SPECIAL SESSION: Relation Between Interval and Fuzzy Techniques

SCOPE: The session is will include all aspects of relations between interval and fuzzy techniques, including:

• the use of interval techniques to process fuzzy data - the use motivated by the fact that a fuzzy number can be represented as a nested family of intervals, and fuzzy data processing can be described as processing the corresponding intervals layer-by-layer
• theory and applications of interval-valued fuzzy sets
• general applications combining interval and fuzzy information
• results and algorithms from interval mathematics that are of potential use in fuzzy applications
• challenging application-motivated open problems related to the relation between interval and fuzzy techniques, including the problems related to the need to go beyond interval-valued fuzzy sets, for example:
  • to more general second-order fuzzy sets, and
  • to techniques combining interval, fuzzy, and other types of uncertainty (probabilistic, rough sets, etc.).

MOTIVATION: The need for this session is motivated by the following two developments:

• First, in the last decades, there has been a lot of progress in interval techniques. Since the appearance of fuzzy logic and fuzzy techniques, interval-based methods have been successfully used for processing fuzzy data. However, most of these applications are still based on the original 1960s and 1970s interval techniques. It is desirable to inform the fuzzy community about the new more efficient interval techniques, so that they can be more widely used in fuzzy applications.
• Second, there has been a lot of progress in second-order (type-2) fuzzy techniques, techniques that go beyond the traditional [0,1]-based fuzzy logic. This progress is largely due to the leadership of Jerry Mendel and his colleagues and co-authors such as O. Castillo and P. Melin. From the purely theoretical viewpoint, interval-valued fuzzy techniques are a very specific particular case of such generalizations, but in most practical applications, the transition to interval-based techniques is the most useful (and further complications usually do not add to the technique's success). In view of this empirical fact, it is desirable to concentrate explicitly on the analysis of such techniques, to try to explain why interval-valued techniques are so successful, and to modify the existing general type-2 algorithms so that they will be most efficient in interval-valued applications.

Sessions devoted to relations between interval and fuzzy techniques have been successfully organized at several fuzzy conferences such as FUZZ-IEEE and NAFIPS, but they were mainly oriented towards practical applications. Since IFSA Congresses are usually stronger in theoretical foundations, it is desirable to organize a similar session at IFSA where more emphasis will be placed on the theoretical foundations of the relations between intervals and fuzzy, and not just on the practical consequences of these relations.

ORGANIZER NAMES: Vladik Kreinovich, Weldon Lodwick, and Hung T. Nguyen

CONTACT INFORMATION: contact Vladik Kreinovich
mailing address:
Vladik Kreinovich
Department of Computer Science
University of Texas at El Paso
500 W. University
El Paso, TX 79968, USA
email vladik@utep.edu
phone (915) 747-6951
fax (915) 747-5030