Paula Brito is a Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto, and a member of the Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Research Group (LIAAD) of INESC TEC, Portugal. She holds a doctorate degree in Applied Mathematics from the University Paris Dauphine, and an Habilitation in Applied Mathematics from the University of Porto. Her current research focuses on the analysis of multidimensional complex data, known as symbolic data, for which she develops statistical approaches and multivariate analysis methodologies. In this context, she has been involved in two European research projects. Paula Brito has been president of the International Association for Statistical Computing (IASC-ISI) in 2013–2015, and of the Portuguese Association for Classification and Data Analysis for the term 2021-2023. She has been invited speaker at several international conferences, and is a regularly member of international program committees. Paula Brito has been chair of COMPSTAT 2008 and will co-chair the IFCS 2022 conference. Sónia Dias is a Professor in the area of Mathematics at the School of Technology and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, and a member of the Laboratory in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support (LIAAD) of INESC TEC, Portugal. She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Porto (2014). Her main scientific areas of research are Data Analysis, Symbolic Data Analysis (analysis of multidimensional complex data) and Statistical/Mathematical Applications. Under this context, she has participated in several conferences and published articles in international journals and proceedings. She was a member of the organizing committee of the international Symbolic Data Analysis Workshop - SDA2018 and is a member of the organizing committee of the IFCS 2022 conference.
""" . . . this book will interest those who would like to expand their understanding regarding distributional data and its application in data science and to have a solid mathematical background on the different concepts under symbolic data analysis. This book also provides illustrative examples based on R package and open data which can contribute to the understanding on how to apply these methods to distributional data. This book can also benefit academic researchers who would like apply these types of approaches in their fields."" ~Sébastien Bailly, ISCB Book Reviews"