In many fields of science and practice large amounts of dataand informationare collected for analyzing and visualizinglatent structures as orderings or classifications forexample. This volume presents refereed and revised versionsof 52 papers selected from the contributions of the 16thAnnualConference of the "German Classification Society".The papers are organized in three major sections on DataAnalysis and Classification (1), InformationRetrievalKnowledge Processing and Software (2), Applications andSpecial Topics (3). Moreover, the papers were grouped andordered within the major sections. So, in the first sectionwe find papers on Classification Methods, FuzzyClassification, Multidimensional Scaling, DiscriminantAnalysis and Conceptual Analysis. The second sectioncontains papers on Neural Networks and ComputationalLinguisticsin addition to the mentioned fields. Anessential part of the third section attends to Sequence Dataand Tree Reconstruction as well as Data Analysis andInformatics in Medicine. As special topics the volumepresents applications in Thesauri, Archaeology, MusicalScience and Psychometrics.

I: Data Analysis and Classification.- Classification Methods.- Hierarchical Clustering of Sampled Functions.- Spatial Clustering of Species Based on Quadrat Sampling.- A kn-Nearest Neighbour Algorithm for Unimodal Clusters.- Asymptotic Robustness in Cluster-Analysis for the Case of Tukey-Huber Distortions.- Choosing the Number of Component Clusters in the Mixture-Model Using a New Informational Complexity Criterion of the Inverse-Fisher Information Matrix.- Fuzzy Classification.- Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Partitions.- Fuzzy Clustering by Minimizing the Total Hypervolume.- Conceptual Analysis.- Conceptual Data Systems.- Conceptual Clustering via Convex-Ordinal Structures.- Diagrams of Similarity Lattices.- Approximate Galois Lattices of Formal Concepts.- Representation of Data by Pseudoline Arrangements.- Mathematical Characterizations.- A Relational Approach to Split Decomposition.- Some New Useful Representations of Dissimilarities in Mathematical Classification.- Multidimensional Scaling.- A Comparison of Two Methods for Global Optimization in Multidimensional Scaling.- Directional Analysis of Three-Way Skew-Symmetric Matrices.- Clustering in Low-Dimensional Space.- The Construction of Neighbour-Regions in Two Dimensions for Prediction with Multi-Level Categorical Variables.- Different Geometric Approaches to Correspondence Analysis of Multivariate Data.- Nonlinear Biplots for Nonlinear Mappings.- Various Methods for Data Analysis.- Gradient Filtering Projections for Recovering Structures in Multivariate Data.- Classification with Set-Valued Decision Functions.- Canonical Discriminant Analysis: Comparison of Resampling Methods and Convex-Hull Approximation.- Nonparametric Prediction of Time Series on the Basis of Typical Course Patterns.- Moving Point Patterns: The PoissonCase.- II: Information Retrieval, Knowledge Processing and Software.- Information Retrieval.- Representations, Models and Abstractions in Probabilistic Information Retrieval.- Fuzzy Graphs as a Basic Tool for Agglomerative Clustering and Information Retrieval.- The Various Roles of Information Structures.- Neural Networks.- Classification Properties of Communicating Neural Networks.- Knowledge Extraction from Self-Organizing Neural Networks.- Self-Organizing Neural Networks for Visualisation and Classification.- Expert Systems and Knowledge Processing.- HyDi: Integration of Hypermedia and Expert System Technology for Technical Diagnosis.- Classification and Learning of Similarity Measures.- Context Sensitive Knowledge Processing.- An Efficient Application of a Rule-Based System.- Computational Linguistics.- Acquisition of Syntactical Knowledge from Text.- Generating Topic-Based Links in a Hypertext-System for News.- Software.- Interactively Displaying Ultrametric and Additive Trees.- Anaglyphen 3D - A Program for the Interactive Representation of Three-Dimensional Perspective Plots of Statistical Data.- III: Applications and Special Topics.- Sequence Data and Tree Reconstruction.- Discovering Consensus Molecular Sequences.- Alignment and Hierarchical Clustering Method for Strings.- More Reliable Phylogenies by Properly Weighted Nucleotide Substitutions.- Caminalcules and Didaktozoa: Imaginary Organisms as Test-Examples for Systematics.- Data Analysis and Informatics in Medicine.- Multivariate Analysis of the Process of Acclimation of Physiologic Variables.- Classification of EEG Signals into General Stages of Anesthesia in Real-Time Using Autoregressive Models.- Automatic Segmentation and Classification of Multiparametric Image Data in Medicine.- Pseudoroots asDescriptors for a Thesaurus Based on Weidtman's Diagnosis Table of Pediatrics.- Special Topics - Thesauri, Archaeology, Musical Science and Psychometrics.- An Approach to a Space Related Thesaurus.- Classification of Archaeological Sands by Particle Size Analysis.- The Analysis of Stratigraphic Data with Particular Reference to Zonation Problems.- Classification Criterion and the Universals in the Organization of a Musical Text.- A Two-Mode Clustering Study of Situations and Their Features.