The LNCS journal Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems focuses on data management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge processing, which are core and hot topics in computer science. Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the main driving force behind application development in all domains. An increase in the demand for resource sharing across different sites connected through networks has led to an evolution of data- and knowledge-management systems from centralized systems to decentralized systems enabling large-scale distributed applications providing high scalability. Current decentralized systems still focus on data and knowledge as their main resource. Feasibility of these systems relies basically on P2P (peer-to-peer) techniques and the support of agent systems with scaling and decentralized control. Synergy between grids, P2P systems, and agent technologies is the key to data- and knowledge-centered systems in large-scale environments. This, the 18th issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains extended and revised versions of seven papers presented at the 24th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, DEXA 2013, held in Prague, in the Czech Republic, in August 2013. Following the conference, and two further rounds of reviewing and selection, five extended papers and two invited keynote papers were chosen for inclusion in this special issue. The subject areas covered include argumentation, e-government, business processes, predictive traffic estimation, semantic model integration, top-k query processing, uncertainty handling, graph comparison, community detection, genetic programming, and web services.

The LNCS journal Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems focuses on data management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge processing, which are core and hot topics in computer science. Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the main driving force behind application development in all domains. An increase in the demand for resource sharing across different sites connected through networks has led to an evolution of data- and knowledge-management systems from centralized systems to decentralized systems enabling large-scale distributed applications providing high scalability. Current decentralized systems still focus on data and knowledge as their main resource. Feasibility of these systems relies basically on P2P (peer-to-peer) techniques and the support of agent systems with scaling and decentralized control. Synergy between grids, P2P systems, and agent technologies is the key to data- and knowledge-centered systems in large-scale environments. This, the 20th issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, presents a representative and useful selection of articles covering a wide range of important topics in the domain of advanced techniques for big data management. Big data has become a popular term, used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data. The recent radical expansion and integration of computation, networking, digital devices, and data storage has provided a robust platform for the explosion in big data, as well as being the means by which big data are generated, processed, shared, and analyzed. In general, data are only useful if meaning and value can be extracted from them. Big data discovery enables data scientists and other analysts to uncover patterns and correlations through analysis of large volumes of data of diverse types. Insights gleaned from big data discovery can provide businesses with significant competitive advantages, leading to more successful marketing campaigns, decreased customer churn, and reduced loss from fraud. In practice, the growing demand for large-scale data processing and data analysis applications has spurred the development of novel solutions from both industry and academia.

The LNCS journal Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems focuses on data management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge processing, which are core and hot topics in computer science. Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the main driving force behind application development in all domains. An increase in the demand for resource sharing across different sites connected through networks has led to an evolution of data- and knowledge-management systems from centralized systems to decentralized systems enabling large-scale distributed applications providing high scalability. Current decentralized systems still focus on data and knowledge as their main resource. Feasibility of these systems relies basically on P2P (peer-to-peer) techniques and the support of agent systems with scaling and decentralized control. Synergy between Grids, P2P systems, and agent technologies is the key to data- and knowledge-centered systems in large-scale environments. This, the fifth issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains nine selected full-length papers, focusing on the topics of query processing, information extraction, management of dataspaces and contents, and mobile applications.

This, the 12th issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains five revised selected regular papers. Topics covered include schema matching and schema mapping, update propagation in decision support systems, routing methods in peer-to-peer systems, distributed stream analytics and dynamic data partitioning.

The LNCS journal Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems focuses on data management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge processing, which are core and hot topics in computer science. Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the main driving force behind application development in all domains. An increase in the demand for resource sharing across different sites connected through networks has led to an evolution of data- and knowledge-management systems from centralized systems to decentralized systems enabling large-scale distributed applications providing high scalability. This, the 47th issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, constitutes a special issue focusing on Digital Ecosystems and Social Networks. The 9 revised selected papers cover topics that include Social Big Data, Data Analysis, Cloud-Based Feedback, Experience Ecosystems, Pervasive Environments, and Smart Systems.

This, the 38th issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains extended and revised versions of six papers selected from the 68 contributions presented at the 27th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, DEXA 2016, held in Porto, Portugal, in September 2016. Topics covered include query personalization in databases, data anonymization, similarity search, computational methods for entity resolution, array-based computations in big data analysis, and pattern mining.

