This volume has its origin in the Seventeenth International Workshop on
Maximum Entropy and Bayesian Methods, MAXENT 97. The workshop was held
at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, on August 4 -8, 1997. As in
the past, the purpose of the workshop was to bring together researchers
in different fields to present papers on applications of Bayesian
methods (these include maximum entropy) in science, engineering,
medicine, economics, and many other disciplines. Thanks to significant
theoretical advances and the personal computer, much progress has been
made since our first Workshop in 1981. As indicated by several papers in
these proceedings, the subject has matured to a stage in which
computational algorithms are the objects of interest, the thrust being
on feasibility, efficiency and innovation. Though applications are
proliferating at a staggering rate, some in areas that hardly existed a
decade ago, it is pleasing that due attention is still being paid to
foundations of the subject. The following list of descriptors,
applicable to papers in this volume, gives a sense of its contents:
deconvolution, inverse problems, instrument (point-spread) function,
model comparison, multi sensor data fusion, image processing,
tomography, reconstruction, deformable models, pattern recognition,
classification and group analysis, segmentation/edge detection, brain
shape, marginalization, algorithms, complexity, Ockham's razor as an
inference tool, foundations of probability theory, symmetry, history of
probability theory and computability. MAXENT 97 and these proceedings
could not have been brought to final form without the support and help
of a number of people.