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This book constitutes selected and revised papers from the 7th International Conference Logistics and Supply Chain Management, held in December 2020 in Tehran, Iran. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held online. The 17 full papers and 2 short papers pressented were thoroughly reviewed and selected out of 70 submissions. The papers are organized in the topical sections on ​information technology in supply chain management; production/scheduling and transportation in supply chain management; sustainable and resilient supply chain management; humanitarian supply chain management.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed conference proceedings of the First International Workshop on the Foundation of Trustworthy AI - Integrating Learning, Optimization and Reasoning, TAILOR 2020, held virtually in September 2020, associated with ECAI 2020, the 24th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence. The 11 revised full papers presented together with 6 short papers and 6 position papers were reviewed and selected from 52 submissions. The contributions address various issues for Trustworthiness, Learning, reasoning, and optimization, Deciding and Learning How to Act, AutoAI, and Reasoning and Learning in Social Contexts.

The two-volume set LNCS 11973 and 11974 constitute revised selected papers from the Third International Conference on Numerical Computations: Theory and Algorithms, NUMTA 2019, held in Crotone, Italy, in June 2019. This volume, LNCS 11973, consists of 34 full and 18 short papers chosen among papers presented at special streams and sessions of the Conference. The papers in part I were organized following the topics of these special sessions: approximation: methods, algorithms, and applications; computational methods for data analysis; first order methods in optimization: theory and applications; high performance computing in modelling and simulation; numbers, algorithms, and applications; optimization and management of water supply.

This book constitutes revised and selected papers from the 8th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems, ICORES 2019, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in February 2019. The 9 extended and revised papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 80 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named methodologies and technologies and applications.

This two-volume set, LNCS 13163-13164, constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science, LOD 2021, together with the first edition of the Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience, ACAIN 2021. The total of 86 full papers presented in this two-volume post-conference proceedings set was carefully reviewed and selected from 215 submissions. These research articles were written by leading scientists in the fields of machine learning, artificial intelligence, reinforcement learning, computational optimization, neuroscience, and data science presenting a substantial array of ideas, technologies, algorithms, methods, and applications.​

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 25th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization, GD 2017, held in Boston, MA, USA, in September 2017.The 34 full and 9 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 87 submissions. Also included in this book are 2 abstracts of keynote presentations, 16 poster abstracts, and 1 contest report. The papers are organized in topical sections named: straight-line representations; obstacles and visibility; topological graph theory; orthogonal representations and book embeddings; evaluations; tree drawings; graph layout designs; point-set embeddings; special representations; and beyond planarity.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed workshop post-proceedings of the 18th International Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms, WAOA 2019, held virtually in September 2020 as part of ALGO 2020.The 15 revised full papers presented this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. Topics of interest for WAOA 2018 were graph algorithms, inapproximability results, network design, packing and covering, paradigms for the design and analysis of approximation and online algorithms, parameterized complexity, scheduling problems, algorithmic game theory, algorithmic trading, coloring and partitioning, competitive analysis, computational advertising, computational -finance, cuts and connectivity, geometric problems, mechanism design, resource augmentation, real-world applications.Chapter'Explorable Uncertainty in Scheduling with Non-Uniform Testing Times'is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book constitutes the revised selected papers from the 14th European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems, EUMAS 2016, and the Fourth International Conference on Agreement Technologies, AT 2016, held in Valencia, Spain, in December 2016. The 43 papers and 2 invited papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 68 submissions. The papers cover thematic areas as agent and multi-agent system models, algorithms, applications, simulations, theoretical studies, and for AT the thematic areas are: algorithms

This book constitutes the post-conference proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Big Data, MOD 2017, held in Volterra, Italy, in September 2017.The 50 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 126 submissions. The papers cover topics in the field of machine learning, artificial intelligence, computational optimization and data science presenting a substantial array of ideas, technologies, algorithms, methods and applications.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the workshopscollocated with the SEFM 2015 conference on Software Engineering andFormal Methods, held in York, UK, in September 2015.The 25 papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed andselected from 32 submissions. The satellite workshops provided a highly interactive and collaborative environment for researchers and practitioners from industry and academia to discuss emerging areas of software engineering and formal methods.The four workshops were: ATSE 2015: The 6th Workshop on Automating Test Case Design, Selection and Evaluation;HOFM 2015: The 2nd Human-Oriented Formal Methods Workshop;MoKMaSD 2015: The 4th International Symposium on Modelling and Knowledge Management Applications: Systems and Domains;VERY•SCART 2015: The 1st International Workshop on the Art of Service Composition and Formal Verification for Self-• Systems.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 24th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization, GD 2016, held in Athens, Greece, in September 2016. The 45 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 99 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: large graphs and clutter avoidance; clustered graphs; planar graphs, layered and tree drawings; visibility representations; beyond planarity; crossing minimization and crossing numbers; topological graph theory; special graph embeddings; dynamic graphs, contest report.

