"This volume presents a collection of refereed papers reflecting the state of the art in the area of over-constrained systems. Besides 11 revised full papers, selected from the 24 submissions to the OCS workshop held in conjunction with the First International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, CP '95, held in Marseilles in September 1995, the book includes three comprehensive background papers of central importance for the workshop papers and the whole field. Also included is an introduction by one of the volume editors together with a bibliography listing 243 entries. All in all this is a very useful reference book relevant for all researchers and practitioners interested in hierarchical, partial, and over-constrained systems."--PUBLISHER'S WEBSITE.