This book focuses on systematic and intelligent information processing theories and methods based on linguistic values. The main contents include topics such as the 2-tuple model of linguistic values, 2-tuple linguistic aggregation operator hedge algebras, complete hedge algebras and linguistic value reasoning, reasoning with linguistic quantifiers, linguistic reasoning based on a random set, the fuzzy number model of linguistic values, linguistic value aggregation based on the fuzzy number model, extraction of linguistic proposition from a database and handling of linguistic information on the Internet, linguistic truth value lattice implication algebras, linguistic truth value resolution automatic reasoning, linguistic truth value reasoning based on lattice implication algebra, and related applications in decision-making and forecast.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the need for designing intelligent systems to address complex decision systems. One of the most challenging issues for the intelligent system is to effectively handle real-world uncertainties that cannot be eliminated. These uncertainties include various types of information that are incomplete, imprecise, fragmentary, not fully reliable, vague, contradictory, deficient, and overloading. The uncertainties result in a lack of the full and precise knowledge of the decision system, including the determining and selection of evaluation criteria, alternatives, weights, assignment scores, and the final integrated decision result. Computational intelligent techniques (including fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms etc.), which are complimentary to the existing traditional techniques, have shown great potential to solve these demanding, real-world decision problems that exist in uncertain and unpredictable environments. These technologies have formed the foundation for intelligent systems.

Over the past years, the appropriateness of Computational Intelligence (CI) techniques in modeling and optimization tasks pertaining to complex nonlinear dynamic systems has become indubitable, as attested by a large number of studies reporting on the successful application of CI models in nonlinear science (for example, adaptive control, signal processing, medical diagnostic, pattern formation, living systems, etc.).This volume summarizes the state-of-the-art of CI in the context of nonlinear dynamic systems and synchronization. Aiming at fostering new breakthroughs, the chapters in the book focus on theoretical, experimental and computational aspects of recent advances in nonlinear science intertwined with computational intelligence techniques. In addition, all the chapters have a tutorial-oriented structure.

Much work on fuzzy control, covering research, development and applications, has been developed in Europe since the 90's. Nevertheless, the existing books in the field are compilations of articles without interconnection or logical structure or they express the personal point of view of the author. This book compiles the developments of researchers with demonstrated experience in the field of fuzzy control following a logic structure and a unified the style. The first chapters of the book are dedicated to the introduction of the main fuzzy logic techniques, where the following chapters focus on concrete applications. This book is supported by the EUSFLAT and CEA-IFAC societies, which include a large number of researchers in the field of fuzzy logic and control. The central topic of the book, Fuzzy Control, is one of the main research and development lines covered by these associations.

This book describes research performed in the context of trust/distrust propagation and aggregation, and their use in recommender systems. This is a hot research topic with important implications for various application areas. The main innovative contributions of the work are:-new bilattice-based model for trust and distrust, allowing for ignorance and inconsistency-proposals for various propagation and aggregation operators, including the analysis of mathematical properties-Evaluation of these operators on real data, including a discussion on the data sets and their characteristics.-A novel approach for identifying controversial items in a recommender system-An analysis on the utility of including distrust in recommender systems-Various approaches for trust based recommendations (a.o. base on collaborative filtering), an in depth experimental analysis, and proposal for a hybrid approach-Analysis of various user types in recommender systems to optimize bootstrapping of cold start users.

This book describes research performed in the context of trust/distrust propagation and aggregation, and their use in recommender systems. This is a hot research topic with important implications for various application areas. The main innovative contributions of the work are:-new bilattice-based model for trust and distrust, allowing for ignorance and inconsistency-proposals for various propagation and aggregation operators, including the analysis of mathematical properties-Evaluation of these operators on real data, including a discussion on the data sets and their characteristics.-A novel approach for identifying controversial items in a recommender system-An analysis on the utility of including distrust in recommender systems-Various approaches for trust based recommendations (a.o. base on collaborative filtering), an in depth experimental analysis, and proposal for a hybrid approach-Analysis of various user types in recommender systems to optimize bootstrapping of cold start users.

Answer set programming (ASP) is a declarative language tailored towards solving combinatorial optimization problems. It has been successfully applied to e.g. planning problems, configuration and verification of software, diagnosis and database repairs. However, ASP is not directly suitable for modeling problems with continuous domains. Such problems occur naturally in diverse fields such as the design of gas and electricity networks, computer vision and investment portfolios. To overcome this problem we study FASP, a combination of ASP with fuzzy logic -- a class of manyvalued logics that can handle continuity. We specifically focus on the following issues:1. An important question when modeling continuous optimization problems is how we should handle overconstrained problems, i.e. problems that have no solutions. In many cases we can opt to accept an imperfect solution, i.e. a solution that does not satisfy all the stated rules (constraints). However, this leads to the question: what imperfect solutions should we choose? We investigate this question and improve upon the state-of-the-art by proposing an approach based on aggregation functions.2. Users of a programming language often want a rich language that is easy to model in. However, implementers and theoreticians prefer a small language that is easy to implement and reason about. We create a bridge between these two desires by proposing a small core language for FASP and by showing that this language is capable of expressing many of its common extensions such as constraints, monotonically decreasing functions, aggregators, S-implicators and classical negation.3. A well-known technique for solving ASP consists of translating a program P to a propositional theory whose models exactly correspond to the answer sets of P. We show how this technique can be generalized to FASP, paving the way to implement efficient fuzzy answer set solvers thatcan take advantage of existing fuzzy reasoners.

