This book is an essential contribution to the description of fuzziness in information systems. Usually users want to retrieve data or summarized information from a database and are interested in classifying it or building rule-based systems on it. But they are often not aware of the nature of this data and/or are unable to determine clear search criteria. The book examines theoretical and practical approaches to fuzziness in information systems based on statistical data related to territorial units. Chapter 1 discusses the theory of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic to enable readers to understand the information presented in the book. Chapter 2 is devoted to flexible queries and includes issues like constructing fuzzy sets for query conditions, and aggregation operators for commutative and non-commutative conditions, while Chapter 3 focuses on linguistic summaries. Chapter 4 presents fuzzy logic control architecture adjusted specifically for the aims of business and governmental agencies, and shows fuzzy rules and procedures for solving inference tasks. Chapter 5 covers the fuzzification of classical relational databases with an emphasis on storing fuzzy data in classical relational databases in such a way that existing data and normal forms are not affected. This book also examines practical aspects of user-friendly interfaces for storing, updating, querying and summarizing. Lastly, Chapter 6 briefly discusses possible integration of fuzzy queries, summarization and inference related to crisp and fuzzy databases. The main target audience of the book is researchers and students working in the fields of data analysis, database design and business intelligence. As it does not go too deeply into the foundation and mathematical theory of fuzzy logic and relational algebra, it is also of interest to advanced professionals developing tailored applications based on fuzzy sets.

Approximate reasoning is a key motivation in fuzzy sets and possibility theory. This volume provides a coherent view of this field, and its impact on database research and information retrieval. First, the semantic foundations of approximate reasoning are presented. Special emphasis is given to the representation of fuzzy rules and specialized types of approximate reasoning. Then syntactic aspects of approximate reasoning are surveyed and the algebraic underpinnings of fuzzy consequence relations are presented and explained. The second part of the book is devoted to inductive and neuro-fuzzy methods for learning fuzzy rules. It also contains new material on the application of possibility theory to data fusion. The last part of the book surveys the growing literature on fuzzy information systems. Each chapter contains extensive bibliographical material. Fuzzy Sets in Approximate Reasoning and Information Systems is a major source of information for research scholars and graduate students in computer science and artificial intelligence, interested in human information processing.

This book is an essential contribution to the description of fuzziness in information systems. Usually users want to retrieve data or summarized information from a database and are interested in classifying it or building rule-based systems on it. But they are often not aware of the nature of this data and/or are unable to determine clear search criteria. The book examines theoretical and practical approaches to fuzziness in information systems based on statistical data related to territorial units. Chapter 1 discusses the theory of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic to enable readers to understand the information presented in the book. Chapter 2 is devoted to flexible queries and includes issues like constructing fuzzy sets for query conditions, and aggregation operators for commutative and non-commutative conditions, while Chapter 3 focuses on linguistic summaries. Chapter 4 presents fuzzy logic control architecture adjusted specifically for the aims of business and governmental agencies, and shows fuzzy rules and procedures for solving inference tasks. Chapter 5 covers the fuzzification of classical relational databases with an emphasis on storing fuzzy data in classical relational databases in such a way that existing data and normal forms are not affected. This book also examines practical aspects of user-friendly interfaces for storing, updating, querying and summarizing. Lastly, Chapter 6 briefly discusses possible integration of fuzzy queries, summarization and inference related to crisp and fuzzy databases. The main target audience of the book is researchers and students working in the fields of data analysis, database design and business intelligence. As it does not go too deeply into the foundation and mathematical theory of fuzzy logic and relational algebra, it is also of interest to advanced professionals developing tailored applications based on fuzzy sets.

"This book provides comprehensive coverage and definitions of the most important issues, concepts, trends, and technologies in fuzzy topics applied to databases, discussing current investigation into uncertainty and imprecision management by means of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic in the field of databases and data mining. It offers a guide to fuzzy information processing in databases"--Provided by publisher.

Providing equal emphasis on theoretical foundations and practical issues, this book features fuzzy logic concepts and techniques in intelligent systems, control, and information technology. Uses Fuzzy Logic Toolbox MATLAB to demonstrate exemplar applications and to develop hands-on exercises.

Since their inception, fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic became popular. The reason is that the very idea of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic attacks an old tradition in science, namely bivalent (black-or-white, all-or-none) judg ment and reasoning and the thus resulting approach to formation of scientific theories and models of reality. The idea of fuzzy logic, briefly speaking, is just the opposite of this tradition: instead of full truth and falsity, our judgment and reasoning also involve intermediate truth values. Application of this idea to various fields has become known under the term fuzzy approach (or graded truth approach). Both prac tice (many successful engineering applications) and theory (interesting nontrivial contributions and broad interest of mathematicians, logicians, and engineers) have proven the usefulness of fuzzy approach. One of the most successful areas of fuzzy methods is the application of fuzzy relational modeling. Fuzzy relations represent formal means for modeling of rather nontrivial phenomena (reasoning, decision, control, knowledge extraction, systems analysis and design, etc. ) in the pres ence of a particular kind of indeterminacy called vagueness. Models and methods based on fuzzy relations are often described by logical formulas (or by natural language statements that can be translated into logical formulas). Therefore, in order to approach these models and methods in an appropriate formal way, it is desirable to have a general theory of fuzzy relational systems with basic connections to (formal) language which enables us to describe relationships in these systems.

Fuzzy logic is a way of thinking that is responsive to human zeal to unveil uncertainty and deal with social paradoxes emerging from it. In this book a number of articles illustrate various social applications to fuzzy logic. The engineering part of the book contains a number of papers, devoted to the description of fuzzy engineering design methodologies. In order to share the experience gained we select papers describing not the application result only but the way how this result has been obtained, that is explaining the design procedures. The potential readership of this book includes researchers and students, workers and engineers in both areas of social and engineering studies. It can be used as a handbook and textbook also. The book includes some examples of real fuzzy engineering.