Advances In Databases: 16th Brirish National Conference On Database Bncod 16 Cardiff, Wales, Uk, July 6–8, 1998 Proceedings

Lecture Notes in Computer Science Edited by G. Goos, J. Hartmanis and J. van Leeuwen 1405 Suzanne M. Embury Nicholas J. Fiddian W. Alex Gray Andrew C. Jones (Eds.) Advances in Databases 16th British National Conference on Databases BNCOD 16 Cardiff, Wales, UK, July 6-8, 1998 Proceedings ~ Springer Series Editors Gerhard Goos, Karlsruhe University, Germany Juris Hartmanis, Cornell University, NY, USA Jan van Leeuwen, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Volume Editors Suzanne M. Embury Nicholas J, Fiddian W. Alex Gray Andrew C. Jones Cardiff University, Department of Computer Science P.O. Box 916, Cardiff CF2 3XE UK E-mail: {S.M.Embury, N.J.Fiddian, W.A.Gray, Andrew.C.Jones }@cs.cf.ac.uk Cataloging-in-Publication data applied for Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Advances in databases : proceedings / 16th British National Conference on Databases, BNCOD 16, Cardiff, Wales, UK, July 6 8, 1998. Suzanne M. Embury ... (ed.). - Berlin ; Heidelberg ; New York ; Barcelona ; Budapest ; Hong Kong ; London ; Milan ; Paris ; Santa Clara ; Singapore ; Tokyo : Springer, 1998 (Lecture notes in computer science ; Vol. 1405) ISBN 3-540-64659-0 CR Subject Classification (1991): H.2, H.3, H.4 ISSN 0302-9743 ISBN 3-540-64659-0 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer -Verlag. Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. 9 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1998 Printed in Germany Typesetting: Camera-ready by author SPIN 10637142 06/3142 - 5 4 3 2 1 0 Printed on acid-free paper Foreword This volume contains the proceedings of the 16th British National Conference on Databases (BNCOD-16) held at Cardiff University in July 1998. The aim of BNCOD is to present new developments and current research on database theory and techniques. Although the title might suggest otherwise, the constituency of this conference in recent years has extended well beyond the UK, indeed beyond European boundaries. This year the programme committee selected eleven papers and several posters for presentation at the conference from a large number of submissions. Of these eleven papers, three are from the UK, five from the European database research community, two from the USA and one from Australia. The programme committee also commissioned one additional UK contribution, in an area of growing industrial relevance. BNCOD has been held at Cardiff once before, exactly ten years ago. Then, in 1988, at BNCOD-6 the main areas of research interest covered were objectoriented databases, temporal databases, and alternative data models; homogeneous distributed database systems were just beginning to be marketed and their heterogeneous relatives were still primarily a matter for research consideration. The scope and rate of change over the past decade, with the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web, the shift in emphasis from data to knowledge bases and the