--The combination of information is a hot topic of research especially in the development of complex systems involving imprecise, uncertain and potentially highly conflicting information/data with usually (but not necessarily) human interaction at some higher fusion level for efficient decision-making. Modern multisensor systems for tracking, classification, diagnosis, situation assessment, decision-making support, etc need solid theoretical tools to combine efficiently information in order to reduce as best as possible ignorances and contradictions in a coherent way to help to take proper decision. This task is very difficult and many theories (probability theory, possibility theory, Dempster-Shafer theory (DST), etc) have been proposed to deal with different kinds of uncertainties (randomness, fuzzyness, epistemic uncertainty, etc). The goal of this special session devoted to Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion, is to federate and extend the growing community of researchers interested in this new emerging area of data fusion by presenting their new results related with DSmT in the fields of applications they work. We encourage potential authors to submit their contributions for this session either directly to organizers of this session or by using the regular submission procedure available on Fusion 2009 web site (and choosing this special session as target). All submitted papers for this session must follow the Fusion 2009 typesetting guidelines and will be reviewed by the regular Fusion 2009 review process. All submitted papers for this session must fit with the topics of interest listed below. For any questions or problems, please contact directly the organizers of this special session. Thank you in advance for your contribution and your interest in DSmT. DSmT Web page : http://www.gallup.unm.edu/~smarandache/DSmT.htm.

--Jean Dezert was born in l'Hay les Roses, France, on August 25, 1962. He received the electrical engineering degree from the Ecole Française de Radioélectricité Electronique and Informatique (EFREI), Paris, in 1985, the D.E.A. degree in 1986 from the University Paris VII (Jussieu), and his Ph.D from the University Paris XI, Orsay, in 1990, all in Automatic Control and Signal Processing. During 1986-1990 he was with the Systems Department at the French Arerospace Research Lab (ONERA), Châtillon, France, and did research in multisensor multitarget tracking (MS-MTT) . During 1991-1992, he visited the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, U.S.A. as an European Space Agency (ESA) Postdoctoral Research Fellow. During 1992-1993 he was teaching assistant in Electrical Engineering at the University of Orléans, France. Since 1993, he is senior research scientist in the Information Modeling and Processing Department (DTIM) at ONERA. His current research interests include autonomous navigation, estimation theory, stochastic systems theory and its applications to MS-MTT, information fusion, plausible reasoning and non-standard Logics. Dr. Jean Dezert is developing since 2001 with Professor Smarandache a new theory of plausible and paradoxical reasoning for information fusion (DSmT) and has edited two textbooks (collected works) devoted to this new emerging research field published by American Research Press, Rehoboth in 2004 and 2006 respectively. He owns one international patent in the autonomous navigation field and has published several papers in international conferences and journals. He coauthored a chapter in Multitarget-Multisensor Tracking: Applications and Advances, Vol.2 (Y. Bar-Shalom Editor). He is member of IEEE and of Eta Kappa Nu, serves as reviewer for different International Journals, taught courses on MS-MTT and Data Fusion at the French ENSTA Engineering School, collaborates for the development of the International Society of Information Fusion (ISIF) since 1998, and has served as Local Arrangements Organizer for Fusion 2000 Conference in Paris. He has been involved in the Technical Program Committees of Fusion 2001-2007 International Conferences. Since 2001, he is a member of the board of the International Society of Information Fusion (http://www.isif.org) and serves in ISIF executive board. He served as executive vice-president of ISIF in 2004. In 2003, he organized with Professor Smarandache, the first special session devoted to plausible and paradoxical reasoning at Fusion 2003, Cairns, Australia and also a panel discussion and a special session on DSmT at Fusion 2004, Fusion 2006. Dr. Dezert gave several invited seminars and lectures on Data Fusion and Tracking during recent past years – the last recent was given at Henri Poincaré Institute, Paris, January 22th, 2008. He also participates as member of Technical Committee of last Fuzzy Set and Technology and Cogis Conferences. He is also Associate Editor of Journal of Advances in Information Fusion (JAIF). Recent advances on DSmT can be found on DSmT web page.

--Florentin Smarandache was born in Balcesti (Valcea), Romania, in 1954. He got a M. Sc. Degree in both Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Craiova in 1979, received a Ph. D. in Mathematics from the Moldova State University at Kishinev in 1997, and continued postdoctoral studies at various American Universities (New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, Los Alamos National Laboratory) after emigration. In 1988 he escaped from his country, pasted two years in a political refugee camp in Turkey, and in 1990 emigrated to USA . In 1996 he became an American citizen. Dr. Smarandache worked as a professor of mathematics for many years in Romania, Morocco, and United States, and between 1990-1995 as a software engineer for Honeywell, Inc., in Phoenix, Arizona. In present, he teaches mathematics at the University of New Mexico, Gallup Campus, where he is a Department Chair. Very prolific, he is the author, co-author, and editor of 75 books, over 160 scientific notes and articles, and contributed to about 50 scientific and 100 literary journals from around the world (in mathematics, informatics, physics, philosophy, rebus, literature, and arts). He wrote in Romanian, French, and English. Some of his work was translated into Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Esperanto, Swedish, Farsi, Arabic, Chinese. He was so attracted by contradictions that, in 1980s, he set up the "Paradoxism" avant-garde movement in literature, philosophy, art, even science, which made many advocates in the world, and it's based on excessive use of antitheses, antinomies, paradoxes in creation - making an interesting connection between mathematics, engineering, philosophy, and literature and led him to coining the neutrosophic logic, a logic generalizing the intuitionistic fuzzy logic that is able to deal with paradoxes. In mathematics there are several entries named smarandache geometries, smarandache algebraic structures, and especially paradoxes in international journals and encyclopedias. He organized the 'First International Conference on Neutrosophics' at the University of New Mexico, 1-3 December 2001. Small contributions he had in physics and psychology too. Much of his work is held in "The Florentin Smarandache Papers" Special Collections at the Arizona State University, Tempe, and Texas State University, Austin (USA), also in the National Archives (Rm. Vâlcea) and Romanian Literary Museum (Bucharest), and in the Musée de Bergerac (France). In 2003, he co-organized with Dr. Jean Dezert, the first special session devoted to plausible and paradoxist reasoning for information fusion at the Fusion 2003 in Cairns, Australia, and has participated to several international workshop and seminar on Information Fusion since 2003.