A sharp increase in the computing power of modern computers, accompanied by a decrease in the data storage costs, has triggered the development of extremely powerful algorithms that can analyze complex patterns in large amounts of data within a very short period of time. Consequently, it has become possible to apply pattern recognition techniques to new tasks characterized by tight real-time requirements (e.g., person identification) and/or high complexity of raw data (e.g., clustering trajectories of mobile objects). The main goal of this book is to cover some of the latest application domains of pattern recognition while presenting novel techniques that have been developed or customized in those domains.