This volume constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Graphical Models for Security, GraMSec 2015, held in Verona, Italy, in July 2015.The 5 revised full papers presented together with one short tool paper and one invited lecture were carefully reviewed and selected from 13 submissions. The workshop contributes to the development of well-founded graphical security models, efficient algorithms for their analysis, as well as methodologies for their practical usage, thus providing an intuitive but systematic methodology to analyze security weaknesses of systems and to evaluate potential protection measures.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the First International Workshop on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Big Data, MOD 2015, held in Taormina, Sicily, Italy, in July 2015.The 32 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 73 submissions. They deal with the algorithms, methods and theories relevant in data science, optimization and machine learning.

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Networked Systems, NETYS 2016, held in Marrakech, Morocco, in May 2016. The 22 full papers and 11 short papers presented together with 19 poster abstracts were carefully reviewed and selected from 121 submissions.They report on best practices and novel algorithms, results and techniques on networked systems and cover topics such as multi-core architectures, concurrent and distributed algorithms, parallel/concurrent/distributed programming, distributed databases, cloud systems, networks, security, and formal verification.

This book constitutes the revised selected papers from the 13 European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems, EUMAS 2015, and the Third International Conference on Agreement Technologies, AT 2015, held in Athens, Greece, in December 2015.The 36 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 65 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: coordination and planning; learning and optimization, argumentation and negotiation; norms, trust, and reputation; agent-based simulation and agent programming.

This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Algorithmic Aspects of Cloud Computing, ALGOCLOUD 2018, held in Helsinki, Finland, in August 2018. The 11 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 29 submissions. The aim of the symposium is to present research activities and results on topics related to algorithmic, design, and development aspects of modern cloud-based systems.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of five workshops symposia, held at the 38th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2019, in Salvador, Brazil, in November 2019. The 34 papers promote and disseminate research on theories of concepts underlying conceptual modeling, methods and tools for developing and communicating conceptual models, techniques for transforming conceptual models into effective implementations, and the impact of conceptual modeling techniques on databases, business strategies and information systems. The following workshops are included in this volume: Workshop on Conceptual Modeling, Ontologies and Metadata Management for FAIR Data (FAIR), 6th Workshop on Conceptual Modeling in Requirements Engineering and Business Analysis (MREBA), 2nd International Workshop on Empirical Methods in Conceptual Modeling (EmpER), 8th International Workshop on Modeling and Management of Big Data (MoBiD19), and 7th International Workshop on Ontologies andConceptual Modelling (OntoCom).

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the National Conference of Theoretical Computer Science, NCTCS 2019, held in Lanzhou, China, in August 2019. The 11 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 28 submissions. They present relevant trends of current research in the area of algorithms and complexity, data science and machine learning theory, and computational model.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the workshops held at the 17th Asia-Pacific Web Conference, APWeb 2015, in Guangzhou, China, in September 2015. The 15 full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The volume presents the papers that have been accepted for the following workshops: Big Data Applications in Telecoms, BDAT 2015, Big Social Data, BSD 2015, and Web Data Mining and Applications, WDMA 2015. The papers cover various issues in the area of the World Wide Web with the underlying technologies and applications.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 11th International Symposium on Algorithms and Experiments for Wireless Sensor Networks, ALGOSENSORS 2015, held in Patras, Greece, in September 2015.The 16 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. The deal with algorithms analysis and problem complexity; computer communication networks; computation by abstract devices; and mathematics of computing.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 23rd International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization, GD 2015, held in Los Angeles, Ca, USA, in September 2015. The 35 full papers presented together with 7 short papers and 8 posters in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 77 submissions. Graph Drawing is concerned with the geometric representation of graphs and constitutes the algorithmic core of Network Visualization. Graph Drawing and Network Visualization are motivated by applications where it is crucial to visually analyze and interact with relational datasets. Examples of such application areas include social sciences, Internet and Web computing, information systems, computational biology, networking, VLSI circuit design, and software engineering. This year the Steering Committee of GD decided to extend the name of the conference from the'International Symposium on Graph Drawing'to the'International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization'in order to better emphasize the dual focus of the conference on combinatorial and algorithmic aspects as well as the design of network visualization systems and interfaces.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems, EUMAS 2014, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in December 2014. The 21 full papers and 8 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 79 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: agent-based models, trust and reputation; coordination, coalitions and teamwork; logic and formal approaches; theories in practice and real-world problems; decision making, conflicts and agreements.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Algorithmic Aspects of Cloud Computing, ALGOCLOUD 2017, held in Vienna, Austria, in September 2017.The 9 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 27 submissions. The aim of the workshop is to present research activities and results on topics related to algorithmic, design, and development aspects of modern cloud-based systems.

