About the Contributors

Janos Abonyi, the head of the Department of Process Engineering in the Pannon University, graduated as a chemical engineer (1997) and doctor of chemical sciences (2000) with 10 years of educational practice. He was a winner of the Bolyai Janos Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences between 2000 and 2003. He was a founding member of the PhD School of Chemical Engineering. His research interests include control techniques, system identification, data mining, and computational intelligence in engineering. He is the author of more than 200 publications including three books (Fuzzy Model Identification for Control, Birkhauser, Boston; Data Mining: The Tool of Efficiency, ComputerBooks; and Cluster Analysis for Data Mining and System Identification). As far as he knows, there are more than 220 independent references to his works. His publications and developed algorithms (programs in MATLAB) are available at http://www.fmt.uni-pannon.hu/softcomp.

Troels Andreasen is currently an associate professor of computer science at Roskilde University, Denmark. He received his MS in computer science in 1985 and PhD in 1991 from the University of Copenhagen. His research interests are in database systems, information retrieval (IR), fuzzy sets, intelligent systems, knowledge representation, and ontology.

Francisco Araque is an associate professor of computer science at the software engineering department of the University of Granada. He holds a doctorate from the University of Granada. His research specializations are in the areas of decision support systems, data warehousing, e-business, and knowledge management. He is a member of the Federate Database and Data Warehouse Systems Research Group at the University of Granada.

Wai-Ho Au received a BA degree (first-class honors) in computing studies and MPhil and PhD degrees in computing from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Hong Kong, in 1995, 1998, and 2006, respectively. Prior to moving to the United States, he worked as a lab manager in the Department of Computing at PolyU, where he was in charge of several research and development projects for a couple of years. In 2005, he joined Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington, where he is now a software development engineer. He has been involved in developing Windows operating systems and applying his research in data mining to enhance application experience. His current research interests include data mining, bioinformatics, fuzzy computing, and evolutionary computation. He is a member of the IEEE (International Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).

Carlos D. Barranco is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering of Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, Spain. He is currently member of the BioInformatics Research Group in the Division of Computer Science of Pablo de Olavide University and a former member of the Intelligent Databases and Information Systems (IdBIS) research group at the University of Granada. He obtained the M. S. Degree in Computer Science at the University of Granada. His research interests concern fuzzy databases, object-relational databases, flexible content retrieval, and fuzzy data indexing.

Radim Belohlavek is a professor of systems science at Binghamton University-State University of New York at Binghamton. He graduated with a degree in theoretical cybernetics and informatics and systems science from Palacky University (Czech Republic) and obtained his MS (summa cum laude) in 1994. He obtained a PhD in computer science in 1998 from Technical University of Ostrava (Czech Republic) and a PhD in mathematics from Palacky University in 2001. In 2005, Belohlavek was appointed as a full professor of computer science by the president of the Czech Republic. Belohlavek's academic interests are in the areas of uncertainty and information, fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets, data and knowledge engineering, data analysis, formal concept analysis, and systems theory. Professor Belohlavek was a principal investigator of numerous grants in these areas. He authored two monographs (Kluwer, Springer) and over 120 papers in conference proceedings and journals including Ann. Pure Appl. Logic, Archive for Math. Logic, Fund. Inf., Fuzzy Sets Syst., Information Sciences, International Journal of General Systems, Journal of Exp. Theor. Artificial Intelligence, Journal of Logic and Computation, Journal of Math. Anal. Appl., Math. Log. Quart., and Neural Computation. Belohlavek is a member of the ACM, IEEE, and AMS. Before joining Binghamton University, he was a professor and head of the Department of Computer Science of Palacky University.

Mohamed Ali Ben Hassine is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Sciences at the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunisia. He received a BS degree in computer science from the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis in 2003, and an MS in automatic and signal processing from the National School of Engineering of Tunis in 2006. His research interests include fuzzy logic, databases, artificial intelligence, and fuzzy databases.

Malcolm J. Beynon is a reader at Cardiff University (United Kingdom). He gained his BS and PhD in pure mathematics and computational mathematics, respectively, at Cardiff University. His research areas include the theory and application of uncertain reasoning methodologies, including rough set theory, Dempster-Shafer theory, and fuzzy set theory, and also the introduction and development of multicriteria-based decision making and classification techniques, including the classification and ranking belief simplex. He has published over 100 research articles. He is a member of the International Rough Set Society, International Operations Research Society, and the International Multi-Criteria Decision Making Society.

