engineering, and Multimedia Data Modelling and Systems extending into complex scientific problem solving. The themes of the conference presentation sessions; Learning and Linguistics, Systems and Processes, Data and Knowledge Representation, Models and Interfaces, Formalizations and reasoning, Models and Modelling, Machine Learning, Models and Programing, Environment and Predictions, Emotion Modeling and Social Networks reflected the coverage of those main themes of the conference.

The proceedings of the 30th International Conference of Information Modeling and Knowledge Bases features 23 reviewed, selected, and upgraded contributions that are the result of presentations, comments, and discussions during the conference. Suggested topics of the call for papers include, but are not limited to:

Conceptual modelling: Modelling and specification languages; Domain-specific conceptual modelling; Concepts, concept theories and ontologies; Conceptual modelling of large and heterogeneous systems; Conceptual modelling of spatial, temporal and biological data; Methods for developing, validating and communicating conceptual models.

Knowledge and information modelling and discovery: Knowledge discovery, knowledge representation and knowledge management; Advanced data mining and analysis methods; Conceptions of knowledge and information; Modelling information requirements; Intelligent information systems; Information recognition and information modelling.

Linguistic modelling: Models of HCI; Information delivery to users; Intelligent informal querying; Linguistic foundation of information and knowledge; Fuzzy linguistic models; Philosophical and linguistic foundations of conceptual models.

Cross-cultural communication and social computing: Cross-cultural support systems; Integration, evolution and migration of systems; Collaborative societies; Multicultural web-based software systems; Intercultural collaboration and support systems; Social computing, behavioral modeling and prediction.

Environmental modelling and engineering: Environmental information systems (architecture); Spatial, temporal and observational information systems; Large-scale environmental systems; Collaborative knowledge base systems; Agent concepts and conceptualisation; Hazard prediction, prevention and steering systems.

Multimedia data modelling and systems: Modelling multimedia information and knowledge; Content-based multimedia data management; Content-based multimedia retrieval; Privacy and context enhancing technologies; Semantics and pragmatics of multimedia data; Metadata for multimedia information systems.

Due to regulations caused by Corona virus the EJC2020 was held online and hosted by the Department for Computer Science of the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, Germany. The virtual conference was held on 8 and 9 June from 09.00–12.00, German time, and organized with the Zoom platform. Presentations, prepared according to the predefined instructions, each had a 10 minute time slot.

We thank all colleagues for their support in making this conference successful, especially the program committee, organization committee, and the program coordination team, in particular Naofumi Yoshida who maintained the paper submission and reviewing systems and compiled the files for this book.

Editors

Marina Tropmann-Frick

Bernhard Thalheim

Hannu Jaakkola

Yasushi Kiyoki

Naofumi Yoshida