These two volumes constitute the refereed proceedings of the Third Asian Conference on Computer Vision, ACCV'98, held in Hong Kong, China, in January 1998. The volumes present together a total of 58 revised full papers and 112 revised posters selected from over 300 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on biometry, physics-based vision, color vision, robot vision and navigation, OCR and applications, low-level processing, active vision, face and hand posture recognition, segmentation and grouping, computer vision and virtual reality, motion analysis, and object recognition and modeling.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications, RTA-98, held in Tsukuba, Japan, in March/April 1998. The 22 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from a total of 61 submissions by the program committee with the assistance of 113 additional referees. The book covers all current aspects of rewriting including rewriting systems, term rewriting, string rewriting, theorem proving, resolution, normalization, unification, equational logics, lambda calculus, constraint solving, and functional programming.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of 10 international workshops held in conjunction with the merged 1998 IPPS/SPDP symposia, held in Orlando, Florida, US in March/April 1998. The volume comprises 118 revised full papers presenting cutting-edge research or work in progress. In accordance with the workshops covered, the papers are organized in topical sections on reconfigurable architectures, run-time systems for parallel programming, biologically inspired solutions to parallel processing problems, randomized parallel computing, solving combinatorial optimization problems in parallel, PC based networks of workstations, fault-tolerant parallel and distributed systems, formal methods for parallel programming, embedded HPC systems and applications, and parallel and distributed real-time systems.

This book constitutes the strictly refereed proceedings of the 15th Annual Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science, STACS 98, held in Paris, France, in February 1998. The volume presents three invited surveys together with 52 revised full papers selected from a total of 155 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on algorithms and data structures, logic, complexity, and automata and formal languages.

This book constitutes the strictly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Graphics Recognition, GREC'97, held in Nancy, France, in August 1997. The 34 thoroughly revised full papers presented were carefully selected for inclusion in the book on the basis of a second round of post-workshop reviewing. The book is divided into sections on vectorization and segmentation, symbol recognition, form processing, map processing, engineering drawings, applications and systems, performance evaluation, and a graphics recognition contest.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Cooperative Information Systems, CIA'99, held in Uppsala, Sweden in July/August 1999. The 16 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 46 submissions. Also included are ten invited contributions by leading experts. The volume is divided in sections on information discovery and management on the Internet; information agents on the Internet-prototypes systems and applications; communication and collaboration, mobile information agents; rational information agents for electronic business; service mediation and negotiation; and adaptive personal assistance.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed and revised post-workshop proceedings of the International Workshop on Automated Deduction in Geometry, held in Toulouse, France, in September 1996. The revised extended papers accepted for inclusion in the volume were selected on the basis of double reviewing. Among the topics covered are automated geometric reasoning and the deduction applied to Dixon resultants, Gröbner bases, characteristic sets, computational geometry, algebraic geometry, and planet motion; furthermore the system REDLOG is demonstrated and the verification of geometric statements as well as the automated production of proof in Euclidean Geometry are present.

This book consitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Mathematics of Program Construction, MPC'98, held in Marstrand, near Goteborg, Sweden, in June 1998. The 17 revised full papers presented were selected from 57 submissions; also included are three invited contributions. The volume is devoted to the use of crisp, clear mathematics in the discovery and design of algorithms and in the development of corresponding software and hardware; varoius approaches to formal methods for systems design and analysis are covered.

This book presents a coherent suvey on exciting developments in database semantics. The origins of the volume date back to a workshop held in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1995. The nine revised full papers and surveys presented were carefully reviewed for inclusion in the book. They address more traditional aspects like dealing with integrity constraints and conceptual modeling as well as new areas of databases; object-orientation, incomplete information, database transformations and other issues are investigated by applying formal semantics, e.g. the evolving algebra semantics.

During the last few years, we have seen quite spectacular progress in the area of approximation algorithms: for several fundamental optimization problems we now actually know matching upper and lower bounds for their approximability. This textbook-like tutorial is a coherent and essentially self-contained presentation of the enormous recent progress facilitated by the interplay between the theory of probabilistically checkable proofs and aproximation algorithms. The basic concepts, methods, and results are presented in a unified way to provide a smooth introduction for newcomers. These lectures are particularly useful for advanced courses or reading groups on the topic.