Advances in web intelligence

In recent years the Internet has become a source of data and information of indisputable importance and has immensely gained in acceptance and popularity. The World Wide Web (WWW or Web, for short), frequently named “the nervous system of the infor- tion society,” offers numerous valuable services leaving no doubt about the signi? cance of the Web in our daily activities at work and at home. Consequently, we have a clear aspiration to meet the obvious need for effective use of its potential by making - provements in both the methods and the technology applied. Among the new research directions observable in Web-related applications, intelligent methods from within the broadly perceived topic of soft computing occupy an important place. AWIC, the “Atlantic Web Intelligence Conferences” are intended to be a forum for exchange of new ideas and novel practical solutions in this new and exciting ? eld. The conference was born as an initiative of the WIC-Poland and the WIC-Spain Research Centres, both belonging to the Web Intelligence Consortium – WIC (http://wi-consortium. org/). So far, three AWIC conferences have been held: in Madrid, Spain (2003), in Cancun, Mexico (2004), and in ?ódz, ´ Poland (2005).