Adaptive and Natural Computing Algorithms: 9th International Conference

The ICANNGA series of conferences has been organized since 1993 and has a long history of promoting the principles and understanding of computational intelligence paradigms within the scienti?c community. Originally ICANNGA stood for "International Conference on Arti?cial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms," but in 2005 the conference was renamed to "International C- ference on Adaptive and Natural Computing Algorithms," while keeping the acronymICANNGA.The?rstICANNGAconferencewasheldinInnsbruckA- tria (1993), then Al es in France (1995), Norwich in the UK (1997), Portoroz in Slovenia (1999), Prague in the Czech Republic (2001), Roanne in France (2003), CoimbrainPortugal(2005)andWarsawinPoland(2007).ContinuingthisEu- peantradition, the9thICANNGA washeldinKuopio, Finland(2009).Thevast majority of ICANNGA conferences is organized by and based at a university. Drawing on the experience of previous events and following the same g- eral model, ICANNGA 2009 combined plenary lectures and technical sessions. Apart from being a widely recognized conference, it enhanced the possibility to exchange opinions through lectures and discussions, provided a great oppor- nity to meet new colleagues, as well as to renew old friendships and to facilitate the possibilities for international collaborations. As previously, the conference proceedings are published in the Springer LNCS series.