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International Federation of Classification Societies The International Federation of Classification Societies (lFCS) is an agency for the dissemination of technical and scientific information concerning classification and multivariate data analysis in the broad sense and in as wide a range of applications as possible; founded in 1985 in Cambridge (UK) by the following Scientific Societies and Groups: - British Classification Society - BCS - Classification Society of North America - CSNA - Gesellschaft fUr Klassification - GfKI - Japanese Classification Society - JCS - Classification Group ofItalian Statistical Society - CGSIS - Societe Francophone de Classification - SFC Now the IFCS includes also the following Societies: - Dutch-Belgian Classification Society - VOC - Polish Classification Section - SKAD - Portuguese Classification Association - CLAD - Group at Large - Korean Classification Society - KCS IFCS-98, the Sixth Conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies, was held in Rome, from July 21 to 24, 1998. Five preceding conferences were held in Aachen (Germany), Charlottesville (USA), Edinburgh (UK), Paris (France), Kobe (Japan).

The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the Eighth Conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS) which was held in Cracow, Poland, July 16-19, 2002. All originally submitted papers were subject to a reviewing process by two independent referees, a procedure which resulted in the selection of the 53 articles presented in this volume. These articles relate to theoretical investigations as well as to practical applications and cover a wide range of topics in the broad domain of classifi­ cation, data analysis and related methods. If we try to classify the wealth of problems, methods and approaches into some representative (partially over­ lapping) groups, we find in particular the following areas: • Clustering • Cluster validation • Discrimination • Multivariate data analysis • Statistical methods • Symbolic data analysis • Consensus trees and phylogeny • Regression trees • Neural networks and genetic algorithms • Applications in economics, medicine, biology, and psychology. Given the international orientation of IFCS conferences and the leading role of IFCS in the scientific world of classification, clustering and data anal­ ysis, this volume collects a representative selection of current research and modern applications in this field and serves as an up-to-date information source for statisticians, data analysts, data mining specialists and computer scientists.

In science, industry, public administration and documentation centers large amounts of data and information are collected which must be analyzed, ordered, visualized, classified and stored efficiently in order to be useful for practical applications. This volume contains 50 selected theoretical and applied papers presenting a wealth of new and innovative ideas, methods, models and systems which can be used for this purpose. It combines papers and strategies from two main streams of research in an interdisciplinary, dynamic and exciting way: On the one hand, mathematical and statistical methods are described which allow a quantitative analysis of data, provide strategies for classifying objects or making exploratory searches for interesting structures, and give ways to make comprehensive graphical displays of large arrays of data. On the other hand, papers related to information sciences, informatics and data bank systems provide powerful tools for representing, modelling, storing and retrieving facts, data and knowledge characterized by qualitative descriptors, semantic relations, or linguistic concepts. The integration of both fields and a special part on applied problems from biology, medicine, archeology, industry and administration assure that this volume will be informative and useful for theory and practice.

Raymond Bisdorff CRP-GL, Luxembourg The development of the SODAS software based on symbolic data analysis was extensively described in the previous chapters of this book. It was accompanied by a series of benchmark activities involving some official statistical institutes throughout Europe. Partners in these benchmark activities were the National Statistical Institute (INE) of Portugal, the Instituto Vasco de Estadistica Euskal (EUSTAT) from Spain, the Office For National Statistics (ONS) from the United Kingdom, the Inspection Generale de la Securite Sociale (IGSS) from Luxembourg 1 and marginally the University of Athens. The principal goal of these benchmark activities was to demonstrate the usefulness of symbolic data analysis for practical statistical exploitation and analysis of official statistical data. This chapter aims to report briefly on these activities by presenting some signifi­ cant insights into practical results obtained by the benchmark partners in using the SODAS software package as described in chapter 14 below.

Data Science and Classification provides new methodological developments in data analysis and classification. The broad and comprehensive coverage includes the measurement of similarity and dissimilarity, methods for classification and clustering, network and graph analyses, analysis of symbolic data, and web mining. Beyond structural and theoretical results, the book offers application advice for a variety of problems, in medicine, microarray analysis, social network structures, and music.