Disaster management is a process or strategy that is implemented when any type of catastrophic event takes place. The process may be initiated when anything threatens to disrupt normal operations or puts the lives of human beings at risk. Governments on all levels as well as many businesses create some sort of disaster plan that make it possible to overcome the catastrophe and return to normal function as quickly as possible.Response to natural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes) or technological disaster (e.g., nuclear, chemical) is an extreme complex process that involves severe time pressure, various uncertainties, high non-linearity and many stakeholders. Disaster management often requires several autonomous agencies to collaboratively mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from heterogeneous and dynamic sets of hazards to society.Almost all disasters involve high degrees of novelty to deal with most unexpected various uncertainties and dynamic time pressures. Existing studies and approaches within disaster management have mainly been focused on some specific type of disasters with certain agency oriented. There is a lack of a general framework to deal with similarities and synergies among different disasters by taking their specific features into account.This book provides with various decisions analysis theories and support tools in complex systems in general and in disaster management in particular. The book is also generated during a long-term preparation of a European project proposal among most leading experts in the areas related to the book title.Chapters are evaluated based on quality and originality in theory and methodology, application oriented, relevance to the title of the book.

Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of production and service systems. Computational Intelligence Systems find a wide application area in industrial engineering: neural networks in forecasting, fuzzy sets in capital budgeting, ant colony optimization in scheduling, Simulated Annealing in optimization, etc. This book will include most of the application areas of industrial engineering through these computational intelligence systems. In the literature, there is no book including many real and practical applications of Computational Intelligence Systems from the point of view of Industrial Engineering. Every chapter will include explanatory and didactic applications. It is aimed that the book will be a main source for MSc and PhD students.

This book focuses on systematic and intelligent information processing theories and methods based on linguistic values. The main contents include topics such as the 2-tuple model of linguistic values, 2-tuple linguistic aggregation operator hedge algebras, complete hedge algebras and linguistic value reasoning, reasoning with linguistic quantifiers, linguistic reasoning based on a random set, the fuzzy number model of linguistic values, linguistic value aggregation based on the fuzzy number model, extraction of linguistic proposition from a database and handling of linguistic information on the Internet, linguistic truth value lattice implication algebras, linguistic truth value resolution automatic reasoning, linguistic truth value reasoning based on lattice implication algebra, and related applications in decision-making and forecast.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the need for designing intelligent systems to address complex decision systems. One of the most challenging issues for the intelligent system is to effectively handle real-world uncertainties that cannot be eliminated. These uncertainties include various types of information that are incomplete, imprecise, fragmentary, not fully reliable, vague, contradictory, deficient, and overloading. The uncertainties result in a lack of the full and precise knowledge of the decision system, including the determining and selection of evaluation criteria, alternatives, weights, assignment scores, and the final integrated decision result. Computational intelligent techniques (including fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms etc.), which are complimentary to the existing traditional techniques, have shown great potential to solve these demanding, real-world decision problems that exist in uncertain and unpredictable environments. These technologies have formed the foundation for intelligent systems.

Over the past years, the appropriateness of Computational Intelligence (CI) techniques in modeling and optimization tasks pertaining to complex nonlinear dynamic systems has become indubitable, as attested by a large number of studies reporting on the successful application of CI models in nonlinear science (for example, adaptive control, signal processing, medical diagnostic, pattern formation, living systems, etc.).This volume summarizes the state-of-the-art of CI in the context of nonlinear dynamic systems and synchronization. Aiming at fostering new breakthroughs, the chapters in the book focus on theoretical, experimental and computational aspects of recent advances in nonlinear science intertwined with computational intelligence techniques. In addition, all the chapters have a tutorial-oriented structure.

Much work on fuzzy control, covering research, development and applications, has been developed in Europe since the 90's. Nevertheless, the existing books in the field are compilations of articles without interconnection or logical structure or they express the personal point of view of the author. This book compiles the developments of researchers with demonstrated experience in the field of fuzzy control following a logic structure and a unified the style. The first chapters of the book are dedicated to the introduction of the main fuzzy logic techniques, where the following chapters focus on concrete applications. This book is supported by the EUSFLAT and CEA-IFAC societies, which include a large number of researchers in the field of fuzzy logic and control. The central topic of the book, Fuzzy Control, is one of the main research and development lines covered by these associations.

