Artificial Intelligence in Theory and Practice: IFIP 19th World Computer Congress

The papers in this volume include the proceedings of the Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Theory and Practice (IFIP AI 2006), which was part of the 19th World Computer Congress of IFIP, the International Federation of Information Processing (WCC- 2006), in Santiago, Chile in August 2006. The conference was organized by the Technical Committee on Artificial Intelligence IFIP (Technical Committee 12) and Working Group 12.5 (Artificial Intelligence Applications). All papers were reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee. The best papers for the conference were selected and included in this volume. The international nature of the IFIP is clearly reflected in the large number of countries represented here. The conference included invited talks by Rose Deng, John Atkinson, John Debenham, and myself. IFIP AI 2006 also included the second IFIP Symposium on Professional Practice in Artificial Intelligence, organized by Professor John Debenham, and held alongside the scientific papers. I would like to thank the President of the Conference. Professor Debenham for all his efforts in organizing the seminar and our program committee members to review an unexpectedly large number of papers on a very tight deadline. This is the latest in a series of conferences organized by the IFIP 12 Technical Committee dedicated to artificial intelligence technologies and their applications in the real world. The papers in this volume indicate the broad scope and importance of these applications