Sharing data, information and knowledge

Since 1981, the British National Conferences on Databases (BNCOD) have p- vided a forum for database researchers to report the latest progress and explore new ideas. Over the last 28 years, BNCOD has evolved from a predominantly national conference into one that is truly international, attracting research c- tributions from all over the world. This volume contains the proceedings of BNCOD 2008. We received 45 s- missions from 22 countries. Each paper was reviewed by three referees, and 14 full papers and 7 posters were accepted. All the research papers and posters are included in this volume, and they are organized into ? ve sections: data mining and privacy, data integration, stream and event data processing, query proce- ing and optimization, and posters. The keynote was delivered by Monica Marinucci, EMEA Programme Dir- tor for Oracle in R& D. She has been involved in various advanced developments concerning Oracle, and participated in EC-funded projects as an expert, es- cially the CHALLENGERS special support action to propose the future of grid computing. In her keynote presentation, she addressedthe audience on the topic of the power of data, emphasizing that the ability to store, handle, manipulate, distribute and replicate data and information can provide a tremendous asset to organizations. She also explored some of the latest directions and developments in the database ? eld, and described how Oracle contributes to them partnering up with other leading organizations in di? erent sectors.