This book describes research performed in the context of trust/distrust propagation and aggregation, and their use in recommender systems. This is a hot research topic with important implications for various application areas. The main innovative contributions of the work are:-new bilattice-based model for trust and distrust, allowing for ignorance and inconsistency-proposals for various propagation and aggregation operators, including the analysis of mathematical properties-Evaluation of these operators on real data, including a discussion on the data sets and their characteristics.-A novel approach for identifying controversial items in a recommender system-An analysis on the utility of including distrust in recommender systems-Various approaches for trust based recommendations (a.o. base on collaborative filtering), an in depth experimental analysis, and proposal for a hybrid approach-Analysis of various user types in recommender systems to optimize bootstrapping of cold start users.

This book describes research performed in the context of trust/distrust propagation and aggregation, and their use in recommender systems. This is a hot research topic with important implications for various application areas. The main innovative contributions of the work are:-new bilattice-based model for trust and distrust, allowing for ignorance and inconsistency-proposals for various propagation and aggregation operators, including the analysis of mathematical properties-Evaluation of these operators on real data, including a discussion on the data sets and their characteristics.-A novel approach for identifying controversial items in a recommender system-An analysis on the utility of including distrust in recommender systems-Various approaches for trust based recommendations (a.o. base on collaborative filtering), an in depth experimental analysis, and proposal for a hybrid approach-Analysis of various user types in recommender systems to optimize bootstrapping of cold start users.

Answer set programming (ASP) is a declarative language tailored towards solving combinatorial optimization problems. It has been successfully applied to e.g. planning problems, configuration and verification of software, diagnosis and database repairs. However, ASP is not directly suitable for modeling problems with continuous domains. Such problems occur naturally in diverse fields such as the design of gas and electricity networks, computer vision and investment portfolios. To overcome this problem we study FASP, a combination of ASP with fuzzy logic -- a class of manyvalued logics that can handle continuity. We specifically focus on the following issues:1. An important question when modeling continuous optimization problems is how we should handle overconstrained problems, i.e. problems that have no solutions. In many cases we can opt to accept an imperfect solution, i.e. a solution that does not satisfy all the stated rules (constraints). However, this leads to the question: what imperfect solutions should we choose? We investigate this question and improve upon the state-of-the-art by proposing an approach based on aggregation functions.2. Users of a programming language often want a rich language that is easy to model in. However, implementers and theoreticians prefer a small language that is easy to implement and reason about. We create a bridge between these two desires by proposing a small core language for FASP and by showing that this language is capable of expressing many of its common extensions such as constraints, monotonically decreasing functions, aggregators, S-implicators and classical negation.3. A well-known technique for solving ASP consists of translating a program P to a propositional theory whose models exactly correspond to the answer sets of P. We show how this technique can be generalized to FASP, paving the way to implement efficient fuzzy answer set solvers thatcan take advantage of existing fuzzy reasoners.

Disaster management is a process or strategy that is implemented when any type of catastrophic event takes place. The process may be initiated when anything threatens to disrupt normal operations or puts the lives of human beings at risk. Governments on all levels as well as many businesses create some sort of disaster plan that make it possible to overcome the catastrophe and return to normal function as quickly as possible.Response to natural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes) or technological disaster (e.g., nuclear, chemical) is an extreme complex process that involves severe time pressure, various uncertainties, high non-linearity and many stakeholders. Disaster management often requires several autonomous agencies to collaboratively mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from heterogeneous and dynamic sets of hazards to society.Almost all disasters involve high degrees of novelty to deal with most unexpected various uncertainties and dynamic time pressures. Existing studies and approaches within disaster management have mainly been focused on some specific type of disasters with certain agency oriented. There is a lack of a general framework to deal with similarities and synergies among different disasters by taking their specific features into account.This book provides with various decisions analysis theories and support tools in complex systems in general and in disaster management in particular. The book is also generated during a long-term preparation of a European project proposal among most leading experts in the areas related to the book title.Chapters are evaluated based on quality and originality in theory and methodology, application oriented, relevance to the title of the book.

Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of production and service systems. Computational Intelligence Systems find a wide application area in industrial engineering: neural networks in forecasting, fuzzy sets in capital budgeting, ant colony optimization in scheduling, Simulated Annealing in optimization, etc. This book will include most of the application areas of industrial engineering through these computational intelligence systems. In the literature, there is no book including many real and practical applications of Computational Intelligence Systems from the point of view of Industrial Engineering. Every chapter will include explanatory and didactic applications. It is aimed that the book will be a main source for MSc and PhD students.