Frans Coenen – författare

Knowledge-based (KB) technology is being applied to complex problem-solving and critical tasks in many application domains. Concerns have naturally arisen as to the dependability of knowledge-based systems (KBS). As with any software, attention to quality and safety must be paid throughout development of a KBS and rigorous verification and validation (V&V) techniques must be employed. Research in V&V of KBS has emerged as a distinct field only in the last decade and is intended to address issues associated with quality and safety aspects of KBS and to credit such applications with the same degree of dependability as conventional applications. Since 1995, V&V of KBS has been the topic of annual workshops associated with the main AI conferences, such as AAAI, IJACI and ECAI. This is a collection of papers dealing with all aspects of KBS V&V, presented at the Fifth European Symposium on Verification and Validation of Knowledge Based Systems and Components, which was held in Oslo in the summer of 1999, and was sponsored by Det Norske Veritas and the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on Expert Systems (SGES).

Frans Coenen University of Liverpool, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at AI2003, the Twenty­ third SGAI International Conference on the theory, practice and application of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2003. The conference was organised by SGAI, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (previously known as SGES). The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Knowledge Acquisition, Constraint Satisfaction, Scheduling and Natural Language Processing. This year''s prize for the best refereed technical paper was won by a paper entitled An Improved Hybrid Genetic Algorithm: New Results for the Quadratic Assignment Problem by A. Misevicius (Department of Practical Informatics, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania). SGAI gratefully acknowledges the long-term sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (Bristol) for this prize, which goes back to the 1980s. This is the twentieth volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XI. On behalf of the conference organising committee I should like to thank all those who contributed to the organisation of this year''s technical programme, in particular the programme committee members, the referees and our administrator Fiona Hartree and Linsay Turbert.

Knowledge-based (KB) technology is being applied to complex problem-solving and critical tasks in many application domains. Concerns have naturally arisen as to the dependability of knowledge-based systems (KBS). As with any software, attention to quality and safety must be paid throughout development of a KBS and rigorous verification and validation (V&V) techniques must be employed. Research in V&V of KBS has emerged as a distinct field only in the last decade and is intended to address issues associated with quality and safety aspects of KBS and to credit such applications with the same degree of dependability as conventional applications. In recent years, V&V of KBS has been the topic of annual workshops associated with the main AI conferences, such as AAAI, IJACI and ECAI. Validation and Verification of Knowledge Based Systems contains a collection of papers, dealing with all aspects of KBS V&V, presented at the Fifth European Symposium on Verificationand Validation of Knowledge Based Systems and Components (EUROVAV'99 - which was held in Oslo in the summer of 1999, and was sponsored by Det Norske Veritas and the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on Expert Systems (SGES).

M.A. BRAMER University of Portsmouth, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at ES200 l, the Twenty-fIrst SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied ArtifIcial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 200 l, together with an invited keynote paper by Professor Derek Sleeman. The conference was organised by SGES, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied ArtifIcial Intelligence. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the fIeld, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Constraint Satisfaction, Agents, Knowledge Representation, Knowledge Engineering, and Intelligent Systems. The refereed papers begin with a paper entitled ''Detecting Mismatches Among Experts'' Ontologies Acquired Through Knowledge Elicitation'', which describes a systematic approach to the analysis of discrepancies within and among experts'' ontologies. This paper was judged to be the best refereed technical paper submitted to the conference. The remaining papers are devoted to topics in important areas such as agents, knowledge engineering, knowledge representation, planning and constraint satisfaction, with machine learning again the largest topic covered in terms of the number of papers accepted for publication. This is the eighteenth volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems IX.

M.A. Bramer University of Portsmouth, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at ES2ooo, the Twentieth SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2000, together with an invited keynote paper by Professor Austin Tate. The conference was organised by SGES, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on learning, case-based reasoning, knowledge representation, knowledge engineering, and belief acquisition and planning. The refereed papers begin with a paper entitled ''A Resource Limited Artificial Immune System for Data Analysis'', which describes a machine learning algorithm inspired by the natural immune system. This paper was judged to be the best refereed technical paper submitted to the conference. The considerable growth in interest in machine learning in recent years is well reflected in the content of the next three sections, which comprise four papers on case-based reasoning and nine papers on other areas of machine learning. The remaining papers are devoted to knowledge engineering, knowledge representation, belief acquisition and planning, and include papers on such important emerging topics as knowledge reuse and representing the content of complex multimedia documents on the web. This is the seventeenth volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems VIII.

