Hans-Dieter Burkhard - Böcker

Humanexpertsarenotsystemsofrules,theyarelibrariesofexperiences. Riesbeck and Schank (1989, p.15) Broadlyspeaking,case-basedreasoning(CBR)is concernedwith solvingnew problems by adapting solutions that worked for similar problems in the past. As with Arti cial Intelligence in general, case-based reasoning deals with two di erent aspects of intelligence: A r st motivation is to establish cog- tive models in order to understand human thinking and behavior. A second motivationis to buildsystemswhichhelpto solvereal-worldproblems.These twofacetscanbeconsideredastwosidesofthesamecoin.Traditionally,CBR researchinEuropehasconcentratedverymuchonthesecondaspect,though, of course, successful projects are not possible without a sound theory. The objective of this book is to summarize the results of recent years of research in CBR. A strong emphasis is put on projects performed and - plications developed in Germany. However, research has not been performed in isolation. Rather, a large number of cooperations between research sites throughout the world have been established which provided a fertile ground for the community.Hence, it is only natural that work from colleagues from France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United States has been included in this volume. This book is not intended to be a textbook giving a comprehensive overview of the eld. Rather, the objective is to consider in detail di - ent potential application areas, to work out the pros and cons of using CBR and to summarize the lessons learned from projects. For this, we assume that the reader already has at least a basic understanding of what case-based reasoning is all about.

The aim of the CEEMAS conference series is to provide a biennial forum for the presentation of multi-agent research and development results. With its p- ticular geographicalorientationtowards Central and EasternEurope, CEEMAS has become an internationally recognized event with participants from all over the world. After the successful CEEMAS conferences in St. Petersburg (1999), Cracow (2001), Prague (2003) and Budapest (2005), the CEEMAS 2007 c- ference took place in Leipzig. The Program Committee of the conference series consists of established researchers from the region and renowned international colleagues, showing the prominent rank of CEEMAS among the leading events in multi-agent systems. In the very competitive ?eld of agent-oriented conferences and workshops, (such as AAMAS, EUMAS, CIA, MATES) CEEMAS is special in trying to bridge the gap between applied research achievements and theoretical research activities. The ambition of CEEMAS is to provide a forum for presenting th- retical research with an evident application potential, implemented application prototypes and their properties, as well as industrial case studies of successful (or unsuccessful) agent technology deployments. This is why the CEEMAS p- ceedings provide a collection of research and application papers. The technical research paper section of the proceedings (see pages 1–290) contains pure - search papers as well as research results in application settings. The goal is to demonstrate the real-life value and commercial reality of multi-agent systems as well as to foster the communication between academia and industry in this ?eld.