Progress in Pattern Recognition, Speech and Image Analysis

CIARP 2003 (8th Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition) was the eighth event in a series of pioneering congresses on pattern recognition in the Latin American c- munity of countries. This year, however, the forum was extended to include worldwide participation. The event has been held in the past in Mexico, Cuba, Brazil and Por- gal; it took place this year in Havana (Cuba). The aim of the congress was to promote and disseminate ongoing research into mathematical methods for pattern recog