Isabelle Bloch is a professor at ENST (Department of Signal and Image Processing). Her research interests include 3-D image and object processing, 3-D and fuzzy mathematical morphology, decision theory, information fusion, fuzzy set theory, belief function theory, structural pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, and medical imaging.

Jean-Yves Blot obtained his maitrise es-lettres (1975) from Tours University and his diplome d'etudes approfondies (DEA) from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris, 1984). He directed or participated in nautical archaeology missions and surveys in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Far East, and has since been a consultant and guest archaeologist at CNANS/IPA, the nautical branch of the Portuguese Institute of Archaeology, Lisbon. His main area of interest is related to shipwreck scatter patterns and ship structural analysis applied to Asian vessels of the past.

Gloria Bordogna holds the position of senior researcher at the National Research Council Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes and of contract professor at the Faculty of Engineering of Bergamo University where she teaches IR and geographic information systems (GISs). She received a laurea degree in physics from the University of Milano. Her research interests concern soft computing for information retrieval, GISs, and data analysis. She was involved in European projects such as PENG and E-Court, edited three volumes and a special issue of JASIST, and published over 100 papers in journals, books, and proceedings of international conferences on her research themes.

Patrick Bosc received a PhD degree in computer science from the University of Rennes (France) in 1978. He joined the IRISA (Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systemes Aléatoires) and is currently a professor at ENSSAT (École Nationale Superieure de Sciences Appliquées et de Technologies). His main research interests concern the roles of fuzzy sets and possibility theory in database management systems. Professor Bosc is a member of IEEE and of the EUSFLAT Association aimed at the promotion of fuzzy sets in Europe. He is also a member of the editorial boards of Fuzzy Sets and Systems and the International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems.

André Braga graduated as an electronic engineer from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 1994, where he also received his master's (1997) and doctoral (2004) degrees in computing and system engineering (COPPE/UFRJ). He is currently at IBM Brazil.

Patrice Buche received a PhD degree in computer science from the University of Rennes (France) in 1990. He has been a research engineer at the Department of Applied Mathematical and Computer Science of INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) since 2002 and an assistant professor at INA P-G (Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon) since 1992. His research works mainly concern data integration and fuzzy querying in structured and weakly structured databases. Dr. Buche has published papers in these areas in several international conference proceedings and journals.

Henrik Bulskov is currently an assistant professor of computer science at Roskilde University, Denmark. He received his MS in computer science from Roskilde University in 2001 and his PhD also at Roskilde University in 2006. His research interests are in database systems, information retrieval, fuzzy sets, intelligent systems, knowledge representation, ontology, and natural-language processing.

Bert Callens (MS, 2002) is a researcher in the Database, Document and Content Management research group of Ghent University. He was responsible for the technical development of the Genderclaim database and Web application for the digital storage and treatment of dossiers, generating statistics and reports, and linking files of any format (.doc, .pdf, etc.). He used the technologies Cache-database (Intersystems), Java, and Apache Struts.

Jesús R. Campaña is a member of the IdBIS research group with the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (University of Granada, Spain). He obtained an MS degree in computer science at the University of Granada. His research interests concern fuzzy databases, XML (extensible markup language), knowledge representation, and Semantic Web issues.

Ramón A. Carrasco received a PhD degree from Granada University, Spain, in 2003. He currently leads the Department of Knowledge Management (using a data warehouse, online analytical processing [OLAP], data mining, and ETL [extract, transform, load]) at the Spanish savings bank CajaGranada. He is the author of several papers on databases, data mining, information systems, and fuzzy logic. His research interests include data mining, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and fuzzy databases. He is a member of the IdBIS research group.

Jianhua Chen received her PhD in computer science in 1988 from Jilin University, Chang Chun, China. Dr. Chen is currently an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science of Louisiana State University, USA. Dr. Chen's main research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning and its applications to cybersecurity and industry, fuzzy systems and fuzzy clustering, text and Web mining, and intelligent information systems. She is a member of IEEE and a member of AAAI (American Association for Artificial Intelligence).

