Session 1a: Neural Networks (1) -- Session 1b: Bioinformatics (1) -- Session 1c: Data Mining (1) -- Session 2a: Neural Networks (2) -- Session 2b: Bioinformatics (2) -- Session 2c: General Applications -- Session 3a: Autonomous Agents (1) -- Session 3b: Intelligent Systems (1) -- Session 3c: Knowledge Processing and Natural Language Processing -- Session 4a: Intelligent User Interfaces -- Session 4b: Evolutionary Computing (1) -- Session 4c: Fuzzy Logic -- Session 5a: Human Robot Interaction -- Session 5b: Computer Vision and Image Processing -- Session 5c: Machine Learning and Case Based Reasoning -- Session 6a: Heuristic Search -- Session 6b: Evolutionary Computing (2) -- Session 6c: Security -- Session 7a: Internet Applications -- Session 7b: Planning and Scheduling -- Session 7c: Constraint Satisfaction -- Session 8a: E-learning (1) -- Session 8b: Intelligent Systems (2) -- Session 8c: Expert Systems -- Session 9a: E-learning (2) -- Session 9b: Applications to Design -- Session 9c: Machine Learning -- Session 10a: E-learning (3) -- Session 10b: Autonomous Agents (2) -- Session 10c: Neural Networks (3) -- Session 11a: Data Mining (2) -- Session 11b: Intelligent Systems (3) -- Session 11c: Neural Networks (4) -- Session 12a: Image Processing -- Session 12b: Evolutionary Computing (3) -- Session 12c: Data Mining (3).

“Intelligent systems must perform in order to be in demand. ” Intelligent systems technology is being applied steadily in solving many day-to-day problems. Each year the list of real-world deployed applications that inconspicuously host the results of research in the area grows considerably. These applications are having a significant impact in industrial operations, in financial circles, in transportation, in education, in medicine, in consumer products, in games and elsewhere. A set of selected papers presented at the seventeenth in the series of conferences on Industrial and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems (IEA/AIE 2004), sponsored by the International Society of Applied Intelligence, is offered in this manuscript. These papers highlight novel applications of the technology and show how new research could lead to new and innovative applications. We hope that you find these papers to be educational, useful in your own research, and stimulating. In addition, we have introduced some special sessions to emphasize a few areas of artificial intelligence (AI) that are either relatively new, have received considerable attention recently or perhaps have not yet been represented well. To this end, we have included special sessions on e-learning, bioinformatics, and human-robot interaction (HRI) to complement the usual offerings in areas such as data mining, machine learning, intelligent systems, neural networks, genetic algorithms, autonomous agents, natural language processing, intelligent user interfaces, evolutionary computing, fuzzy logic, computer vision and image processing, reasoning, heuristic search, security, Internet applications, constraint satisfaction problems, design, and expert systems.