Computación y Sistemas Vol. 4 No. 1 pp. 3 @ 2000, CIC -IPN. ISSN 1405-5546 Impreso en México We are glad to introduce to the Computación y Sistemasreaders a selection ofthe best papers from the 2nd Congressthe Catalan Artificial Intelligence Association (CCIA '99) [3]. This conference was held in Girona, Catalonia,from 27 to 19 of October of 1999,at the premisesof the University of Girona [ 1].This postpublication ofthe best papers continues the trend started at the CCIA '98 Conference from which a selection ofthe best papers was published in the International Journal of Inte//igent Systems [4]. We accepted42 papers at CCIA '99: 21long for oral presentationsplus 17 short papersthat were presented as poster. Each acceptedpaper had been reviewed by two referees. Besid~s, there were also special sessions including robots exhibitions and software demonstrations. For this special issue we had initially selected 8 papers and asked the authors to extend them to be reviewed for publication at Computación y Sistemas.The extended versions ofthose papers were reviewed by two additional referees. This issue contains the 4 papers fmally accepted for publication. It is our understanding that these papers provide a limited but good sample of some ofthe most recent research in Al in Catalonia. The topics covered deal with neural networks applied to naturallanguage, case-basedreasoning applied to environmental issues, colour detection detection, and soft-computing applied to classification. We acknowledge Computacióny Sistemasforthis opportunity to make better known some ofthe work in Al in Catalonia. The Catalan Al Association (ACIA) [2] was founded in the summer of 1994 and has now more than 150 members that are very active in Alteaching and research. We hope that this issue will strengthen the relations between our research communities. We also like to acknowledge the finest work ofthe referees for this special issue. References 2. 3. 4. Universitat de Girona. http:/ /www .udg.es Catalan Association for Artificial Intelligence. http:/ /www .acia.org J. Ll. De la Rosa, editor. 2n Congrés Catala d'lntel.ligencia Artificial, number 18-19 in Bulletí de I' ACIA. Asociació Catalanad'Intel.ligenciaArtificial, ACIA, 1999 V. Torra ( ed). The first catalán conference on artificial intelligence. lnternational Journal of lntelligent Systems,15(3):153-276,2000 Guest Editors Ulises Cortés Departamento de Lenguajes y Sistemas Informáticos Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, España Ramón Instituto Consejo Superior de Investigación de Investigaciones Científicas López de Mántaras en Inteligencia Campus UAB, Artificial España 3