Yan Chen earned his PhD degree from the University of Leeds, England, in 1995. Currently he is a full professor at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in the United States. His major research focuses include the processing and evaluation of textile materials and products, the production and applications of bio-based textile composites, and fabric database applications. Dr. Yan Chen is a senior member of the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists and member of the Textile Institute.

João Coelho graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Portugal, in 2002 with a specialization in conservation and restoration. In 2004, he obtained his European master's degree in computer applications in archaeology and cultural heritage study from the same institute. Since 2002, he has been working as a conservator at the National Centre of Nautical and Underwater Archaeology in Lisbon, Portugal. His current interests include the application of new software technologies and methodologies to archaeology and conservation of cultural heritage.

Rita de Caluwe is an emeritus professor at Ghent University and founder of the Database, Document and Content Management research group, which she led for many years. She is the author or coauthor of a number of publications in the field of fuzzy databases, editor of the book Fuzzy and Uncertain Object-Oriented Databases: Concepts and Models, and coeditor of the book Spatio-Temporal Databases: Flexible Querying and Reasoning. She is a reviewer for many conferences and journals and has actively participated in the organization of conferences. She has been for many years active in the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and has represented Belgium, among others, in the IFIP General Assembly from 1998 until 2002.

Miguel Delgado has been a full professor of computer science and artificial intelligence at the University of Granada since 1989. He has been the principal investigator as well as member of the teams of more than 10 research projects. He has published two books and more than 60 papers in international journals, and he has been the advisor of more than 25 PhD degree dissertations. His main areas of interest are approximate reasoning, optimization problems, neural networks, learning models, decision support systems, and data mining.

Marysa Demoor is a professor of English literature at the University of Ghent and the director of the Centre for Gender Studies at Ghent University, Belgium. She has published extensively on Victorian and Edwardian culture and on gender-related issues and policies.

Guy de Tré (MS, 1994; PhD, 2000) is a professor with the Faculty of Engineering of Ghent University and leads the Database, Document and Content Management research group. His research interests include the modeling of imperfect information, (fuzzy) database modeling, flexible querying, information retrieval, and content-based retrieval of multimedia. He is author, coauthor, or coeditor of three books, 20 book chapters, and 50 papers. Guy de Tre is reviewer for several journals and has actively participated in (the organization of) a number of scientific conferences on imperfect information processing and databases.

Jesús María Doña (1976, Malaga, Spain) received his bachelor's and master's degrees in information sciences from University of Malaga, Spain. He has been leading technology innovation in systems based on fusion strategies and fuzzy models for business analyst environments for international companies in Europe. His research interests include multicriteria decision making, uncertainty management in knowledge-based systems, fuzzy set theory, neural modeling, and software design, among others.

Didier Dubois is a research advisor at IRIT (Institut de Recherches en Informatique de Toulouse), the Department of Computer Science of Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, and belongs to the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He holds a doctorate in engineering from ENSAE, Toulouse (1977), a doctorat d'etat from Grenoble University (1983), and an honorary doctorate from the Faculte Polytechnique de Mons, Belgium (1997). He is the coauthor, with Henri Prade, of two books on fuzzy sets and possibility theory, and 12 edited volumes on uncertain reasoning and fuzzy sets. Also with Henri Prade, he coordinated the Handbook of Fuzzy Sets series published by Kluwer (seven volumes, 1998-2000, two of which he coedited). He has contributed about 200 technical journal papers on uncertainty theories and applications. Since January 1, 1999, he has been coeditor in chief of Fuzzy Sets and Systems. His topics of interest range from artificial intelligence to operations research and decision sciences, with emphasis on the modeling, representation, and processing of imprecise and uncertain information in reasoning and problem-solving tasks.

Balazs Feil received MEng and PhD degrees in chemical engineering in 2003 and 2006 from the University of Veszprem, Hungary, respectively. Currently, he is an assistant lecturer at the Department of Process Engineering at the University of Pannonia. Dr. Feil has coauthored 18 journal papers and book chapters, and his book together with Dr. Abonyi called Cluster Analysis for Data Mining and System Identification is under publication at Birkhauser, Boston. His research interests include data mining (especially fuzzy clustering techniques), machine learning, computational intelligence, and their applications in process engineering.

