This book constitutes the proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Mul timedia Information Systems (MIS 98) held in Istanbul, Turkey in September 1998. This workshop builds upon the success of the three previous workshops in this series that were held in Arlington, VA, West Point, NY, and Como, Italy. As in the past, this is a small focused workshop, consisting of participants drawn from a wide variety of disciplines (e. g. theory, algorithms, real time systems, networks, operating sys tems, graphics and visualization, databases, artificial intelligence, etc. ), all of which focus...

Workflow management systems (WFMS) are enjoying increasing popular ity due to their ability to coordinate and streamline complex organizational processes within organizations of all sizes. Organizational processes are de scriptions of an organization's activities engineered to fulfill its mission such as completing a business contract or satisfying a specific customer request. Gaining control of these processes allows an organization to reengineer and improve each process or adapt them to changing requirements. The goal of WFMSs is to manage these organizational processes and coordinate their...