Classification as a Tool for Research
Claus Weihs2010, Studies in Classification, Data Analysis, and Knowledge Organization
This volume contains revised selected papers from plenary and invited as well as contributed sessions at the 11th Biennial Conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS) in combination with the 33rd Annual Conference of the German Classification Society-Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl), organized by the Faculty of Business Management and Economics at the Technische Universität Dresden in March 2009. The theme of the conference was "Classification as a Tool for Research." The conference encompassed 290 presentations in 100 sessions, including 11 plenary talks and 2 workshops. Moreover, five tutorials took place before the conference. With 357 attendees from 58 countries, the conference provided a very attractive interdisciplinary international forum for discussion and mutual exchange of knowledge. The chapters in this volume were selected in a second reviewing process after the conference. From the remaining 120 submitted papers, 90 papers were accepted for this volume. In addition to the fundamental methodological areas of Classification and Data Analysis, the volume contains many chapters from a wide range of topics representing typical applications of classification and data analysis methods in Archaeology and Spatial Science, Bio-Sciences, Electronic Data and Web, Finance and Banking, Linguistics, Marketing, Music Science, and Quality Assurance and Engineering. The editors would like to thank the session organizers for supporting the spread of information about the conference, and for inviting speakers, all reviewers for their timely reports, and Irene Barrios-Kezic and Martina Bihn of Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, for their support and dedication to the production of this volume. Moreover, IFCS and GfKl want to thank the Local Organizing Committee,