Céline Fiot completed a master's in computer engineering at the Ecole des Mines de Nantes, with a specialization in computer engineering for decision support systems. In 2004, she started a PhD in computer science at the Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics and Microelectronics in Montpellier, France. This PhD work aims at mining approximate frequent sequences from imprecise, uncertain, or incomplete data. Her main research interests are data mining, sequential patterns, association rules, fuzzy logic, missing values, incomplete databases, and approximate knowledge discovery. She should defend it in September 2007.

Claudia Evelyn Gonzalez is a student working toward a master's in computer science and is an academic assistant at Universidad Simon Bolivar (2006 to present). She graduated second in her class as a computer engineer from Universidad Simon Bolivar (2000-2006). She was a Unix and database administrator from 2003 to 2005, and was a semifinalist in the CENAMEC Mathematical Competition (2000). Database performance is one of her specialties, and she was able to improve over 92% the TPCApp Benchmark and real data from NCBI databases in Oracle and Db2.

Lise Gosseye is a researcher connected with the Centre for Gender Studies at Ghent University. She was responsible for the content development on the Genderclaim project at Ghent University. The content consisted of gender-specific claims about discrimination.

A. Goswami is working as a professor in the Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. Dr. Goswami joined the institute in 1992. He obtained his PhD degree from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. He has published several papers at the national and international levels, and guided many MTech and PhD theses. His research areas are theoretical computer science and operation research.

D. K. Gupta is working as a professor in the Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, where he obtained his PhD degree. Dr. Gupta joined the institute in 1985. He has published several papers at the national and international levels, and guided many MTech and PhD theses. His research areas are computer science, constraint-satisfaction problems, and numerical and interval analysis.

Allel Hadjali received an engineering degree (1988) and magister degree (1991) in computer sciences from the University of Tizi-Ouzou (Algeria), a PhD degree (2002) from the University of Toulouse III (France), and a doctorat d'etat degree from the University of Tizi-Ouzou in 2003. He has been a charge de cours at the Computer Sciences Institute of the University of Tizi-Ouzou from 1991 to 2001. In 2003, he joined the University of Rennes where he is currently an associate professor at ENSSAT. His main topics of interest are flexible database querying, fuzzy databases, and fuzzy qualitative reasoning (about order of magnitude, time, and space).

Ollivier Haemmerle defended his PhD concerning the conceptual graph model in 1995. He has been a professor in Toulouse 2 University and a member of the IRIT laboratory since January 2007. Formerly, he was an assistant professor at the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon from 1996 to 2005 and a member of the Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique of the French University Paris Sud from 2003 to 2005. He works on the representation of microbiological data by means of conceptual graphs and on the validation of such knowledge. He also works on the Semantic Web, particularly on the representation and querying of semistructured data represented in XML and in the integration of heterogeneous data.

Tzung-Pei Hong received his BS degree in chemical engineering from National Taiwan University in 1985, and his PhD degree in computer science and information engineering from National Chiao-Tung University in 1992. He was a faculty at the Department of Computer Science in Chung-Hua Polytechnic Institute from 1992 to 1994, and at the Department of Information Management in I-Shou University from 1994 to 2001. He is currently a professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering in the National University of Kaohsiung. His current research interests include machine learning, data mining, soft computing, management information systems, and WWW (World Wide Web) applications.

Janusz Kacprzyk is a professor at the Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, and an honorary professor at Yli Normal University, Shanxi, China. He is an academician (member of the Polish Academy of Sciences). His research interests include soft computing, fuzzy logic, decisions, database querying, and information retrieval. His publication record is five books, 30 volumes, and 300 papers. He is president of IFSA (International Fuzzy Systems Association), and a fellow of IEEE and IFSA. He received the 2005 IEEE CIS Fuzzy Pioneer Award, and the sixth Kaufmann prize and gold medal for pioneering works on uncertainty. He is editor in chief of three Springer book series, is on editorial boards of about 25 journals, and a member of the IPC at about 200 conferences.

David La Red (1958, Chaco, Argentine) received a bachelor's in information sciences from the National North-Eastern University of Corrientes, Argentine. He has been director of the Department of Data Processing of the Corrientes province government, Argentine. He is currently a professor in the computer science department of National North-Eastern University of Corrientes. His major research focuses on operating systems optimization and security in operating systems, among others.