The book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Genetic Programming, Euro GP 2014, held in Grenada, Spain, in April 2014 co-located with the Evo•2014 events, Evo BIO, Evo COP, Evo MUSART and Evo Applications.The 15 revised full papers presented together with 5 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected form 40 submissions. The wide range of topics in this volume reflects the current state of research in the field. Thus, we see topics as diverse as search-based software engineering, image analysis, dynamical systems, evolutionary robotics and operational research to the foundations of search as characterized through semantic variation operators.

This two-volume-set (LNCS 8384 and 8385) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference of Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics, PPAM 2013, held in Warsaw, Poland, in September 2013. The 143 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers cover important fields of parallel/distributed/cloud computing and applied mathematics, such as numerical algorithms and parallel scientific computing; parallel non-numerical algorithms; tools and environments for parallel/distributed/cloud computing; applications of parallel computing; applied mathematics, evolutionary computing and metaheuristics.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 6th International Workshopon Design, Modeling, and Evaluation of Cyber Physical Systems, CyPhy2016, held in conjunction with ESWeek 2016, in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, inOctober 2016.The 9 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 14 submissions. They broadly interpret, from a diverse set of disciplines, the modeling, simulation, and evaluation of cyber-physical systems with a particular focus on techniques and components to enable and support virtual prototyping and testing.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the First JARA High-Performance Computing Symposium, JARA-HPC 2016, held in Aachen, Germany, in October 2016.The 21 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 submissions. They cover many diverse topics, such as coupling methods and strategies in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), performance portability and applications in HPC, as well as provenance tracking for large-scale simulations.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the satellite events held at the 18th Extended Semantic Web Conference, ESWC 2021, in June 2021. The conference was held online, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.During ESWC 2021, the following six workshops took place: 1) the Second International Workshop on Deep Learning meets Ontologies and Natural Language Processing (DeepOntoNLP 2021) 2) the Second International Workshop on Semantic Digital Twins (SeDiT 2021) 3) the Second International Workshop on Knowledge Graph Construction (KGC 2021) 5) the 6th International Workshop on eXplainable SENTIment Mining and EmotioN deTection (X-SENTIMENT 2021) 6) the 4th International Workshop on Geospatial Linked Data (GeoLD 2021).

This two-volume-set (LNCS 9573 and 9574) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics, PPAM 2015, held in Krakow, Poland, in September 2015. The 111 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 196 submissions. The focus of PPAM 2015 was on models, algorithms, and software toolswhich facilitate efficient and convenient utilization of modern parallel and distributed computing architectures, as well as on large-scale applications, including big data problems.

This two-volume set LNCS 9573 and LNCS 9574 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics, PPAM 2015, held in Krakow, Poland, in September 2015.The 111 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 196 submissions. The focus of PPAM 2015 was on models, algorithms, and software tools which facilitate efficient and convenient utilization of modern parallel and distributed computing architectures, as well as on large-scale applications, including big data problems.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems, MESAS 2016, held in Rome, Italy, in June 2016. The 33 revised full papers included in the volume ware carefully reviewed and selected from 38 submissions. They are organized in the following topical sections: human machine integration and interfaces; autonomous systems and MS frameworks and architectures; autonomous systems principles and algorithms; unmanned aerial vehicles and remotely piloted aircraft systems; modelling and simulation application.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Learning and Intelligent Optimization, LION 6, held in Paris, France, in January 2012. The 23 long and 30 short revised papers were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 99 submissions. The papers focus on the intersections and uncharted territories between machine learning, artificial intelligence, mathematical programming and algorithms for hard optimization problems. In addition to the paper contributions the conference also included 3 invited speakers, who presented forefront research results and frontiers, and 3 tutorial talks, which were crucial in bringing together the different components of LION community.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 6th International ICST Conference on Wireless Internet (WICON 2011) held in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China in October 2011. The 55 revised full papers were carefully selected from numerous submissions and focus on research in telecommunication and networking and development in information and communication technologies. The papers are presented in 10 technical sessions and cover topics as video streaming over OFDMA downlink systems, cognitive radio networks, distributed antenna systems, joint source channel coding, multiuser MIMO systems, signal detection, frequency synchronization in 3GPP LTE systems, visual cognitive radio, wireless relay networks, and network flow identifying methods.

