White bears and washing-machines: models (and theories) of concepts

Models and theories are tools for scientific and technological investigations and projects. The relationship between theories and models is very complex. Models have become increasingly popular in our time, maybe due to the growing number of disciplines that try to understand, simulate or even reproduce very complex phenomena such as life, intelligence, organisms, brain processes, and social or economical systems. The papers in this book deal with methodological and application problems which arise when models are compared to theories, or when theories are used to build models.