Ann Macintosh Napier University, UK The papers in this volume are the refereed application papers presented at ES2000, the Twentieth SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2000. The scope of the Application papers has expanded over recent years to cover not just innovative applications using traditional knowledge based systems, but also to include applications demonstrating the whole range of AI technologies. This volume contains thirteen refereed papers describing deployed applications or emerging applications, together with an invited keynote paper by Dr. Daniel Clancy of NASA Ames Research Centre. The papers were subject to refereeing by at least two "expert" referees. All papers which were controversial for some reason were discussed in depth by the Application Programme Committee. For the application stream, a paper is acceptable even if it describes a system which has not yet been installed, provided the application is original and the paper discusses the kinds of things that would help others needing to solve a similar problem. Papers have been selected to highlight critical areas of success (and failure) and to present the benefits and lessons learnt to other developers. Papers this year cover topics as diverse as: KBS for maintaining offshore platforms; Data Mining to predict corporate business failure; integrated AI techniques to support field service engineers; Natural Language applied to the Data Protection Act; knowledge management and the application of neural networks.

Following on from a three-year knowledge management project, seven organisations formed aco-operative group for knowledge management. This group meets through the Knowledge Management Implementers Forum (KMIF). Each of the organisations participating in this work are, by implication, interested in the development of KM. The aims of the forum are t9 exchange ideas and share experience in the areaofknowledge management. The organisations involved are: ~ British Aerospace (Samlesbury) ~ ICI ~ ICL ~ North WestWater ~ IDS Cad-Graphics ~ Liverpool John Moores University ~ NWAIAG (Blackburn College) 1.1 The Organisations Involved Each ofthe organisations has specific reasons for being involved in this project and in KM. The British Aerospace Samlesbury site is a large manufacturing site employing ground breaking technology for Europe''s front line military aircraft. The factory works with a well-managed supply chain and works closely with other British Aerospace sites in the manufacture of aircraft components. It has set up a partnership with another Aerospace Company based on exchange of knowledge and therefore needs to value that knowledge. ICI is one of the UK''s leading chemical companies and plays on an international stage. Changes in international supply and demand require ICI to respond quickly to market pressures. This means that the company needs to use its knowledge assets in a well managed way and put systems in place that increase the flexibility and ensure the security ofthese important assets.

The papers in this volume are the referred Applications papers presented at ES 2002, the Twenty-second SGES international Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, to be held in Cambridge during December 2002. The Application stream is the largest annual showcase in Europe of real applications using AI technology. Papers presented in this volume describe the application of AI to address real-world problems, including commerce, manufacturing and defence and every major AI technique; and highlight critical areas of success (and failure) and present the benefits and lessons of value to other developers. This is the tenth volume in the Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems series. The series serves as a key reference as to how AI technology has enabled organisations to solve complex problems and gain significant business benefits. The Technical Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XIX.

M.A.BRAMER University of Portsmouth, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at ES2002, the Twenty-second SGAI International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2002. The conference was organised by SGAI, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (previously known as SGES). The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Knowledge Acquisition, Constraint Satisfaction, Scheduling and Natural Language Processing. This year''s prize for the best refereed technical paper was won by a paper entitled Covering the Path Space: A Casebase Analysis for Mobile Robot Path Planning by M Kruusmaa (Department of Mechatronics, Tallinn Technical University, Estonia) and J Willemson (Department of Computer Science, Tartu University, Estonia). SGAI gratefully acknowledges the long-term sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (Bristol) for this prize, which goes back to the 1980s. This is the nineteenth volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems X. On behalf of the conference organising committee I should like to thank all those who contributed to the organisation of this year''s technical programme, in particular the programme committee members, the referees and our administrators Linsay Turbert and Helen Forster.

This volume contains the refereed technical papers presented at ES99, the Nineteenth SGES International Conference on Knowledge-Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 1999. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on knowledge engineering, knowledge discovery, case-based reasoning, learning and knowledge representation and refinement. This is the sixteenth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems VII.

