This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Flexible Query Answering Systems, FQAS 2009, held in Roskilde, Denmark, in October 2009. The 57 papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 90 submissions. They are structured in topical sections on database management, information retrieval, extraction and mining, ontologies and semantic web, intelligent information extraction from texts, advances in fuzzy querying, personalization, preferences, context and recommendation, and Web as a stream.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Flexible Query Answering Systems, FQAS'2000, held in Warsaw, Poland on October 25 - 28, 2000. The FQAS conference has been the premier conference focusing on one of key issues that the information society faces, namely that of providing easy, flexible, intuitive access to information for everybody. In targeting this issue, the conference draws on several research areas, such as databases, querying, information retrieval, knowledge representation, soft computing, cyberspace, multimedia systems, human-computer interaction, etc. FQAS'2000 has been preceded by the extremely successful FQAS'94, FQAS'96 and FQAS'98 conferences all held in Roskilde, Denmark. The present conference provides a unique opportunity for researchers, developers and practitioners to explore new ideas and approaches in a multidisciplinary forum. As a metaphor for flexible query answering we may consider a human intermediary who has expertise in the topic of the query, and is experienced in identifying the user's information needs and answering the needs from the available information resources. The use of knowledge on relevant contexts, available information resources, etc. , enables the expert to respond rather precisely to the needs, though the query, per se, may be imprecise, incomplete, etc. Thus, a key issue for flexible query answering system is to obtain, maintain, represent, and utilize such knowledge. This comprises domain knowledge and metaknowledge, its representation and organization in ontologies, terminologies, etc.

ThisvolumeconstitutestheproceedingsoftheSixthInternationalConferenceon Flexible Query Answering Systems, FQAS 2004, held in Lyon, France, on June 24–26, 2004. FQAS is the premier conference for researchers and practitioners concerned with the vital task of providing easy, ?exible, and intuitive access to information for every type of need. This multidisciplinary conference draws on several research areas, including databases, information retrieval, knowledge representation, soft computing, multimedia, and human-computer interaction. With FQAS 2004, the FQAS conference series celebrated its tenth anniversary as it has been held every two years since 1994. The overall theme of the FQAS conferences is innovative query systems aimed at providing easy, ?exible, and intuitive access to information. Such systems are intended to facilitate retrieval from information repositories such as databases, libraries, and the Web. These repositories are typically equipped with standard query systems that are often inadequate for users. The focus of FQAS is the development of query systems that are more expressive, informative, cooperative, productive, and intuitive to use.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Flexible Query Answering Systems, FQAS 2006, held in Milan, Italy in June 2006. The book presents 60 revised full papers, organized in topical sections on flexibility in database management and querying, vagueness and uncertainty in XML querying and retrieval, information retrieval and filtering, multimedia information access, user modeling and personalization, knowledge and data extraction, and more.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Flexible Query Answering Systems, FQAS 2019, held in Amantea, Italy, in July 2019. The 27 full papers and 10 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 43 submissions. The papers present emerging research trends with a special focus on flexible querying and analytics for smart cities and smart societies in the age of big data. They are organized in the following topical sections: flexible database management and querying; ontologies and knowledge bases; social networks and social media; argumentation-based query answering; data mining and knowledge discovery; advanced flexible query answering methodologies and techniques; flexible query answering methods and techniques; flexible intelligent information-oriented and network-oriented approaches; big data veracity and soft computing; flexibility in tools; and systems and miscellanea.

This volume contains the papers presented at the Eleventh Flexible Query Answering Systems 2015 (FQAS-2015) held on October 26-28, 2015 in Cracow, Poland. The international conferences on Flexible Query Answering Systems (FQAS) are a series of premier conferences focusing on the key issue in the information society of providing easy, flexible, and intuitive access to information and knowledge to everybody, even people with a very limited computer literacy. In targeting this issue, the Conference draws on several research areas, such as information retrieval, database management, information filtering, knowledge representation, soft computing, management of multimedia information, and human-computer interaction. The Conference provides a unique opportunity for researchers, developers and practitioners to explore new ideas and approaches in a multidisciplinary forum.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer Aided Systems Theory, EUROCAST 2005, held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain in February 2005. The 83 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on formal approaches in modelling, intelligent information systems, information applications components, cryptography and spectral analysis, computer vision, biocomputing, intelligent vehicular systems, robotic soccer, robotics and control.