**About the Editors**

**Monica Bianchini** , Ph.D., is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics of the University of Siena (Full Professor Abilitation). She received the Laurea cum laude in Mathematics and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Florence, Italy, in 1989 and 1995, respectively. After receiving the Laurea, for two years, she was involved in a joint project of Bull HN Italia and the Department of Mathematics (University of Florence), aimed at designing parallel software for solving differential equations. From 1992 to 1998, she was a Ph.D. student and a Postdoc Fellow with the Computer Science Department of the University of Florence. Since 1999, she has been with the University of Siena. Her main research interests are in the field of machine learning, with emphasis on neural networks for structured data and deep learning, approximation theory, information retrieval, bioinformatics, and image processing. Monica Bianchini has authored more than one hundred papers and has been the editor of books and Special Issues in international journals in her research field. She has been a participant in many research projects focused on machine learning and pattern recognition, founded by both Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR) and University of Siena (PAR scheme), and she has been involved in the organization of several scientific events, including the NATO Advanced Workshop on Limitations and Future Trends in Neural Computation (2001), the 8th AI\*IA Conference (2002), GIRPR 2012, the 25th International Symposium on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation, and the ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers 2017. Prof. Bianchini served as an Associate Editor for *IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks* (2003–09), *Neurocomputing* (from 2002), *Int. J. of Computers in Healthcare* (from 2010), and *Frontiers in Genomics* (section Computational Genomics). She is a permanent member of the Editorial Board of *IJCNN*, *ICANN*, *ICPRAM*, *ESANN*, *ANNPR*, and *KES*.

**Maria Lucia Sampoli**, Ph.D., is currently Associate Professor in Numerical Analysis at the Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics of the University of Siena. She graduated in Mathematics with Honors from the University of Florence in 1994, and in 1998 received a PhD in Computational Mathematics and Operative Research from the University of Milan. In the same year she received a postdoc fellowship at the Institute of Applied Geometry of the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany). In 1999–2000 she was a CNR Senior Fellow at Department of Mathematics of the University of Siena, where she initially was a Research Assistant and later in 2002 became a tenured Assistant Professor in Numerical Analysis. In 2010 she joined the Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics. Her research interests are mainly focused on the use of splines functions in various applications, from shape preserving interpolation and approximation to numerical approximation of elliptic problems (Isogeometic Analysis), quasi-interpolations techniques, Numerical quadrature, and Phythagorean curves and surfaces. Maria Lucia Sampoli has been invited speaker (as a plenary or as a speaker at mini-symposia) at several international conferences as well as involved in the organization of various conferences and workshops. She has been involved in many research projects including as a coordinator for some of them.
