Finite model theory, as understoodhere, is an areaof mathematicallogic that has developed in close connection with applications to computer science, in particular the theory of computational complexity and database theory. One of the fundamental insights of mathematical logic is that our understanding of mathematical phenomena is enriched by elevating the languages we use to describe mathematical structures to objects of explicit study. If mathematics is the science of patterns, then the media through which we discern patterns, as well as the structures in which we discern them, command our...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Database Theory, ICDT '97, held in Delphi, Greece, in January 1997.
The 29 revised full papers presented in the volume were carefully selected from a total of 118 submissions. Also included are invited papers by Serge Abiteboul and Jeff Ullman as well as a tutorial on data mining by Heikki Mannila. The papers are organized in sections on conjunctive queries in heterogeneous databases, logic and databases, active databases, new applications, concurrency control, unstructured data, object-oriented...