Ludovic Lietard is currently an assistant professor at the University of Rennes 1 (IUT Lannion) in France. His research mainly concerns flexible querying of relational databases using fuzzy set theory and various applications of fuzzy set theory in databases.

Juan M. Medina is an associate professor in the School of Computer Engineering at the University of Granada, Spain. He is a member of the IdBIS research group. Medina is also the author of many books and papers on databases and their applications. He is also the main researcher of several projects. His research interests include database architecture and applications, fuzzy-logic and object-oriented databases, flexible content-based retrieval, knowledge extraction, and the Semantic Web.

Andreas Meier is a professor of information technology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. His research interests include electronic business, information management, and data mining. After studies at the Music Academy of Vienna, he received a diploma in mathematics and a PhD in computer science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. He was a scientist at IBM's research lab in San Jose, California, director at the international bank UBS in Basel, and member of the executive board of the CSS insurance company in Lucerne.

Noureddine Mouaddib received his PhD degree and habilitation in computer science from the University Poincare (Nancy I) in 1989 and 1995, respectively. Since 1996, he has been a professor at the Polytechnic School of the University of Nantes in France. He is currently the head of the Atlas-GRIM team of LINA Laboratory, pursuing research in databases, particularly in the summarization of large databases, flexible querying, and fuzzy databases. He has authored and coauthored over 80 technical papers in international conferences (VLDB, ER, Fuzzy-IEEE, ACM-MM, etc.) and journals (Fuzzy Sets and Systems, International Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, etc.). He was a member of several program committees and is the executive chair of EDBT '08 in Nantes.

Habib Ounelli, is a full-time professor in the Department of Computer Sciences at the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunisia. His research interests include fuzzy logic, databases, expert systems, fuzzy databases, and formal concept analysis.

Witold Pedrycz is a professor and Canadian research chair (CRC) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He is also with the Systems Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. His active research pursuits are in computational intelligence, human-centric computing, fuzzy modeling, knowledge discovery and data mining, fuzzy control including fuzzy controllers, pattern recognition, knowledge-based neural networks, relational computation, bioinformatics, and software engineering. He has published numerous papers in this area. He is also an author of 11 research monographs covering various aspects of computational intelligence and software engineering. Witold Pedrycz has been a member of numerous program committees of IEEE conferences in the area of fuzzy sets and neurocomputing. He currently serves as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, and IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems. Dr. Pedrycz is an editor in chief of Information Sciences. He is a past president of IFSA and the past president of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society (NAFIPS). He was a general chair of NAFIPS in 2004. He is a recipient of the prestigious K. S. Fu award and the Norbert Wiener award (IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society).

José Ignacio Pelaez (1966, Granada, Spain) hold a PhD degree from the University of Granada, Spain. Currently, he is a professor of computer design and of the analysis and design of algorithms in the University of Malaga, Spain, and coordinates doctoral courses in Argentine. He has published articles and books in the areas of multicriteria decision making, uncertainty management in knowledge-based systems, fuzzy set theory, neural modeling, programming techniques, software design, and so forth.

Olivier Pivert received a PhD degree in computer science from the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in 1991. He is currently a professor in computer science at ENSSAT, Lannion, France, and is a member of the Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systemes Aleatoires (IRISA). His research work mainly concerns the extension of usual relational database systems for fuzzy querying and for dealing with imprecise information. He has published papers in several books, journals, and conference proceedings.

Pons has been a full professor at Granada University since 1990. Her research mainly focuses on the fuzzy sets theory applied to different types of databases: deductive, temporal, object oriented, and object relational. She is the coauthor of more than 25 research papers published in prestigious international journals of the field (FSS, IJAR, IJIS, IJUFKS, etc.), has edited some research and teaching books, and has participated in many international congresses (Fuzzy-IEEE, IPMU, EUFIT, IADIS, etc.) as session organizer and speaker.

