The logical combinatorial approach to pattern recognition, an overview through selected works

The so-called logical combinatorial approach to Pattern Recognition is presented, and works (mainly in Spanish and Russian) that are not ordinarily available, are exposed to the Western reader. The use of this approach for supervised and unsupervised pattern recognition, and for feature selection is reviewed. Also, an uni"ed notation describing the original contributions is presented, thus rendering this important area more readable. Our review is not exhaustive; nevertheless, most signi"cant works are enclosed. Our hope is to motivate the reader to inquire further in these works. This paper serves as an introduction to three articles on the logical combinatorial approach that appear in this issue of Pattern Recognition. ( 2001 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.