This volume addresses methods of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in image and speech analysis, which is a subfield of pattern recognition (PR). The definition and differentiation of terms such as AI and PR are not consistently handled in the literature; however, it is important to remember that both have common roots from their early days. The ability to recognize patterns and, more generally, to perceive the environment with appropriate sensors has been regarded as a fundamental requirement for autonomously operating "intelligent" technical systems. On one hand, early publications on AI repeatedly mentioned PR as a problem to be solved, while on the other hand, the inclusion of knowledge about the problem and the patterns to be recognized was emphasized as an important issue in PR. The significance of knowledge processing in PR can be seen in F.