Knowledge-based (KB) technology is being applied to complex problem-solving and critical tasks in many application domains. Concerns have naturally arisen as to the dependability of knowledge-based systems (KBS). As with any software, attention to quality and safety must be paid throughout development of a KBS and rigorous verification and validation (V&V) techniques must be employed. Research in V&V of KBS has emerged as a distinct field only in the last decade and is intended to address issues associated with quality and safety aspects of KBS and to credit such applications with the same degree of dependability as conventional applications. In recent years, V&V of KBS has been the topic of annual workshops associated with the main AI conferences, such as AAAI, IJACI and ECAI. Validation and Verification of Knowledge Based Systems contains a collection of papers, dealing with all aspects of KBS V&V, presented at the Fifth European Symposium on Verificationand Validation of Knowledge Based Systems and Components (EUROVAV''99 - which was held in Oslo in the summer of 1999, and was sponsored by Det Norske Veritas and the British Computer Society''s Specialist Group on Expert Systems (SGES).

M.A.BRAMER University of Portsmouth, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at AI-2004, the Twenty-fourth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2004. The conference was organised by SGAI, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on AI Techniques I and II, CBR and Recommender Systems, Ontologies, Intelligent Agents and Scheduling Systems, Knowledge Discovery in Data and Spatial Reasoning and Image Recognition. This year''s prize for the best refereed technical paper was won by a paper entitled Extracting Finite Structure from Infinite Language by T. McQueen, A. A. Hopgood, T. J. Allen and J. A. Tepper (School of Computing & Informatics, Nottingham Trent University, UK). SGAI gratefully acknowledges the long-term sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (Bristol) for this prize, which goes back to the 1980s. This is the twenty-first volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XII. On behalf of the conference organising committee I should like to thank all those who contributed to the organisation of this year''s technical programme, in particular the programme committee members, the executive programme committee and our administrators Linsay Turbert and Collette Jackson.

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at AI2005, the Twenty-fiftth SGAI International Conference on theory, practical and application of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2005.The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Knowledge Acquisition, Constraint Satisfaction and Scheduling, and Natural Language Processing.This is the twenty-first volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field.The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XIII.

M.A.BRAMER University ofPortsmouth, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at AI-2006, the Twenty-sixth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2006. The conference was organised by SGAI, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on AI Techniques, Knowledge Discovery in Data, Argumentation, Dialogue Games and Optimisation, Knowledge Representation and Management, Semantic Web, and Model Based Systems and Simulation. For the first time the volume also includes the text of short papers presented as posters at the conference. This year's prize for the best refereed technical paper was won by a paper entitled Combining Task Execution with Background Knowledge for the Verification of Medical Guidelines' written by a team comprising Arjen Hommersom, Perry Groot and Peter Lucas (University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands) and Michael Balser and Jonathan Schmitt (University ofAugsburg, Germany). SGAI gratefully acknowledges the long-term sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (Bristol) for this prize, which goes back to the 1980s. This is the twenty-third volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XIV. On behalfofthe conference organising committee I should like to thank all those who contributed to the organisation of this year's technical programme, in particular the programme committee members, the executive programme committee and our administrator Mark Firman.

M.A.BRAMER University ofPortsmouth, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at AI-2006, the Twenty-sixth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2006. The conference was organised by SGAI, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on AI Techniques, Knowledge Discovery in Data, Argumentation, Dialogue Games and Optimisation, Knowledge Representation and Management, Semantic Web, and Model Based Systems and Simulation. For the first time the volume also includes the text of short papers presented as posters at the conference. This year''s prize for the best refereed technical paper was won by a paper entitled Combining Task Execution with Background Knowledge for the Verification of Medical Guidelines'' written by a team comprising Arjen Hommersom, Perry Groot and Peter Lucas (University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands) and Michael Balser and Jonathan Schmitt (University ofAugsburg, Germany). SGAI gratefully acknowledges the long-term sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (Bristol) for this prize, which goes back to the 1980s. This is the twenty-third volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XIV. On behalfofthe conference organising committee I should like to thank all those who contributed to the organisation of this year''s technical programme, in particular the programme committee members, the executive programme committee and our administrator Mark Firman.