The LNCS journal Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems focuses on data management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge processing, which are core and hot topics in computer science. Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the main driving force behind application development in all domains. An increase in the demand for resource sharing across different sites connected through networks has led to an evolution of data- and knowledge-management systems from centralized systems to decentralized systems enabling large-scale distributed applications providing high scalability. Current decentralized systems still focus on data and knowledge as their main resource. Feasibility of these systems relies basically on P2P (peer-to-peer) techniques and the support of agent systems with scaling and decentralized control. Synergy between grids, P2P systems, and agent technologies is the key to data- and knowledge-centered systems in large-scale environments. This, the 19th issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains four high-quality papers investigating the areas of linked data and big data from a data management perspective. Two of the four papers focus on the application of clustering techniques in performing inference and search over (linked) data sources. One paper leverages graph analysis techniques to enable application-level integration of institutional data and a final paper describes an approach for protecting users' profile data from disclosure, tampering, and improper use.

The LNCS journal Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems focuses on data management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge processing, which are core and hot topics in computer science. Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the main driving force behind application development in all domains. An increase in the demand for resource sharing across different sites connected through networks has led to an evolution of data- and knowledge-management systems from centralized systems to decentralized systems enabling large-scale distributed applications providing high scalability. Current decentralized systems still focus on data and knowledge as their main resource. Feasibility of these systems relies basically on P2P (peer-to-peer) techniques and the support of agent systems with scaling and decentralized control. Synergy between grids, P2P systems, and agent technologies is the key to data- and knowledge-centered systems in large-scale environments. This, the 22nd issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains six revised selected regular papers. Topics covered include algorithms for large-scale private analysis, modelling of entities from social and digital worlds and their relations, querying virtual security views of XML data, recommendation approaches using diversity-based clustering scores, hypothesis discovery, and data aggregation techniques in sensor netwo rk environments.

The LNCS journal Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems focuses on data management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge processing, which are core and hot topics in computer science. Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the main driving force behind application development in all domains. An increase in the demand for resource sharing across different sites connected through networks has led to an evolution of data- and knowledge-management systems from centralized systems to decentralized systems enabling large-scale distributed applications providing high scalability. Current decentralized systems still focus on data and knowledge as their main resource. Feasibility of these systems relies basically on P2P (peer-to-peer) techniques and the support of agent systems with scaling and decentralized control. Synergy between grids, P2P systems, and agent technologies is the key to data- and knowledge-centered systems in large-scale environments. This volume, the 32nd issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, focuses on Big Data Analytics and Knowledge Discovery, and contains extended and revised versions of five papers selected from the 17th International Conference on Big Data Analytics and Knowledge Discovery, DaWaK 2015, held in Valencia, Spain, during September 1-4, 2015. The five papers focus on the exact detection of information leakage, the binary shapelet transform for multiclass time series classification, a discrimination-aware association rule classifier for decision support (DAAR), new word detection and tagging on Chinese Twitter, and on-demand snapshot maintenance in data warehouses using incremental ETL pipelines, respectively. discovery,="" contains="" extended="" revised="" versions="" five="" papers="" selected="" from="" 17th="" international="" conference="" discovery="" (dawak="" 2015),="" held="" in="" valencia,="" spain,="" during="" september="" 1-4,="" 2015.="" focus="" exact="" detection="" information="" leakage,="" binary="" shapelet="" transform="" for="" multiclass="" time="" series="" classification,="" a="" discrimination-aware="" association="" rule="" classifier="" decision="" support="" (daar),="" new="" word="" tagging="" chinese="" twitter,="" on-demand="" snapshot="" maintenance="" warehouses="" using="" incremental="" etl="" pipelines,="" respectively.

This, the 25th issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains five fully revised selected papers focusing on data and knowledge management systems. Topics covered include a framework consisting of two heuristics with slightly different characteristics to compute the action rating of data stores, a theoretical and experimental study of filter-based equijoins in a MapReduce environment, a constraint programming approach based on constraint reasoning to study the view selection and data placement problem given a limited amount of resources, a formalization and an approximate algorithm to tackle the problem of source selection and query decomposition in federations of SPARQL endpoints, and a matcher factory enabling the generation of a dedicated schema matcher for a given schema matching scenario.