This book and its companion volumes constitute the Proceedings of the 13th In￾ternational Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP 2006) held in
Hong Kong during October 3–6, 2006. ICONIP is the annual flagship conference
of the Asia Pacific Neural Network Assembly (APNNA) with the past events held
in Seoul (1994), Beijing (1995), Hong Kong (1996), Dunedin (1997), Kitakyushu
(1998), Perth (1999), Taejon (2000), Shanghai (2001), Singapore (2002), Istanbul
(2003), Calcutta (2004), and Taipei (2005). Over the years, ICONIP has matured
into a well-established series of international conference on neural information
processing and related fields in the Asia and Pacific regions. Following the tradi￾tion, ICONIP 2006 provided an academic forum for the participants to dissem￾inate their new research findings and discuss emerging areas of research. It also
created a stimulating environment for the participants to interact and exchange
information on future challenges and opportunities of neural network research