An agent in a multi-agent system (MAS) has to generate plans for its individual goal, but these plans may con?ict with those that are already being scheduled or executed by other agents. It must also be able to complete its planning and resolution of these con?icts within a reasonable time to have an acceptable quality plan. Although we adopt hierarchical planning (HP, for example, see [7, 12]) using the decision-theoretic planning (DTP) approach [6] for ef?cient planning, it is not trivial to apply HPO to MAS. In HP, appropriate (abstract) plans are selected level by level to maximize the utility U (p), where where p is the expected ?nal plan comprising a sequence of primitive actions. However, in the MAS context, con?icts between agents affect the ef?ciency and quality of resulting plans. When a con?ict is found at lower levels, an additional sophisticated process for avoiding it (con?ict resolution) must be invoked and some extra actions (such as waiting for synchronization and detouring) may have to be added to the plan. The con?ict resolution process may become costly or fail. Even a single con?ict, if it is dif?cult to resolve, will result in a plan with considerably lower quality than it otherwise would have. As a result, in multi-agent systems, the second- or third-best plans may result in better overall performance.

An agent in a multi-agent system (MAS) has to generate plans for its individual goal, but these plans may con?ict with those that are already being scheduled or executed by other agents. It must also be able to complete its planning and resolution of these con?icts within a reasonable time to have an acceptable quality plan. Although we adopt hierarchical planning (HP, for example, see [7, 12]) using the decision-theoretic planning (DTP) approach [6] for ef?cient planning, it is not trivial to apply HPO to MAS. In HP, appropriate (abstract) plans are selected level by level to maximize the utility U (p), where where p is the expected ?nal plan comprising a sequence of primitive actions. However, in the MAS context, con?icts between agents affect the ef?ciency and quality of resulting plans. When a con?ict is found at lower levels, an additional sophisticated process for avoiding it (con?ict resolution) must be invoked and some extra actions (such as waiting for synchronization and detouring) may have to be added to the plan. The con?ict resolution process may become costly or fail. Even a single con?ict, if it is dif?cult to resolve, will result in a plan with considerably lower quality than it otherwise would have. As a result, in multi-agent systems, the second- or third-best plans may result in better overall performance.

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at AI-2008, the Twenty-eighth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2008.They present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on CBR and Classification, AI Techniques, Argumentation and Negotiation, Intelligent Systems, From Machine Learning To E-Learning and Decision Making. The volume also includes the text of short papers presented as posters at the conference.This is the twenty-fifth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field.The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XVI.

Following on from a three-year knowledge management project, seven organisations formed aco-operative group for knowledge management. This group meets through the Knowledge Management Implementers Forum (KMIF). Each of the organisations participating in this work are, by implication, interested in the development of KM. The aims of the forum are t9 exchange ideas and share experience in the areaofknowledge management. The organisations involved are: ~ British Aerospace (Samlesbury) ~ ICI ~ ICL ~ North WestWater ~ IDS Cad-Graphics ~ Liverpool John Moores University ~ NWAIAG (Blackburn College) 1.1 The Organisations Involved Each ofthe organisations has specific reasons for being involved in this project and in KM. The British Aerospace Samlesbury site is a large manufacturing site employing ground breaking technology for Europe's front line military aircraft. The factory works with a well-managed supply chain and works closely with other British Aerospace sites in the manufacture of aircraft components. It has set up a partnership with another Aerospace Company based on exchange of knowledge and therefore needs to value that knowledge. ICI is one of the UK's leading chemical companies and plays on an international stage. Changes in international supply and demand require ICI to respond quickly to market pressures. This means that the company needs to use its knowledge assets in a well managed way and put systems in place that increase the flexibility and ensure the security ofthese important assets.

This volume contains the refereed technical papers presented at ES99, the Nineteenth SGES International Conference on Knowledge-Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 1999. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on knowledge engineering, knowledge discovery, case-based reasoning, learning and knowledge representation and refinement. This is the sixteenth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems VII.