Henri Prade was born in Mulhouse in 1953. He is directeur de recherche at CNRS and works at IRIT. He received a doctoral degree in engineering from Ecole Nationale Superieure de l'Aeronautique et de l'Espace in Toulouse (1977), and his doctorat d'etat (1982) and habilitation a diriger des recherches (1986) from Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse. He is the coauthor, with Didier Dubois, of two monographs on fuzzy sets and possibility theory published by Academic Press (1980) and Plenum Press (1988), respectively. He has contributed a great number of technical papers and has edited several books including the seven volumes of the Handbooks of Fuzzy Sets Series (Kluwer, 1998-2000). He is a member of the editorial boards of several technical journals including Fuzzy Sets and Systems, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, the Artificial Intelligence Journal, ACM Transactions on Computational Logic, the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, the International Journal of Intelligent Systems, the Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, Fundamenta Informaticae, and Information Sciences, among others. His current research interests are in uncertainty and preference modeling, nonclassical logics, and approximate and plausible reasoning with applications to artificial intelligence and information systems.

Giuseppe Psaila is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Engineering at University of Bergamo. He obtained a degree in electronic engineering from Politecnico di Milano, and a PhD in computer engineering from Politecnico di Torino. His research interests are in the field of databases, in particular database models and languages, data mining, XML, and workflow systems. He participated in several European-funded research projects in the database field, such as the IDEA Project (development of an active, deductive, and object-oriented database system), Mietta (on multilingual information extraction), and cInq (Consortium on Knowledge Discovery by Inductive Queries).

Guillaume Raschia obtained an MS degree in computer science (1998) and a PhD in computer science (2001), both from the University of Nantes, France. In 2001 he joined LINA at the University of Nantes as an assistant professor and since then has developed the database summarization approach coined SaintEtiQ that combines fuzzy representations, clustering algorithms, and query facilities. Since 2003, he has also been an INRIA member, and he works on distributed summaries in the Atlas group as well.

Daniel Rocacher is currently an assistant professor at the University of Rennes 1 (ENSSAT Lannion) in France. He has proposed new directions to define gradual numbers in the framework of fuzzy set theory. His current research concerns their applications in databases.

Graham Rong obtained his PhD from the University of Guelph in Canada in 1994 and MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He did postdoctoral research in the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. He has been leading technology innovation and strategically developing and managing technology-driven companies in Boston. His research interest includes fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence, numerical computing, marketing, strategy management, international trade, and textile material science and engineering.

Alberto Salguero is a doctoral fellow at the Department of Software Engineering of the University of Granada. At the moment, he is working on his doctoral dissertation about spatiotemporal data warehouses. He is a member of the Federate Database and Data Warehouse Systems Research Group at the University of Granada.

Günter Schindler is the chief information officer of Galexis AG in Berne, Switzerland. He holds a diploma in economics from the University of Munster, Germany, a master's degree in operations research, and a PhD in computer science from the Technical University of Aachen, Germany. He worked as a consultant for several years in industry, was lecturer at the University of Applied Science in Olten, was a manager of finance and logistics at the Swatch Group in Biel, and was director of an information management department at Swiss Railway in Berne.

Markus Schneider is an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Florida and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Hagen, Germany. His research interests are databases in general, advanced databases for new and emerging applications, spatial databases, fuzzy spatial databases, and spatiotemporal and moving-objects databases. He is coauthor of a textbook on moving-objects databases, author of a monograph in the area of spatial databases, and author of a German textbook on implementation concepts for database systems, and has published about 60 articles, conference papers, and book chapters on database systems. He is on the editorial board of GeoInformatica.

Hamid Haidarian Shahri is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland. His research interests include information integration, knowledge representation, and adaptive and intelligent systems. He received his MS in computer science from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Iran. He can be contact at A.V. Williams Building, Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, or by e-mail at hamid@cs.umd.edu (http://www.cs.umd.edu/~hamid).

Awadhesh Kumar Sharma is working as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Madan Mohan Malviya Engineering College, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. Dr. Sharma joined the college in 1988. He obtained his PhD degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. Dr. Sharma is a life member of the Indian Society for Technical Education, Computer Society of India, Institution of Engineers (India), and Chartered Engineer (India). Dr. Sharma has published several papers at the national and international levels, out of which four papers are published by IEEE. His research area is database systems.

Ju-Wen Shen received her BS and MS degrees in information management and information engineering from the I-Shou University, Taiwan, in 1999 and 2001, respectively. She is currently an associate researcher at the Business Customer Solution Lab of Chungwa Telecom Laboratories.

Srđan Škrbić received his BS degree in computer science from the Faculty of Science in Novi Sad in 2001. He received his MS degree, also in computer science, at the same faculty in 2004. He was a junior teaching assistant at the Faculty of Science in Novi Sad from 2002 to 2005. From 2005, he has been working as a teaching assistant at the same faculty. He published seven scientific papers and one monograph, and took part in three scientific projects.

