New object-oriented technologies have been conceived and implemented over the past decade in order to manage complexity inherent in information systems development. Research has spanned from information systems modelling languages (UML and OML) to databases (ODMG), from programming languages (Java) to middleware technology (CORBA). A more widespread use of the Internet has led to the emergence and integration of various other technologies, such as XML and database connectivity tools, allowing businesses to access and exchange information over the Internet. The main theme of OOIS 2000 was "Object-Technology and New Business Opportunities" and focused on research conducted in the area of effective information systems development for the promotion of e-commerce. Papers were invited from academics and practitioners. The thirty-nine papers accepted for oms 2000 are included in these proceedings. It is nice to see this year that the shift from centralised to distributed systems and the widespread access and use of the Internet has allowed the advent of new opportunities for businesses to exploit, in the form of e-commerce.

Welcome to 00lS'01 and Calgary! This is the 7th International Conference on Object-Oriented Information Systems (OOlS) that focus on Object-Oriented and Web-Based Frameworks for Information Systems. In the last few years we've seen significant new development in this field, from one-off design technologies to reusable frameworks, and from web applications to bioinformatic systems. We perceive that information processing is one of the most important activities of human beings. Object-orientation and frameworks have been the main-stream technologies for design and implementation of large-scale and complex information systems. Recent research advances and industrial innovations in information systems modeling and Internet applications have explored the new trends in shifting information system vendors from component and system developers to services providers. Users of information systems are increasingly demanding higher performance, mobility, and personalization in order to realize the dream to access and obtain necessary information anywhere and anytime. The new development requires the investigation of new architectures, frameworks, processes, and inter-connectivity of information systems at society, organization, team, and personal levels. The 00lS'01 Proceedings has put together a program of 53 papers from leading researchers and practitioners in the field of object technology and information systems.

Since the late 1980s, the CAiSE conferences have provided a forum for the p- sentation and exchange of research results and practical experiences within the ?eld of Information Systems Engineering. CAiSE 2001 was the 13th conference in this series and was held from 4th to 8th June 2001 in the resort of Int- laken located near the three famous Swiss mountains – the Eiger, M ̈ onch, and Jungfrau. The ?rst two days consisted of pre-conference workshops and tutorials. The workshop themes included requirements engineering, evaluation of modeling methods, data integration over the Web, agent-oriented information systems, and the design and management of data warehouses. Continuing the tradition of recent CAiSE conferences, there was also a doctoral consortium. The p- conference tutorials were on the themes of e-business models and XML appli- tion development. The main conference program included three invited speakers, two tuto- als, and a panel discussion in addition to presentations of the papers in these proceedings. We also included a special ‘practice and experience’ session to give presentersanopportunitytoreportonanddiscussexperiencesandinvestigations on the use of methods and technologies in practice. Weextendourthankstothemembersoftheprogramcommitteeandallother referees without whom such conferences would not be possible. The program committee, whose members came from 20 di?erent countries, selected 27 hi- quality research papers and 3 experience reports from a total of 97 submissions. The topics of these papers span the wide-range of topics relevant to information systems engineering – from requirements and design through to implementation and operation of complex and dynamic systems.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Third Conference on Professional Knowledge Management - Experiences and Visions, WM 2005, held in Kaiserslautern, Germany in April 2005. The 82 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from the best contributions to the 15 workshops of the conference. Coverage includes intelligent office appliances, learning software organizations, learner-oriented knowledge management and KM-oriented e-learning.

Investigates the nature and history of dynamic processes essential to understanding the need for flexibility and adaptability as well as the requirements to improve solutions.

The conference on Object Oriented Information Systems (OOIS) is now an es- blished international conference where innovative ideas, research, applications, and experiences in the design, development, and use of object oriented infor- tionsystems,fromboththeacademicandindustrialenvironments,arepresented. The ninth OOIS conference was held at the University of Geneva, September 2–5, 2003. The main theme was the Evolution of Object Oriented Information Systems. The papers presented ideas and issues related to the evolution, ad- tability, restructuring, and ?exibility of OOIS. In the context of the conference, ?ve workshops and four tutorials were organized providing a discussion forum for new ideas and including in depth presentations on important “hot” subjects. The three invited speakers of the ninth OOIS conference provided an - ternative view on OOIS and their evolution. Prof. John Mylopoulos (Univ- sity of Toronto and VLDB president) gave the opening presentation entitled “Agent Oriented IS Development” , Dr. Richard Soley (OMG President and CEO) gave the closing presentation entitled “Model Driven Architecture: The Evolution of Object-Oriented Systems?” and Prof. Lina Al-Jadir (American U- versity of Beirut) gave the theme presentation entitled “Once Upon a Time a DTD Evolved into Another DTD...”.

Traditional workflow management systems support the fulfillment of business tasks by providing guidance along a predefined workflow model. Due to the shift from mass production to customization, flexibility has become important in recent decades, but the various approaches to workflow flexibility either require extensive knowledge acquisition and modeling, or active intervention during execution. Pursuing flexibility by deviation compensates for these disadvantages by allowing alternative paths of execution at run time without requiring adaptation to the workflow model. This work, Flexible Workflows: A Constraint- and Case-Based Approach, proposes a novel approach to flexibility by deviation, the aim being to provide support during the execution of a workflow by suggesting items based on predefined strategies or experiential knowledge, even in case of deviations. The concepts combine two familiar methods from the field of AI - constraint satisfaction problem solving, and process-oriented case-based reasoning. The combined model increases the capacity for flexibility. The experimental evaluation of the approach consisted of a simulation involving several types of participant in the domain of deficiency management in construction. The book contains 7 chapters covering foundations; domains and potentials; prerequisites; constraint based workflow engine; case based deviation management; prototype; and evaluation, together with an introduction, a conclusion and 3 appendices. Demonstrating high utility values and the promise of wide applicability in practice, as well as the potential for an investigation into the transfer of the approach to other domains, the book will be of interest to all those whose work involves workflow management systems.