Fuzzy Approach to Reasoning and Decision-Making


Book Description

The papers presented at the Symposium focused mainly on two fields of interest. First, there were papers dealing with the theoretical background of fuzzy logic and with applications of fuzzy reasoning to the problems of artificial intelligence, robotics and expert systems. Second, quite a large number of papers were devoted to fuzzy approaches to modelling of decision-making situations under uncertainty and vagueness and their applications to the evaluation of alternatives, system control and optimization. Apart from that, there were also some interesting contributions from other areas, like fuzzy classifications and the use of fuzzy approaches in quantum physics. This volume contains the most valuable and interesting papers presented at the Symposium and will be of use to all those researchers interested in fuzzy set theory and its applications.







Fuzzy Reasoning in Decision Making and Optimization


Book Description

Many decision-making tasks are too complex to be understood quantitatively, however, humans succeed by using knowledge that is imprecise rather than precise. Fuzzy logic resembles human reasoning in its use of imprecise informa tion to generate decisions. Unlike classical logic which requires a deep under standing of a system, exact equations, and precise numeric values, fuzzy logic incorporates an alternative way of thinking, which allows modeling complex systems using a higher level of abstraction originating from our knowledge and experience. Fuzzy logic allows expressing this knowledge with subjective concepts such as very big and a long time which are mapped into exact numeric ranges. Since knowledge can be expressed in a more natural by using fuzzy sets, many decision (and engineering) problems can be greatly simplified. Fuzzy logic provides an inference morphology that enables approximate human reasoning capabilities to be applied to knowledge-based systems. The theory of fuzzy logic provides a mathematical strength to capture the un certainties associated with human cognitive processes, such as thinking and reasoning. The conventional approaches to knowledge representation lack the means for representating the meaning of fuzzy concepts. As a consequence, the approaches based on first order logic do not provide an appropriate con ceptual framework for dealing with the representation of commonsense knowl edge, since such knowledge is by its nature both lexically imprecise and non categorical.




Applications of Fuzzy Optimization and Fuzzy Decision Making


Book Description

The aim of the Special Issue "Applications of Fuzzy Optimization and Fuzzy Decision Making" is to expand the applicability of fuzzy optimization and decision making for solving various types of problems in the areas of economics, business, engineering, management, operations research, etc. Any experimental research or empirical study of theoretical developments in fuzzy optimization and decision making is highly welcome. Additionally, research papers presenting solution methods and/or studying their computational complexity, and proposing new algorithms to solve fuzzy optimization and decision making problems, in an effective and efficient manner, are also welcome. We are looking forward to receive innovative approaches that apply, in practical settings, state-of-the art mathematical/algorithmic techniques from fuzzy technology, computational intelligence and soft-computing methodologies, with the aim to offer robust solutions for complex optimization and decision making problems characterized by non-probabilistic uncertainty, vagueness, ambiguity, and hesitation. Such type of papers will address the suitability, validity, and advantages of using fuzzy technologies and the enhancement of them using intelligent methods to treat real-life problems from various disciplines.




Decision Theory With Imperfect Information


Book Description

Every day decision making in complex human-centric systems are characterized by imperfect decision-relevant information. The principal problems with the existing decision theories are that they do not have capability to deal with situations in which probabilities and events are imprecise. In this book, we describe a new theory of decision making with imperfect information. The aim is to shift the foundation of decision analysis and economic behavior from the realm bivalent logic to the realm fuzzy logic and Z-restriction, from external modeling of behavioral decisions to the framework of combined states.This book will be helpful for professionals, academics, managers and graduate students in fuzzy logic, decision sciences, artificial intelligence, mathematical economics, and computational economics.