Aleksandar Takaci received his PhD in computer science from the Faculty of Science, University of Novi Sad. He is currently an assistant professor at the Faculty of Technology, University of Novi Sad. He has published 15 scientific papers, took part in three scientific projects, and received two national awards for his scientific work. He is a member of the European Association for Fuzzy Logic and Technology (EUSFLAT).

Rallou Thomopoulos defended her PhD thesis in computer science in 2003. She has been a researcher in knowledge representation at the INRA national research institute since 2004, and associate researcher of the LIRMM computer science laboratory of Montpellier since 2006. She works on the integration of ontology- and data-representation formalisms, the expression of gradual information and viewpoints in ontologies, and more specifically in the framework of the conceptual graph model.

Leonid Tineo, PhD, has been a titular professor (since 2007) and staff member (since 1991) of Universidad Simon Bolivar. He received his PhD in computer sciences in 2006, his MS in computer sciences in 1992, and his MEng in computation in 1990. He has been accredited by the Venezuelan Investigator Promotion Program since 2003, was an outstanding professor of CONABA in 2002, and was awarded for outstanding educational work in 1999. Tineo has been the coordinator of the Investigation and Development Group in Databases of the USB since 2002. In the area of fuzzy databases, he has more than 20 articles in arbitrated proceedings, more than 15 published brief notes, and more than 15 advisories of works for different titles. He is a researcher of the project Creation and Application of Fuzzy Databases Management Systems supported by FONACIT (since 2006).

Amel Grissa Touzi is an assistant professor at the National School of Engineers of Tunis (ENIT). She is also a member of the Systems and Signal Processing Laboratory at ENIT. Her research interests include many aspects of logic programming, deductive databases, fuzzy relational databases, object-relational databases, data mining, and artificial intelligence.

Cornelia Tudorie graduated in computer engineering from the University Politechnica of Bucharest, Romania, and received her PhD in computer science in 2006 from the University Dunarea de Jos of Galati, Romania. She is an associate professor of computer sciences at the University Dunarea de Jos of Galati and is teaching mainly databases and intelligent systems with databases. Her research interests include fuzzy logic, database querying, and natural-language querying.

Safiye Turgay was born in the town of Bolu, Turkey. She received her BS in industrial engineering at Istanbul Technical University in 1991, and completed her MS and PhD degrees in industrial engineering from Sakarya University. She has been working in the Department of Computer and Instruction Technologies Education at the Faculty of Education, Abant Izzet Baysal University, where she currently holds a position as assistant professor. Her research interests include multiagent systems, computer-integrated manufacturing, software engineering, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, and data mining. She is a member of the Turkish OR/IE Society.

Laurent Ughetto joined the team of N. Mouaddib at LINA in 1999 after studying fuzzy rule-based systems during his PhD work with D. Dubois and H. Prade. There, he studied fuzzy databases and particularly querying processes using data summaries in the SaintEtiQ system. This year, he joined the Texmex team at IRISA, where he started the study of fuzziness in the context of multimedia databases.

Angelica Urrutia Sepulveda, PhD, is an associate professor at the Maule Catholic University, Chile, in the Department of Computer Science. She is a member of the Chilean Computer Science Society, the RITOS-2 (Red Iberoamericana de Tecnologias del Software para la Decada del 2000) working group of CYTED, and the project 506AC0287-COMPETISOFT of CYTED. She is the founder and president of the Chilean Workshop on Databases. In 2003, she obtained her PhD in computer science at the Castilla-La Mancha University, Spain. Dr. Urrutia has authored several original scientific papers on fuzzy databases and information systems and authored the book Fuzzy Databases: Modeling, Design and Implementation published by Idea Group Publishing (Hershey) in 2006.

Yauheni Veryha obtained his MS and PhD degrees in information technology and robotics from the Belarusian National Technical University and University of Southern Denmark, respectively, in 1998 and 2006. Since 2001, he has been working as a principal scientist at the Department of Industrial Software and Applications at ABB Corporate Research Center in Ladenburg, Germany. He is a reviewer of the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems and IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems. His current research interests include fuzzy classifications in relational databases, data mining, and expert and knowledge-based systems.

