About two dozen peer-reviewed papers from a symposium in Orlando, Florida, November-December 1989, focus on the international aspect of the effort to integrate and harmonize computer databases of materials. They give much attention to standardization, guidelines for people just starting, and applica

Papers presented at the symposium on the Computerization and Use of Materials Property Data, held in Cambridge, UK, September 1991, sponsored by the ASTM and the (UK) National Physical Laboratory. The volume is divided into four sections: standards and data representation, integration of materials i

J.-E DUBOIS and N. GERSHON As with Volume 1 in this series, this book was inspired by the Symposium on "Communications and Computer Aided Systems" held at the 14th International CODATA Conference in September 1994 in Chambery, France. This book was conceived and influenced by the discussions at the Symposium and most of the contributions were written following the Conference. Whereas the first volume dealt with the numerous challenges facing the information revolution, especially its communication aspects, this one provides an insight into the recent tools provided by computer science for handling the complex aspects of scientific and technological data. This volume, "Modeling Complex Data for Creating Information," is concerned with real and virtual objects often involved with data handling processes encountered frequently in modeling physical phenomena and systems behavior. Topics concerning modeling complex data for creating information include: • Object oriented approach for structuring data and knowledge • Imprecision and uncertainty in information systems • Fractal modeling and shape and surface processing • Symmetry applications for molecular data The choice of these topics reflects recent developments in information systems technologies. One example is object oriented technology. Recently, research, development and applications have been using object-oriented modeling for computer handling of data and data management. Object oriented technology offers increasingly easy-to-use software applications and operating systems. As a result, science and technology research and applications can now provide more flexible and effective services.