Fuzzy Cognitive Maps for Applied Sciences and Engineering


Book Description

Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) constitute cognitive models in the form of fuzzy directed graphs consisting of two basic elements: the nodes, which basically correspond to “concepts” bearing different states of activation depending on the knowledge they represent, and the “edges” denoting the causal effects that each source node exercises on the receiving concept expressed through weights. Weights take values in the interval [-1,1], which denotes the positive, negative or neutral causal relationship between two concepts. An FCM can be typically obtained through linguistic terms, inherent to fuzzy systems, but with a structure similar to the neural networks, which facilitates data processing, and has capabilities for training and adaptation. During the last 10 years, an exponential growth of published papers in FCMs was followed showing great impact potential. Different FCM structures and learning schemes have been developed, while numerous studies report their use in many contexts with highly successful modeling results. The aim of this book is to fill the existing gap in the literature concerning fundamentals, models, extensions and learning algorithms for FCMs in knowledge engineering. It comprehensively covers the state-of-the-art FCM modeling and learning methods, with algorithms, codes and software tools, and provides a set of applications that demonstrate their various usages in applied sciences and engineering.




Fuzzy Sets, Decision Making, and Expert Systems


Book Description

In the two decades since its inception by L. Zadeh, the theory of fuzzy sets has matured into a wide-ranging collection of concepts, models, and tech niques for dealing with complex phenomena which do not lend themselves to analysis by classical methods based on probability theory and bivalent logic. Nevertheless, a question which is frequently raised by the skeptics is: Are there, in fact, any significant problem areas in which the use of the theory of fuzzy sets leads to results which could not be obtained by classical methods? The approximately 5000 publications in this area, which are scattered over many areas such as artificial intelligence, computer science, control engineering, decision making, logic, operations research, pattern recognition, robotics and others, provide an affirmative answer to this question. In spite of the large number of publications, good and comprehensive textbooks which could facilitate the access of newcomers to this area and support teaching were missing until recently. To help to close this gap and to provide a textbook for courses in fuzzy set theory which can also be used as an introduction to this field, the first volume ofthis book was published in 1985 [Zimmermann 1985 b]. This volume tried to cover fuzzy set theory and its applications as extensively as possible. Applications could, therefore, only be described to a limited extent and not very detailed.




Fuzzy Theories on Decision Making


Book Description




13th International Conference on Theory and Application of Fuzzy Systems and Soft Computing — ICAFS-2018


Book Description

This book presents the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Application of Fuzzy Systems and Soft Computing (ICAFS 2018), held in Warsaw, Poland on August 27–28, 2018. It includes contributions from diverse areas of soft computing such as uncertain computation, Z-information processing, neuro-fuzzy approaches, evolutionary computing and others. The topics of the papers include theory of uncertainty computation; theory and application of soft computing; decision theory with imperfect information; neuro-fuzzy technology; image processing with soft computing; intelligent control; machine learning; fuzzy logic in data analytics and data mining; evolutionary computing; chaotic systems; soft computing in business, economics and finance; fuzzy logic and soft computing in the earth sciences; fuzzy logic and soft computing in engineering; soft computing in medicine, biomedical engineering and the pharmaceutical sciences; and probabilistic and statistical reasoning in the social and educational sciences. The book covers new ideas from theoretical and practical perspectives in economics, business, industry, education, medicine, the earth sciences and other fields. In addition to promoting the development and application of soft computing methods in various real-life fields, it offers a useful guide for academics, practitioners, and graduates in fuzzy logic and soft computing fields.




Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making


Book Description

This monograph is intended for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course as well as for researchers, who want a compilation of developments in this rapidly growing field of operations research. This is a sequel to our previous works: "Multiple Objective Decision Making--Methods and Applications: A state-of-the-Art Survey" (No.164 of the Lecture Notes); "Multiple Attribute Decision Making--Methods and Applications: A State-of-the-Art Survey" (No.186 of the Lecture Notes); and "Group Decision Making under Multiple Criteria--Methods and Applications" (No.281 of the Lecture Notes). In this monograph, the literature on methods of fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) has been reviewed thoroughly and critically, and classified systematically. This study provides readers with a capsule look into the existing methods, their characteristics, and applicability to the analysis of fuzzy MADM problems. The basic concepts and algorithms from the classical MADM methods have been used in the development of the fuzzy MADM methods. We give an overview of the classical MADM in Chapter II. Chapter III presents the basic concepts and mathematical operations of fuzzy set theory with simple numerical examples in a easy-to-read and easy-to-follow manner. Fuzzy MADM methods basically consist of two phases: (1) the aggregation of the performance scores with respect to all the attributes for each alternative, and (2) the rank ordering of the alternatives according to the aggregated scores.