Maria Amparo Vila received a PhD degree in mathematics from the University of Granada, Spain, in 1978. She is a full professor with the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Granada, where she leads the Intelligent Databases and Information Systems research group. Her main research interests are in the fields of database design, data mining, and mathematical theory.

W. Amenel Voglozin was a PhD student supervised by Professor Mouaddib until July 2007. During his doctoral work, he studied the use of linguistic summaries of structured data in querying. Before that, he conducted a master's thesis dealing with combining approximate reasoning and SaintEtiQ summaries. Now, his research interest is leaning toward more technical aspects of querying, including query evaluation, index structures, and access methods.

Vilem Vychodil is an associate professor of computer science at Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. He graduated in computer science from Palacky University and obtained his MS in 2002. He obtained a PhD in mathematics in 2004, also from Palacky University. His professional interests include fuzzy logic, fuzzy relational systems, relational data analysis, uncertainty in data, mathematical logic, and logical foundations of knowledge engineering. He authored one monograph (Springer) and over 50 papers in conference proceedings and journals including Arch. Math. Logic, Math. Logic Quarterly, Logic Journal of IGPL, Journal of Exp. Theor. Artificial Intelligence, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, and Journal of Mult. Val. Log. Soft Comput. Vilem Vychodil is a member of the ACM and IEEE.

Shyue-Liang Wang received his PhD from SUNY (State University of New York) at Stony Brook in 1984. From 1984 to 1987, he worked at the University of New Haven as an assistant professor. From 1987 to 1994, he joined New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) as assistant and associate professor. From 1994 to 2001, he joined I-Shou University in Taiwan and served as director of the computing center and library, and chairman of the Department of Information Management. In 2002, he joined National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In 2003, he rejoined NYIT. He has published over 140 papers in the areas of data mining and fuzzy databases. Dr. Wang is a member of IEEE.

Yi Wang got his master's degree from Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is now finishing his PhD degree from Cardiff University. He has special interests in fuzzy logic, data mining, game theory, and semantic and ontology analysis.

Nicolas Werro is a research assistant in the Department of Informatics at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He holds a diploma degree in computer science and economics and a master's degree in computer science from the University of Fribourg. Currently, Werro is finishing his doctoral studies in the field of fuzziness, databases, online marketing, and customer relationship management.

Geraldo Xexeo graduated as an electronic engineer from the Military Institute of Engineering, Rio de Janeiro (IME/RJ), Brazil, in 1988, and received his doctoral degree in computing and system engineering from COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), in 1994. Since 1995, he has been a professor of computer science at UFRJ. His research focuses on distributed applications, information retrieval and extraction, and fuzzy logic. He is also an experienced consultant for major Brazilian companies.

Ronald R. Yager has worked in the area of fuzzy sets and related disciplines of computational intelligence for over 25 years. He has published over 500 papers and 15 books. He is considered one of the world's leading experts in fuzzy-sets technology. He was the recipient of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Pioneer award in fuzzy systems. Dr. Yager is a fellow of the IEEE, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Fuzzy Systems Association. He was given an award by the Polish Academy of Sciences for his contributions. He served at the National Science Foundation as program director in the information sciences program. He was a NASA/Stanford visiting fellow and a research associate at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been a lecturer at NATO Advanced Study Institutes. He received his undergraduate degree from the City College of New York and his PhD from the Polytechnic University of New York. Currently, he is director of the Machine Intelligence Institute and professor of information and decision technologies at Iona College. He is editor in chief of the International Journal of Intelligent Systems. He serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals including IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, Neural Networks, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, IEEE Intelligent Systems, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, the Journal of Approximate Reasoning, and the International Journal of General Systems. In addition to his pioneering work in the area of fuzzy logic, he has made fundamental contributions in decision making under uncertainty and the fusion of information.

Slawomir Zadrozny is an associate professor (PhD, 1994; DSc, 2006) at the Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences. His current scientific interests include applications of fuzzy logic in database management systems, information retrieval, decision support, and data analysis. He is the author or coauthor of about 100 journal and conference papers. He has been involved in the design and implementation of several prototype software packages. He is also a teacher at the Warsaw School of Information Technology in Warsaw, Poland, where his interests focus on information retrieval and database management systems.