Machine learning and data mining in pattern recognition

TheInternationalConferenceonMachineLearningandDataMining(MLDM)is the third meeting in a series of biennial events, which started in 1999, organized by the Institute of Computer Vision and Applied Computer Sciences (IBaI) in Leipzig. MLDM began as a workshop and is now a conference, and has brought the topic of machine learning and data mining to the attention of the research community. Seventy-? ve papers were submitted to the conference this year. The program committeeworkedhardtoselectthemostprogressiveresearchinafairandc- petent review process which led to the acceptance of 33 papers for presentation at the conference. The 33 papers in these proceedings cover a wide variety of topics related to machine learning and data mining. The two invited talks deal with learning in case-based reasoning and with mining for structural data. The contributed papers can be grouped into nine areas: support vector machines; pattern dis- very; decision trees; clustering; classi? cation and retrieval; case-based reasoning; Bayesian models and methods; association rules; and applications. We would like to express our appreciation to the reviewers for their precise andhighlyprofessionalwork. WearegratefultotheGermanScienceFoundation for its support of the Eastern European researchers. We appreciate the help and understanding of the editorial sta? at Springer Verlag, and in particular Alfred Hofmann, whosupportedthepublicationoftheseproceedingsintheLNAIseries. Last, but not least, we wish to thank all the speakers and participants who contributed to the success of the conference.