TheexplosivegrowthoftheInternetandtheWebhavecreatedanever-growing demand for information systems, and ever-growing challenges for Information Systems Engineering. The series of Conferences on Advanced Information S- tems Engineering (CAiSE) was launched in Scandinavia by Janis Bubenko and Arne Solvberg in 1989, became an important European conference, and was held annually in major European sites throughout the 1990s. Now, in its 14th year, CAiSEwasheldforthe?rsttimeoutsideEurope, showcasinginternational researchon information systems and their engineering. Not surprisingly, this year the...

The growing demand for systems of ever-increasing complexity and precision has stimulated the need for higher level concepts, tools, and techniques in every area of Computer Science. Some of these areas, in particular Artificial Intelligence, Databases, and Programming Lan guages, are attempting to meet this demand by defining a new, more abstract level of system description. We call this new level conceptual in recognition of its basic conceptual nature. In Artificial Intelligence, the problem of designing an expert system is seen primarily as a problem of building a knowledge base that...