Great thanks are due to many people who have contributed to this book in different ways. First of all, to my colleagues and students on the Infomap project, especially Beate Dorow and Scott Cederberg, who did a great deal of the research and programming that went into this book, and to Professor Stanley Peters, without whom the project would never have even existed.
The book has benefited greatly from the constructive suggestions of reviewers including Tim Baldwin, Pentti Kanerva and my father Kit Widdows, and their experience, encouragement and critical insight have been invaluable.
The Infomap project received financial support from NTT (our industrial collaborators in Japan), and from the American National Science Foundation through the MuchMore project, a collaboration with partners in the European Union for multilingual medical information management. In this context, I would particularly like to thank Paul Buitelaar and Spela Vintar for great discussions and hospitality during my visits to Germany.
To Maryl, my bride and soulmate, my everlasting thanks for her love and faith in this ever-escalating project, and her enthusiastic enjoyment of the book even though she thought she hated math.
Lastly, my gratitude to many giant figures of scientific progress spanning three millenia cannot be described in a few words: hopefully some measure of my debt and appreciation is reflected in this work.