Zhenyuan Wang - Böcker

Providing the first comprehensive treatment of the subject, this groundbreaking work is solidly founded on a decade of concentrated research, some of which is published here for the first time, as well as practical, ''hands on'' classroom experience. The clarity of presentation and abundance of examples and exercises make it suitable as a graduate level text in mathematics, decision making, artificial intelligence, and engineering courses.

In 1992 we published a book entitled Fuzzy Measure Theory (Plenum Press, New York), in which the term ‘‘fuzzy measure’’ was used for set functions obtained by replacing the additivity requirement of classical measures with weaker requirements of monotonicity with respect to set inclusion and con- nuity. That is, the book dealt with nonnegative set functions that were mo- tone, vanished at the empty set, and possessed appropriate continuity properties when defined on infinite sets. It seems that Fuzzy Measure Theory was the only book available on the market at that time devoted to this emerging new mathematical theory. Some ten years after its publication we began to see that the subject had expanded so much that a second edition of the book, or even a new book on the subject, was needed. We eventually decided to write a new book because the new material we wished to include was too extensive for—and far beyond the usual scope—of a second edition. More importantly, we felt that some fundamental changes regarding this topic’s scope and terminology would be desirable and timely.

Providing the first comprehensive treatment of the subject, this groundbreaking work is solidly founded on a decade of concentrated research, some of which is published here for the first time, as well as practical, ''hands on'' classroom experience.

In 1992 we published a book entitled Fuzzy Measure Theory (Plenum Press, New York), in which the term ‘‘fuzzy measure’’ was used for set functions obtained by replacing the additivity requirement of classical measures with weaker requirements of monotonicity with respect to set inclusion and con- nuity. That is, the book dealt with nonnegative set functions that were mo- tone, vanished at the empty set, and possessed appropriate continuity properties when defined on infinite sets. It seems that Fuzzy Measure Theory was the only book available on the market at that time devoted to this emerging new mathematical theory. Some ten years after its publication we began to see that the subject had expanded so much that a second edition of the book, or even a new book on the subject, was needed. We eventually decided to write a new book because the new material we wished to include was too extensive for—and far beyond the usual scope—of a second edition. More importantly, we felt that some fundamental changes regarding this topic’s scope and terminology would be desirable and timely.