International Federation of Classification Societies The International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS) is an agency for the dissemination of technical and scientific information concerning classification and data analysis in the broad sense and in as wide a- range of applications as possible; founded in 1985 in Cambridge (UK) from the following Scientific Societies and Groups: British Classification Society -BCS; Classification Society of North America -CSNA; Gesellschaft fUr Klassifikation -GfKl; Japanese Classification Society -JCS; Classification Group of Italian Statistical Society - COSIS; Societe Francophone de Classification -SFC. Now the IFCS includes the following Societies: Dutch-Belgian Classification Society - VOC; Polish Classification Section - SKAD; Portuguese Classification Association - CLAD; Group-at-Large; Korean Classification Society -KCS. Biannual Meeting of the Classification and Data Analysis Group of SIS The biannual meeting of the Classification and Data Analysis Group of Societa Italiana di Statistica (SIS) was held in Pescara, July 3 -4, 1997. The 69 papers presented were divided in 17 sessions. Each session was organized by a chairperson with two invited speakers and two contributed papers from a call for papers. All the works were referred. Furthermore, during the meeting a discussant was provided for each session. A short version of the papers (4 pages) was.published before the conference.