Ann Macintosh Napier University, UK The papers in this volume are the refereed application papers presented at ES2000, the Twentieth SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2000. The scope of the Application papers has expanded over recent years to cover not just innovative applications using traditional knowledge based systems, but also to include applications demonstrating the whole range of AI technologies. This volume contains thirteen refereed papers describing deployed applications or emerging applications, together with an invited keynote paper by Dr. Daniel Clancy of NASA Ames Research Centre. The papers were subject to refereeing by at least two "expert" referees. All papers which were controversial for some reason were discussed in depth by the Application Programme Committee. For the application stream, a paper is acceptable even if it describes a system which has not yet been installed, provided the application is original and the paper discusses the kinds of things that would help others needing to solve a similar problem. Papers have been selected to highlight critical areas of success (and failure) and to present the benefits and lessons learnt to other developers. Papers this year cover topics as diverse as: KBS for maintaining offshore platforms; Data Mining to predict corporate business failure; integrated AI techniques to support field service engineers; Natural Language applied to the Data Protection Act; knowledge management and the application of neural networks.

The papers in this volume are the refereed technical papers presented at ES2000, the Twentieth SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2000. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on learning, case-based reasoning, knowledge representation, knowledge engineering, and belief acquisition and planning. This is the seventeenth volume in the Research and Development series. The series is essential reading for those who wish to keep up to date with developments in this important field. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems VIII.

M.A. BRAMER University of Portsmouth, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at ES200 l, the Twenty-fIrst SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied ArtifIcial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 200 l, together with an invited keynote paper by Professor Derek Sleeman. The conference was organised by SGES, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied ArtifIcial Intelligence. The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the fIeld, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Constraint Satisfaction, Agents, Knowledge Representation, Knowledge Engineering, and Intelligent Systems. The refereed papers begin with a paper entitled 'Detecting Mismatches Among Experts' Ontologies Acquired Through Knowledge Elicitation', which describes a systematic approach to the analysis of discrepancies within and among experts' ontologies. This paper was judged to be the best refereed technical paper submitted to the conference. The remaining papers are devoted to topics in important areas such as agents, knowledge engineering, knowledge representation, planning and constraint satisfaction, with machine learning again the largest topic covered in terms of the number of papers accepted for publication. This is the eighteenth volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems IX.

The papers in this volume are the referred Applications papers presented at ES 2002, the Twenty-second SGES international Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, to be held in Cambridge during December 2002. The Application stream is the largest annual showcase in Europe of real applications using AI technology. Papers presented in this volume describe the application of AI to address real-world problems, including commerce, manufacturing and defence and every major AI technique; and highlight critical areas of success (and failure) and present the benefits and lessons of value to other developers. This is the tenth volume in the Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems series. The series serves as a key reference as to how AI technology has enabled organisations to solve complex problems and gain significant business benefits. The Technical Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XIX.

These are the refereed technical papers presented at ES 2002, the Twenty-second SGAI International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2002. The papers in this volume present developments in the field, divided into sections on machine learning, knowledge representation and reasoning, knowledge acquisition, constraint satisfaction and scheduling, and natural language processing.

Frans Coenen University of Liverpool, UK This volume comprises the refereed technical papers presented at AI2003, the Twenty­ third SGAI International Conference on the theory, practice and application of Artificial Intelligence, held in Cambridge in December 2003. The conference was organised by SGAI, the British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (previously known as SGES). The papers in this volume present new and innovative developments in the field, divided into sections on Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Knowledge Acquisition, Constraint Satisfaction, Scheduling and Natural Language Processing. This year's prize for the best refereed technical paper was won by a paper entitled An Improved Hybrid Genetic Algorithm: New Results for the Quadratic Assignment Problem by A. Misevicius (Department of Practical Informatics, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania). SGAI gratefully acknowledges the long-term sponsorship of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (Bristol) for this prize, which goes back to the 1980s. This is the twentieth volume in the Research and Development series. The Application Stream papers are published as a companion volume under the title Applications and Innovations in Intelligent Systems XI. On behalf of the conference organising committee I should like to thank all those who contributed to the organisation of this year's technical programme, in particular the programme committee members, the referees and our administrator Fiona Hartree and Linsay Turbert.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, IC3K 2022, held in Valletta, Malta, during October 24–26, 2022.The 14 full papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 127 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval; Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development; and Knowledge Management and Information Systems