This two-volume-set (LNCS 7203 and 7204) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics, PPAM 2011, held in Torun, Poland, in September 2011. The 130 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers address issues such as parallel/distributed architectures and mobile computing; numerical algorithms and parallel numerics; parallel non-numerical algorithms; tools and environments for parallel/distributed/grid computing; applications of parallel/distributed computing; applied mathematics, neural networks and evolutionary computing; history of computing.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the First International Workshop on Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems, MESAS 2014, held in Rome, Italy, in May 2014. The 32 revised full papers included in the volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions, of which 46 were presented at the workshop. They are organized in the following topical sections: unmanned aerial vehicle, distributed simulation, robot system, military application, validation, human-machine communication, gazebo simulator, and algorithm.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems, MESAS 2015, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in April 2015. The 18 revised full papers included in the volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 submissions. They are organized in the following topical sections: state of the art and future of AS; MS experimental frameworks for AS; methods and algorithms for AS.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference, ICT Innovations 2010, held in Ohrid, Macedonia, in September 2010. The 33 revised papers presented together with 5 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected. The papers address the following topics: internet applications and services, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, internet, mobile and wireless technologies, multimedia information systems, computer networks, computer security, e-business, cryptography, high-performance-computing, social networks, e-government, as well as GPU computing.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the International Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation, EvoApplications 2014, held in Granada, Spain, in April 2014, colocated with the Evo• 2014 events EuroGP, EvoCOP, and EvoMUSART.The 79 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 128 submissions. EvoApplications 2014 consisted of the following 13 tracks: EvoCOMNET (nature-inspired techniques for telecommunication networks and other parallel and distributed systems), EvoCOMPLEX (evolutionary algorithms and complex systems), EvoENERGY (evolutionary computation in energy applications), EvoFIN (evolutionary and natural computation in finance and economics), EvoGAMES (bio-inspired algorithms in games), EvoIASP (evolutionary computation in image analysis, signal processing, and pattern recognition), EvoINDUSTRY (nature-inspired techniques in industrial settings), EvoNUM (bio-inspired algorithms for continuous parameter optimization), EvoPAR (parallel implementation of evolutionary algorithms), EvoRISK (computational intelligence for risk management, security and defence applications), EvoROBOT (evolutionary computation in robotics), EvoSTOC (evolutionary algorithms in stochastic and dynamic environments), and EvoBio (EC and related techniques in bioinformatics and computational biology).

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Swarm Intelligence Based Optimization, ICSIBO 2014, held in Mulhouse, France, in May 2014. The 20 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 48 submissions. Topics of interest presented and discussed in the conference focuses on the theoretical progress of swarm intelligence metaheuristics and their applications in areas such as: theoretical advances of swarm intelligence metaheuristics, combinatorial, discrete, binary, constrained, multi-objective, multi-modal, dynamic, noisy, and large-scale optimization, artificial immune systems, particle swarms, ant colony, bacterial foraging, artificial bees, fireflies algorithm, hybridization of algorithms, parallel/distributed computing, machine learning, data mining, data clustering, decision making and multi-agent systems based on swarm intelligence principles, adaptation and applications of swarm intelligence principles to real world problems in various domains.

