This volume contains three keynote papers and 51 technical papers from contributors around the world on topics in research and development of database systems, such as data modelling, object-oriented databases, active databases, data mining and heterogeneous databases.

Object deputy model and its applications, Y. Kambayashi and Z.-Y. Peng; on marrying relations and objects - relationcentric and object-centric perspectives, W. Kim; the ODMG standard for object databases, F. Bancilhon and G. Ferran; archiving techniques for temporal databases, V. Kouramjian and R. Elmasri; spatial database querying with logic language, J.-P. Cheiney and V. Oria; continuous media sharing in multimedia database systems, M. Kamath et al; a deductive database solution to intelligent information retrieval from legacy databases, K.-L. Ong et al; incorporating flexible and expressive rule control in a graph-based transaction framework, R.S. Jawadi and S.Y.W. Su; an efficient algorithm for deriving compact rules from databases, S.-J. Yen and A.L.P. Chen; the management of interdependent asynchronous transactions in heterogeneous database environments, L. Do and P. Drew; performance evaluation of replica control algorithms in a locally distributed database system, C.S. Keum et al; a formal model for databases of structured text, B. Lowe et al; a querry interface truly for Chinese users, V.Y. Lum et al; intelligent mathematical databases, G. Buttler. (Part Contents).