MICAI 2004: Advances in Artificial Intelligence

The Mexican International Conference on Arti?cial Intelligence (MICAI) is a biennial conference established to promote research inarti?cial intelligence (AI), and cooperation among Mexican researchersand their peers worldwide. MICAI is organized by the Mexican Societyfor Arti?cial Intelligence (SMIA), in colla- ration with the AmericanAssociation for Arti?cial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Mexican Society for Computer Science (SMCC). After two successful conferences, we are pleased to present the 3rd Mexican InternationalConferenceonArti?cialIntelligence,MICAI2004,whichtookplace on April 26 30, 2004, in Mexico City, Mexico. This volume contains the papers included in the conferencemain program, which was complemented by tutorials and workshops, published in supplementary proceedings. The proceedings of pastMICAIconferences,2000and2002,werealsopublishedinSpringer-Verlag s Lecture Notes in Arti?cial Intelligence (LNAI) series, volumes 1793 and 2313. The number of submissions to MICAI 2004 was signi?cantly higher than those of previous conferences 254 papers from 19 di?erent countries were submitted for consideration to MICAI 2004. The evaluation of this unexpectedly largenumberofpaperswasachallenge,bothintermsofthequalityofthepapers and of the review workload of each PC member. After a thorough reviewing process, MICAI s Program Committee and Programs Chairs accepted 97 hi- quality papers. So the acceptance rate was 38.2%. CyberChair, a free Web-based paper submission and reviewing system, was used as an electronic support for the reviewing process. This book contains revised versions of the 94 papers presented at the con- rence. The volume is structured into 13 thematic ?elds according to the topics addressed by the papers, which are representative of the main current area of interest within the AI community.