It is our great pleasure to present the proceedings of the second Russia–Taiwan Symposium on Methods and Tools of Parallel Programming (MTPP 2010). MTPP is the main regular event of the Russia–Taiwan scientific forum that covers the many dimensions of methods and tools of parallel programming, algorithms and architectures, encompassing fundamental theoretical approaches, practical experimental projects, and commercial components and systems. As applications of computing systems have permeated every aspect of daily life, the power of computing systems has become increasingly critical. Therefore, MTPP is intended to play an important role allowing researchers to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of the art and practice of IT-driven services and applications, as well as to identify emerging research topics and define the future directions of parallel computing. We received a large number of high-quality submissions this year. In the first stage, all papers submitted were screened for their relevance and general submission requirements. These manuscripts then underwent a rigorous peer-review process with at least three reviewers per paper. At the end, 33 papers were accepted for presentation and included in the main proceedings. To encourage and promote the work presented at MTPP 2010, we are delighted to inform the authors that some of the papers will be accepted in special issues of the Journal of Supercomputing, which has played a prominent role in promoting the development and use of parallel and distributed processing.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post workshop proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms, WAOA 2012, held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in September 2012 as part of the ALGO 2012 conference event. The 22 revised full papers presented together with invited talk were carefully reviewed and selected from 60 submissions. The workshop covered areas such as geometric problems, online algorithms, scheduling, algorithmic game theory, and approximation algorithms.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the first Workshop on Applications of Discrete Geometry and Mathematical Morphology, WADGMM 2010, held at the International Conference on Pattern Recognition in Istanbul, Turkey, in August 2010. The 11 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 25 submissions. The book was specifically designed to promote interchange and collaboration between experts in discrete geometry/mathematical morphology and potential users of these methods from other fields of image analysis and pattern recognition.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the First International ICST Conference on Wireless Communications and Applications, ICWCA 2011, held in Sanya, China, in August 2011. The 43 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from around 90 submissions and cover a wide range of topics as mobile ad hoc networks, sensor networks, network architectural design, network protocol design, local area networks, MAC, routing, and transport protocols, quality of service provisioning, reliability and fault tolerance issues, resource allocation and management, signal processing, medical imaging, data aggregation techniques, security and privacy issues, wireless computing and applications for wireless network as smart grid, agriculture, health care, smart home, conditional monitoring, etc.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms, WAOA 2011, held in Saarbrücken, Germany, in September 2011. The 21 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 48 submissions. The volume also contains an extended abstract of the invited talk of Prof. Klaus Jansen. The Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms focuses on the design and analysis of algorithms for online and computationally hard problems. Both kinds of problems have a large number of applications in a wide variety of fields. Topics of interest for WAOA 2011 were: algorithmic game theory, approximation classes, coloring and partitioning, competitive analysis, computational finance, cuts and connectivity, geometric problems, inapproximability results, mechanism design, network design, packing and covering, paradigms for design and analysis of approximation and online algorithms, parameterized complexity, randomization techniques and scheduling problems.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post workshop proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms, WAOA 2010, held in Liverpool, UK, in September 2010 as part of the ALGO 2010 conference event.The 23 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed andselected from 58 submissions. The workshop covered areas such asalgorithmic game theory, approximation classes, coloring andpartitioning, competitive analysis, computational finance, cuts andconnectivity, geometric problems, inapproximability results, echanismdesign, network design, packing and covering, paradigms for design and analysis of approximation and online algorithms, parameterizedcomplexity, randomization techniques, real-world applications, andscheduling problems.

This Festschrift volume is published in honor of Professor Paul G. Spirakis on the occasion of his 60th birthday. It celebrates his significant contributions to computer science as an eminent, talented, and influential researcher and most visionary thought leader, with a great talent in inspiring and guiding young researchers. The book is a reflection of his main research activities in the fields of algorithms, probability, networks, and games, and contains a biographical sketch as well as essays and research contributions from close collaborators and former PhD students.

Thisvolumecontainsaselectionofpapersfromthe5thInternationalConference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling (PATAT 2004) held in Pittsburgh, USA, August 18–20, 2004. Indeed, as we write this preface, in the Summer of 2005, we note that we are about one month away from the tenth anniversary of the very?rst PATAT conference in Edinburgh. Since those very early days, the conference series has gone from strength to strength and this volume represents the latest in a series of?ve rigorously refereed volumes which showcase a broad spectrum of ground-breaking timetabling research across a very wide range of timetabling problems and applications. Timetabling is an area that unites a number of disparate?elds and which cuts across a number of diverse academic disciplines. While the most obvious instances of timetabling occur in educational institutions, timetabling also - pears in sports applications, transportation planning, project scheduling, and many other?elds. Viewing timetabling as a unifying theme enables researchers fromthesevariousareastolearnfromeachotherandtoextendtheirown- searchandpracticeinnewandinnovativeways.Thisvolumecontinuesthetrend of the conference series to extend the de?nition of timetabling beyond its edu- tional roots. In this volume, seven of the 19 papers involve domains other than education. Of course, educationaltimetabling remains at the coreof timetabling research, and the papers in this volume represent the full range of this area including exam timetabling, room scheduling, and class rostering.

This volume was prepared to share with a larger audience the exciting ideas and work presented at an ICML 2006 workshop of the same title. Network models have a long history. Sociologists and statisticians made major advances in the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in part with a number of substantial databases and the class of exponential random graph models and related methods in the early 1990s. Physicists and computer scientists came to this domain cons- erably later, but they enriched the array of models and approaches and began to tackle much larger networks and more complex forms of data. Our goal in organ- ing the workshop was to encourage a dialog among people coming from di?erent disciplinary perspectives and with di?erent methods, models, and tools. Both the workshop and the editing of the proceedings was a truly colla- rative e?ort on behalf of all six editors, but three in particular deserve special recognition. Anna Goldenberg and Alice Zheng were the driving force behind the entire enterprise and Edo Airoldi assisted on a number of the more important arrangements.