The Combination of Paradoxical, Uncertain, and Imprecise Sources of Information based on DSmT and Neutro-Fuzzy Inference

The management and combination of uncertain, imprecise, fuzzy and even paradoxical or high conflicting sources of information has always been, and still remains today, of primal importance for the development of reliable modern information systems involving artificial reasoning. In this chapter, we present a survey of our recent theory of plausible and paradoxical reasoning, known as Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) in the literature, developed for dealing with imprecise, uncertain and paradoxical sources of information. We focus our presentation here rather on the foundations of DSmT, and on the two important new rules of combination, than on browsing specific applications of DSmT available in literature. Several simple examples are given throughout the presentation to show the efficiency and the generality of this new approach. The last part of this chapter concerns the presentation of the neutrosophic logic, the neutro-fuzzy inference and its connection with DSmT. Fuzzy logic and neutrosophic logic are useful tools in decision making after fusioning the information using the DSm hybrid rule of combination of masses.Comment: 20 page

Fuzzy Logic in Decision Support: Methods, Applications and Future Trends

During the last decades, the art and science of fuzzy logic have witnessed significant developments and have found applications in many active areas, such as pattern recognition, classification, control systems, etc. A lot of research has demonstrated the ability of fuzzy logic in dealing with vague and uncertain linguistic information. For the purpose of representing human perception, fuzzy logic has been employed as an effective tool in intelligent decision making. Due to the emergence of various studies on fuzzy logic-based decision-making methods, it is necessary to make a comprehensive overview of published papers in this field and their applications. This paper covers a wide range of both theoretical and practical applications of fuzzy logic in decision making. It has been grouped into five parts: to explain the role of fuzzy logic in decision making, we first present some basic ideas underlying different types of fuzzy logic and the structure of the fuzzy logic system. Then, we make a review of evaluation methods, prediction methods, decision support algorithms, group decision-making methods based on fuzzy logic. Applications of these methods are further reviewed. Finally, some challenges and future trends are given from different perspectives. This paper illustrates that the combination of fuzzy logic and decision making method has an extensive research prospect. It can help researchers to identify the frontiers of fuzzy logic in the field of decision making

Information Markets: A Research Landscape

Information markets are mechanisms that allow a group of geographically dispersed participants to reach and continuously reevaluate consensus by discovering the value of alternative outcomes. Evidence suggests that these markets can produce better quality decisions than a small subset of selected decision makers: a finding in direct opposition to the trust we place on expertise. In challenging and uncertain decision-making arenas, information markets offer an interesting, and somewhat counter-intuitive approach. In practice, information markets may be used in combination with other decision-making methods, but these market-based mechanisms offer many advantages. This paper presents an information market typology and explores some of the challenges raised by different market applications. Market types include event and estimation-based prediction markets, decision markets, and idea markets. An integrated research landscape model and research propositions are presented to help guide continuing research in this area

Sequential decision making with adaptive utility

Decision making with adaptive utility provides a generalisation to classical Bayesian decision theory, allowing the creation of a normative theory for decision selection when preferences are initially uncertain. The theory of adaptive utility was introduced by Cyert & DeGroot [27], but had since received little attention or development. In particular, foundational issues had not been explored and no consideration had been given to the generalisation of traditional utility concepts such as value of information or risk aversion. This thesis addresses such issues. An in-depth review of the decision theory literature is given, detailing differences in assumptions between various proposed normative theories and their possible generalisations. Motivation is provided for generalising expected utility theory to permit uncertain preferences, and it is argued that in such a situation, under the acceptance of traditional utility axioms, the decision maker should seek to select decisions so asto maximise expected adaptive utility . The possible applications of the theory forsequential decision making are illustrated by some small-scale examples, including examples of relevance within reliability theory

Study on Evaluating Wireless Sensor Network Security Based on Uncertain Linguistic Information

Wireless sensor network (WSN), as an integrated network which can perform information gathering, processing and delivering, can connect the real world and logistic information world. It is greatly changing the interaction between people and nature. There are wide potential applications for wireless sensor network, such as industry, agriculture, military affairs, environment monitoring, biomedicine, city managing and disaster succoring. The problem of evaluating security of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) with uncertain linguistic information is the multiple attribute group decision making (MAGDM). In this paper, we investigate the multiple attribute group decision making (MAGDM) problems for evaluating the wireless sensor network (WSN) security with uncertain linguistic information. We utilize the uncertain linguistic weighted averaging (ULWA) operator to aggregate the uncertain linguistic information corresponding to each alternative and get the overall value of the alternatives, then rank the alternatives and select the most desirable one(s) by using the formula of the degree of possibility for the comparison between two uncertain linguistic variables. Finally, an illustrative example is given

Fuzzy systems and applications in innovation and sustainability

One of the main characteristics of humankind is the ability to interpret via natural language incomplete, imprecise, vague, subjective, fragmentary, or scarce information i.e. information in uncertainty and transform it to actions, reason and decision-making [9]. Fuzzy sets theory firstly introduced the treatment of such concepts in 1965 with the foremost influential paper "Fuzzy Sets" [29]. The groundbreaking standpoint of fuzzy systems allows the treatment of uncertain information with the utilization of a strict mathematical framework [8]. Ever since the publication of the pivotal paper from Zadeh, a plethora of contributions have shaped the fuzzy sets theory scope and applications, from developments in engineering, mathematics, computer, decision, life, physical, health, social sciences and humanities [17 (...

A dam assessment support system based on physical measurements, sensory evaluations and expert judgements

In engineering system control, human beings can play various key roles, in particular concerning measurement, global assessment and decision. This paper focuses on methods that allow the representation and aggregation of heterogeneous data (sensory evaluations, physical measurements, outputs of mathematical models, etc.) used in a global dam assessment process. It is acknowledged that in such complex systems many of the variables involved are evaluated with uncertainty. We propose a possibility theory-based approach to deal with all the different uncertain pieces of information and propagate them in aggregation models for global dam assessment. Finally, decision-making and communication applications relating to dam safety are presented