In recent decades information modeling and knowledge bases have become hot topics, not only in academic communities related to information systems and computer science but also in the business area where information technology is applied. The 20th European-Japanese Conference on Information Modeling and Knowledge Bases (EJC2010) continues the series of events that originally started as a co-operation initiative between Japan and Finland, back in the second half of the 1980's. Later (1991) the geographical scope of these conferences expanded to cover the whole of Europe and other countries as well.

The EJC conferences constitute a worldwide 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 both researchers and practitioners who deal with information modelling and knowledge bases. The main topics of EJC conferences target the variety of themes in the domain of information modeling: conceptual analysis, the 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. We also aim at applying new progressive theories. To this end much attention is also paid to theoretical disciplines including cognitive science, artificial intelligence, logic, linguistics and analytical philosophy.

In order to achieve the targets of the EJC, an international program committee selected 15 full papers and 10 short papers in a rigorous reviewing process from 34 submissions. The selected papers cover many areas of information modelling, namely the 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, cultural modelling and many others.

The conference could not be a success without a lot of effort on the part of many people and organizations. In the program committee, 29 reputable researchers devoted a lot of energy to the review process, selecting the best papers and creating the EJC2010 program, and we are very grateful to them. Professor Yasushi Kiyoki and Professor Takehiro Tokuda acted as co-chairs of the program committee while Senior Researcher, Dr. Anneli Heimbürger, and her team took care of the conference venue and local arrangements. Professor Hannu Jaakkola acted as the general organizing chair and Ms. Ulla Nevanranta as conference secretary for the general organizational matters necessary for running the annual conference series. Dr. Naofumi Yoshida and his Program Coordination Team managed the review process and the conference program. We also gratefully appreciate the efforts of all our supporters, especially the Department of Mathematical Information Technology at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland), for supporting this annual event and the 20th jubilee year of EJC.

We believe that the conference was productive and fruitful in the advance of research and application of information modelling and knowledge bases. This book features papers edited as a result of the presentation and discussion at the conference.

The Editors

Anneli Heimbürger, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Yasushi Kiyoki, Keio University, Japan

Takehiro Tokuda, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

Hannu Jaakkola, Tampere University of Technology (Pori), Finland

Naofumi Yoshida, Komazawa University, Japan