  Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) is an emerging new paradigm for distributed
and object-oriented computing by allowing autonomous, platform-independent
computational entities (called services) to be built (described, discovered,
composed, orchestrated) within and across organizational boundaries. Like no
other computing paradigm before, SOC is destined to exert a lasting influence
on the business domain, among others (e-commerce, e-government, e-business,
e-learning, e-health, etc.).
  The Young Researchers workshop series on Service-Oriented Computing is meant
to be a platform for junior researchers from industry and academics alike. Its
core objectives are to exchange information regarding advancements in the state
of the art and practice of SOC, as well as to identify emerging research topics
and the future trends in this domain.
  Following the success of the previous three workshops, the 4th European Young
Researchers Workshop on Service-Oriented Computing (YR-SOC 2009) introduced two
novelties: it was organised outside of the UK and it saw the introduction of a
number of tutorials, thus making the workshop a 3-day event. YR-SOC 2009 took
place at the CNR Institute of Information Science and Technologies in Pisa,
Italy, and was organised by Maurice ter Beek, Barry Norton, Stephan
Reiff-Marganiec and Monika Solanki.
  The contributions in this volume cover aspects such as automated service
composition, context-aware SOC, service-oriented programming, QoS-aware SOC,
service-oriented architectures, SOC modelling and analysis, process management,
web services, ontologies and the semantic web.
