This book provides a fundamentally new approach to pattern recognition in which objects are characterized by relations to other objects instead of by using features or models. This 'dissimilarity representation' bridges the gap between the traditionally opposing approaches of statistical and structural pattern recognition.Physical phenomena, objects and events in the world are related in various and often complex ways. Such relations are usually modeled in the form of graphs or diagrams. While this is useful for communication between experts, such representation is difficult to combine and integrate by machine learning procedures. However, if the relations are captured by sets of dissimilarities, general data analysis procedures may be applied for analysis.With their detailed description of an unprecedented approach absent from traditional textbooks, the authors have crafted an essential book for every researcher and systems designer studying or developing pattern recognition systems.

The subject of this book is the analysis and processing of structural or quantitative data with emphasis on classification methods, new algorithms as well as applications in various fields related to data analysis and classification. The book presents the state of the art in world-wide research and application of methods from the fields indicated above and consists of survey papers as well as research papers.

"Data Analysis" in the broadest sense is the general term for a field of activities of ever-increasing importance in a time called the information age. It covers new areas with such trendy labels as, e.g., data mining or web mining as well as traditional directions emphazising, e.g., classification or knowledge organization. Leading researchers in data analysis have contributed to this volume and delivered papers on aspects ranging from scientific modeling to practical application. They have devoted their latest contributions to a book edited to honor a colleague and friend, Hans-Hermann Bock, who has been active in this field for nearly thirty years.

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the Seven~h Confer ence of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS-2000), which was held in Namur, Belgium, July 11-14,2000. From the originally sub mitted papers, a careful review process involving two reviewers per paper, led to the selection of 65 papers that were considered suitable for publication in this book. The present book contains original research contributions, innovative ap plications and overview papers in various fields within data analysis, classifi cation, and related methods. Given the fast publication process, the research results are still up-to-date and coincide with their actual presentation at the IFCS-2000 conference. The topics captured are: • Cluster analysis • Comparison of clusterings • Fuzzy clustering • Discriminant analysis • Mixture models • Analysis of relationships data • Symbolic data analysis • Regression trees • Data mining and neural networks • Pattern recognition • Multivariate data analysis • Robust data analysis • Data science and sampling The IFCS (International Federation of Classification Societies) The IFCS promotes the dissemination of technical and scientific information data analysis, classification, related methods, and their applica concerning tions.

At a moderately advanced level, this book seeks to cover the areas of clustering and related methods of data analysis where major advances are being made. Topics include: hierarchical clustering, variable selection and weighting, additive trees and other network models, relevance of neural network models to clustering, the role of computational complexity in cluster analysis, latent class approaches to cluster analysis, theory and method with applications of a hierarchical classes model in psychology and psychopathology, combinatorial data analysis, clusterwise aggregation of relations, review of the Japanese-language results on clustering, review of the Russian-language results on clustering and multidimensional scaling, practical advances, and significance tests.

Combinatorial data analysis (CDA) refers to a wide class of methods for the study of relevant data sets in which the arrangement of a collection of objects is absolutely central. The focus of this monograph is on the identification of arrangements, which are then further restricted to where the combinatorial search is carried out by a recursive optimization process based on the general principles of dynamic programming (DP).

International Federation of Classification Societies The International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS) is an agency for the dissemination of technical and scientific information concerning classification and data analysis in the broad sense and in as wide a· range of applications as possible; founded in 1985 in Cambridge (UK) from the following Scientific Societies and Groups: British Classification Society -BCS; Classification Society of North America -CSNA; Gesellschaft fUr Klassifikation -GfKl; Japanese Classification Society -JCS; Classification Group of Italian Statistical Society - COSIS; Societe Francophone de Classification -SFC. Now the IFCS includes the following Societies: Dutch-Belgian Classification Society - VOC; Polish Classification Section - SKAD; Portuguese Classification Association - CLAD; Group-at-Large; Korean Classification Society -KCS. Biannual Meeting of the Classification and Data Analysis Group of SIS The biannual meeting of the Classification and Data Analysis Group of Societa Italiana di Statistica (SIS) was held in Pescara, July 3 -4, 1997. The 69 papers presented were divided in 17 sessions. Each session was organized by a chairperson with two invited speakers and two contributed papers from a call for papers. All the works were referred. Furthermore, during the meeting a discussant was provided for each session. A short version of the papers (4 pages) was.published before the conference.

Classifying objects according to their likeness seems to have been a step in the human process of acquiring knowledge, and it is certainly a basic part of many of the sciences. Historically, the scientific process has involved classification and organization particularly in sciences such as botany, geology, astronomy, and linguistics. In a modern context, we may view classification as deriving a hierarchical clustering of objects. Thus, classification is close to factorial analysis methods and to multi-dimensional scaling methods. It provides a mathematical underpinning to the analysis of dissimilarities between objects.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 7th Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, IbPRIA 2015, held in Santiage de Compostela, Spain, in June 2015. The 83 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 141 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning; Computer Vision; Image and Signal Processing; Applications; Medical Image; Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning; Computer Vision; Image and Signal Processing; and Applications

This volume contains a selection of invited papers, presented to the fourth International Conference on Statistical Data Analysis Based on the L1-Norm and Related Methods, held in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, from August 4–9, 2002. The contributions represent clear evidence to the importance of the development of theory, methods and applications related to the statistical data analysis based on the L1-norm.