th These proceedings contain refereed papers presented at the 7 WSOM held at the Casa Monica
Hotel St. Augustine Florida June 8-10 2009. We designed the wo- shop to serve as a regular
forum for researchers in academia and industry who are interested in the exciting field of
self-organizing maps (SOM). The program includes excellent examples of the use of SOM in many
areas of social sciences economics computational biology engineering time series analysis
data visualization and c- puter science as well a vibrant set of theoretical papers that keep
pushing the envelope of the original SOM. Our deep appreciation is extended to Teuvo Kohonen
and Ping Li for the plenary talks and Amaury Lendasse for the organization of the special
sessions. Our sincere thanks go to the members of the Technical Committee and other reviewers
for their excellent and timely reviews and above all to the authors whose contributions made
this workshop possible. Special thanks go to Julie Veal for her dedication and hard work in
coordinating the many details necessary to put together the program and local arrangements.
Jose C. Principe Risto Miikkulainen
