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It is commonly assumed that computers process information. But what is inf- mation? In a technical, important, but nevertheless rather narrow sense, Sh- non'sinformationtheorygivesa?rstanswertothisquestion.Thistheoryfocuses on measuring the information content of a message. Essentially this measure is the reduction of the uncertainty obtained by receiving a message. The unc- tainty of a situation of ignorance in turn is measured by entropy. This theory hashad an immense impact on the technologyof information storage,data c- pression, information transmission and coding and still is a very active domain of research. Shannon's theory has also attractedmuch interest in a more philosophic look at information, although it was readily remarked that it is only a “syntactic” theory of information and neglects “semantic” issues. Several attempts have been made in philosophy to give information theory a semantic?avor, but still mostly based on or at least linked to Shannon's theory. Approaches to semantic informationtheoryalsoveryoftenmakeuseofformallogic.Thereby,information is linked to reasoning, deduction and inference, as well as to decision making. Further, entropy and related measure were soon found to have important connotations with regard to statistical inference. Surely, statistical data and observation represent information, information about unknown, hidden para- ters. Thus a whole branch of statistics developed around concepts of Shannon's information theory or derived from them. Also some proper measurements - propriate for statistics, like Fisher's information, were proposed.

The volume'Modern Information Processing: From Theory to Applications,'edited by Bernadette Bouchon-Meunier, Giulianella Coletti and Ronald Yager, is a collection of carefully selected papers drawn from the program of IPMU'04, which was held in Perugia, Italy. The book represents the cultural policy of IPMU conference which is not focused on narrow range of methodologies, but on the contrary welcomes all the theories for the management of uncertainty and aggregation of information in intelligent systems, providing a medium for the exchange of ideas between theoreticians and practitioners in these and related areas.The book is composed by 7 sections: UNCERTAINTYPREFERENCESCLASSIFICATION AND DATA MININGAGGREGATION AND MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION MAKINGKNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION•The book contributes to enhancement of our ability to deal effectively with uncertainty in all of its manifestations. •The book can help to build brigs among theories and methods methods for the management of uncertainty. •The book addresses issues which have a position of centrality in our information-centric world. •The book presents interesting results devoted to representing knowledge: the goal is to capture the subtlety of human knowledge (richness) and to allow computer manipulation (formalization). •The book contributes to the goal: an efficient use of the information for a good decision strategy.APPLIED DOMAINS· The book contributes to enhancement of our ability to deal effectively with uncertainty in all of its manifestations.· The book can help to build brigs among theories and methods methods for the management of uncertainty.· The book addresses issues which have a position of centrality in our information-centric world.· The book presents interesting results devoted to representing knowledge: the goal is to capture the subtlety of human knowledge (richness) and to allow computer manipulation (formalization).· The book contributes to the goal: an efficient use of the information for a good decision strategy.