This volume contains revised versions of selected papers presented during the biannual meeting of the Classification and Data Analysis Group of SocietA Italiana di Statistica, which was held in Bologna, September 22-24, 2003. The scientific program of the conference included 80 contributed papers. Moreover it was possible to recruit six internationally renowned invited spe- ers for plenary talks on their current research works regarding the core topics of IFCS (the International Federation of Classification Societies) and Wo- gang Gaul and the colleagues of the GfKl organized a session. Thus, the conference provided a large number of scientists and experts from home and abroad with an attractive forum for discussions and mutual exchange of knowledge. The talks in the different sessions focused on methodological developments in supervised and unsupervised classification and in data analysis, also p- viding relevant contributions in the context of applications. This suggested the presentation of the 43 selected papers in three parts as follows: CLASSIFICATION AND CLUSTERING Non parametric classification Clustering and dissimilarities MULTIVARIATE STATISTICS AND DATA ANALYSIS APPLIED MULTIVARIATE STATISTICS Environmental data Microarray data Behavioural and text data Financial data We wish to express our gratitude to the authors whose enthusiastic p- ticipation made the meeting possible. We are very grateful to the reviewers for the time spent in their professional reviewing work. We would also like to extend our thanks to the chairpersons and discussants of the sessions: their comments and suggestions proved very stimulating both for the authors and the audience.

Inhalt
Classification and Clustering.- Multi-Class Budget Exploratory Trees.- Methods to Compare Nonparametric Classifiers and to Select the Predictors.- Variable Selection in Cell Classification Problems: A Strategy Based on Independent Component Analysis.- Simplifying Classification Trees Through Consensus Methods.- Selecting the Training Set in Classification Problems with Rare Events.- A Classification and Discrimination Integrated Strategy Conducted on Symbolic Data for Missing Data Treatment in Questionnaire Survey.- A Collinearity Based Hierarchical Method to Identify Clusters of Variables.- On the Dynamic Time Warping for Computing the Dissimilarity Between Curves.- Metrics in Symbolic Data Analysis.- Constrained Clusterwise Linear Regression.- Crossed Clustering Method on Symbolic Data Tables.- Multivariate Statistics and Data Analysis.- Some Statistical Applications of Centrosymmetric Matrices.- Selection of Structural Equation Models with the PLS-VB Programme.- Web Robot Detection - Preprocessing Web Logfiles for Robot Detection.- Data Dependent Prior Modeling and Estimation in Contingency Tables: The Order-Restricted RC Model.- PLS Typological Regression: Algorithmic, Classification and Validation Issues.- Weighted Metric Multidimensional Scaling.- An Improved Majorization Algorithm for Robust Procrustes Analysis.- Generalized Bi-Additive Modelling for Categorical Data.- Model Selection Procedures in Three-Mode Component Models.- Principal Component Analysis for Non-Precise Data.- A New Version of the Structural Dynamic Model with Unique Latent Scores.- Some Issues About the Use of Experts.- Nonparametric Methods in Survey Sampling.- A Different Approach for the Analysis of Web Access Logs.- Blending Statistics and Graphics in Visual Data Mining.- Confidence Regions in Multivariate Calibration: A Proposal.- Applied Multivariate Statistics.- Nonparametric Analysis of Air Pollution Indices Compositions.- VAR Models for Spatio-temporal Structures: An Application to Environmental Data.- Analysis of Spatial Covariance Structure for Environmental Data.- Bayesian Clustering of Gene Expression Dynamics: An Application.- A Hierarchical Mixture Model for Gene Expression Data.- Sequence Analysis of BHPS Life Course Data.- Robust Multivariate Methods for the Analysis of the University Performance.- Some Insights into the Evolution of 1990s' Standard Italian Using Text Mining Techniques and Automatic Categorization.- Evaluating Undergraduate Education Through Multiple Choice Tests.- A New Approach in Business Travel Survey: Multivariate Techniques for Strata Design.- Value-Orientations and Partnership.- An Item Response Theory Model for Student Ability Evaluation Using Computer-Automated Test Results.- Functional Cluster Analysis of Financial Time Series.- The Role of the Normal Distribution in Financial Markets.- Functional Principal Component Analysis of Financial Time Series.- Elliptically Symmetric Distributions: A Review of Achieved Results and Open Issues.