The International Conferences on Arti?cial Neural Networks, ICANN, have been held annually since 1991 and over the years have become the major European meeting in neural networks. This proceedings volume contains all the papers presented at ICANN 2002, the 12th ICANN conference, held in August 28– 30, 2002 at the Escuela T ́ecnica Superior de Inform ́atica of the Universidad Aut ́onoma de Madrid and organized by its Neural Networks group. ICANN 2002 received a very high number of contributions, more than 450. Almost all papers were revised by three independent reviewers, selected among the more than 240 serving at this year’s ICANN, and 221 papers were ?nally selected for publication in these proceedings (due to space considerations, quite a few good contributions had to be left out). I would like to thank the Program Committee and all the reviewers for the great collective e?ort and for helping us to have a high quality conference.

The refereed proceedings of the Joint International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks and International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICANN/ICONIP 2003, held in Istanbul, Turkey, in June 2003. The 138 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 346 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on learning algorithms, support vector machine and kernel methods, statistical data analysis, pattern recognition, vision, speech recognition, robotics and control, signal processing, time-series prediction, intelligent systems, neural network hardware, cognitive science, computational neuroscience, context aware systems, complex-valued neural networks, emotion recognition, and applications in bioinformatics.

This book is the first of a two-volume set that constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2007, held in Porto, Portugal, September 2007. Coverage includes advances in neural network learning methods, advances in neural network architectures, neural dynamics and complex systems, data analysis, evolutionary computing, agents learning, as well as temporal synchronization and nonlinear dynamics in neural networks.

This two volume set LNCS 5768 and LNCS 5769 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2009, held in Limassol, Cyprus, in September 2009. The 200 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 300 submissions. The first volume is divided in topical sections on learning algorithms; computational neuroscience; hardware implementations and embedded systems; self organization; intelligent control and adaptive systems; neural and hybrid architectures; support vector machine; and recurrent neural network.

The two volume set LNCS 3696 and LNCS 3697 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2005, held in Warsaw, Poland in September 2005. The over 600 papers submitted to ICANN 2005 were thoroughly reviewed and carefully selected for presentation. The first volume includes 106 contributions related to Biological Inspirations; topics addressed are modeling the brain and cognitive functions, development of cognitive powers in embodied systems spiking neural networks, associative memory models, models of biological functions, projects in the area of neuroIT, evolutionary and other biological inspirations, self-organizing maps and their applications, computer vision, face recognition and detection, sound and speech recognition, bioinformatics, biomedical applications, and information- theoretic concepts in biomedical data analysis. The second volume contains 162 contributions related to Formal Models and their Applications and deals with new neural network models, supervised learning algorithms, ensemble-based learning, unsupervised learning, recurent neural networks, reinforcement learning, bayesian approaches to learning, learning theory, artificial neural networks for system modeling, decision making, optimalization and control, knowledge extraction from neural networks, temporal data analysis, prediction and forecasting, support vector machines and kernel-based methods, soft computing methods for data representation, analysis and processing, data fusion for industrial, medical and environmental applications, non-linear predictive models for speech processing, intelligent multimedia and semantics, applications to natural language processing, various applications, computational intelligence in games, and issues in hardware implementation.

The two-volume set LNCS 4131 and LNCS 4132 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2006. The set presents 208 revised full papers, carefully reviewed and selected from 475 submissions. This first volume presents 103 papers, organized in topical sections on feature selection and dimension reduction for regression, learning algorithms, advances in neural network learning methods, ensemble learning, hybrid architectures, and more.

This two volume set LNCS 5163 and LNCS 5164 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2008, held in Prague Czech Republic, in September 2008. The 200 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 300 submissions. The second volume is devoted to pattern recognition and data analysis, hardware and embedded systems, computational neuroscience, connectionistic cognitive science, neuroinformatics and neural dynamics. it also contains papers from two special sessions coupling, synchronies, and firing patterns: from cognition to disease, and constructive neural networks and two workshops new trends in self-organization and optimization of artificial neural networks, and adaptive mechanisms of the perception-action cycle.

This three volume set LNCS 6352, LNCS 6353, and LNCS 6354 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2010, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in September 20010. The 102 revised full papers, 68 short papers and 29 posters presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 241 submissions. The third volume is divided in topical sections on classification – pattern recognition, learning algorithms and systems, computational intelligence, IEM3 workshop, CVA workshop, and SOINN workshop.

A guide on the use of SVMs in pattern classification, including a rigorous performance comparison of classifiers and regressors. The book presents architectures for multiclass classification and function approximation problems, as well as evaluation criteria for classifiers and regressors. Features: Clarifies the characteristics of two-class SVMs; Discusses kernel methods for improving the generalization ability of neural networks and fuzzy systems; Contains ample illustrations and examples; Includes performance evaluation using publicly available data sets; Examines Mahalanobis kernels, empirical feature space, and the effect of model selection by cross-validation; Covers sparse SVMs, learning using privileged information, semi-supervised learning, multiple classifier systems, and multiple kernel learning; Explores incremental training based batch training and active-set training methods, and decomposition techniques for linear programming SVMs; Discusses variable selection for support vector regressors.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second IAPR Workshop on Artificial Neural Networks in Pattern Recognition, ANNPR 2006, held in Ulm, Germany in August/September 2006. The 26 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on unsupervised learning, semi-supervised learning, supervised learning, support vector learning, multiple classifier systems, visual object recognition, and data mining in bioinformatics.