Location-based services (LBS) are a new concept integrating a user's geographic location with the general notion of services, such as dialing an emergency number from a cell phone or using a navigation system in a car. Incorporating both mobile communication and spatial data, these applications represent a novel challenge both conceptually and technically.

The purpose of this book is to describe, in an accessible fashion, the various concepts underlying mobile location-based services. These range from general application-related ideas to technical aspects. Each chapter starts with a high...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Spatial Databases, SSD '97, held in Berlin, Germany, in July 1997.
The 18 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from a total of 55 submissions. Also included are two keynote contributions. The papers are organized in topical sections on spatial similarities, geo-algorithms, spatial constraint databases, spatial query processing, systems, spatial data models and spatial access methods.