Areas in knowledge-based systems including recent approaches to machine learning and data mining, inference methods, knowledge-based and fuzzy systems, heuristic search, and natural language processing.

Materialized and virtual approaches to integration of heterogeneous and independent data sources. Emphasis on data models, architectures, logic-based techniques for query processing, metadata and consistency management, the role of XML and ontologies in data integration; connections to schema mapping, data exchange, and P2P systems.