World Academic Database 1997 98

This pocket-sized reference on key environmental data for over 200 countries includes key indicators on agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, energy, emission and pollution, and water and sanitation. The volume helps establish a sound base of information to help set priorities and measure progress toward environmental sustainability goals.

Annotation Human Development Network Series. As the new millennium approaches,... Education will determine who has the keys to the treasures the world can furnish. This is particularly important for the poor, who have to rely on their human capital as the main, if not the only, means of escaping poverty. In this way, new challenges and opportunities arise for education. Immense progress has been achieved in education in the last 50 years. However, immense challenges still remain. This report lays out the vision for education and the ambitious international goals to which the Bank subscribes. It notes the progress so far and the gaps that remain. It describes the rich group of partners associated with the educational endeavor and how the Bank's role has evolved. It conveys the Bank's global priorities and programs to help countries progress toward the international education goals and improve the quality of teaching and learning. It illustrates the processes and operating principles that will help Bank staff contribute more effectively to better educational outcomes in each client country and to monitor success in implementing this strategy. Also available in French (Stock no. 14632) and Spanish (Stock no. 14633).

This volume is based on the contributions to the International Workshop on the Web and Databases (WebDB’98), held in Valencia, Spain, March 27 and 28, 1998, in conjunction with the Sixth International Conference on Extending Database Technology (EDBT’98). In response to the workshop call for papers, 37 manuscripts were submitted to the program committee. The review process was conducted entirely by- mail. While the quality of submissions was generally high, only 16 papers could be accepted for presentation within the limited time allowed by the workshop schedule. Authors of workshop papers were invited to submit extended versions oftheirpapersforpublicationinthesepost-workshopproceedings.The13papers appearing in this volume were submitted and selected after a second round of reviews. We would like to thank the program committee of WebDB’98, all those who submitted their work, all additional reviewers, and the conference o?cials of EBDT’98 for their invaluable support. Special thanks go to Paolo Merialdo, who actively participated in the organization of the workshop.

The explosive growth of multimedia data transmission has generated a critical need for efficient, high-capacity image databases, as well as powerful search engines to retrieve image data from them. This book brings together contributions by an international all-star team of innovators in the field who share their insights into all key aspects of image database and search engine construction. Readers get in-depth discussions of the entire range of crucial image database architecture, indexing and retrieval, transmission, display, and user interface issues. And, using examples from an array of disciplines, the authors present cutting-edge applications in medical imagery, multimedia communications, earth science, remote sensing, and other major application areas.