33,855 research outputs found
Dealing with Fuzzy Information in Software Design Methods
Software design methods incorporate a large set of heuristic rules that should result in stable software architecture of high quality. In general, clearly defined inputs are required to deliver the desired results. Unfortunately, especially in the early phases of software development, it is very difficult or even impossible to provide precisely defined information. Since methods cannot deal with imprecision, the designers need to make approximations which are generally not justifiable. In this paper, we will advocate an approach where the inputs for software design methods are modeled by using fuzzy sets. This approach renders the need for introduction of extra information for removal of inexactness obsolete
A Description Logic Framework for Commonsense Conceptual Combination Integrating Typicality, Probabilities and Cognitive Heuristics
We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for
the phenomenon of concept combination of prototypical concepts. The proposed
logic relies on the logic of typicality ALC TR, whose semantics is based on the
notion of rational closure, as well as on the distributed semantics of
probabilistic Description Logics, and is equipped with a cognitive heuristic
used by humans for concept composition. We first extend the logic of typicality
ALC TR by typicality inclusions whose intuitive meaning is that "there is
probability p about the fact that typical Cs are Ds". As in the distributed
semantics, we define different scenarios containing only some typicality
inclusions, each one having a suitable probability. We then focus on those
scenarios whose probabilities belong to a given and fixed range, and we exploit
such scenarios in order to ascribe typical properties to a concept C obtained
as the combination of two prototypical concepts. We also show that reasoning in
the proposed Description Logic is EXPTIME-complete as for the underlying ALC.Comment: 39 pages, 3 figure
Geometric lattice structure of covering and its application to attribute reduction through matroids
The reduction of covering decision systems is an important problem in data
mining, and covering-based rough sets serve as an efficient technique to
process the problem. Geometric lattices have been widely used in many fields,
especially greedy algorithm design which plays an important role in the
reduction problems. Therefore, it is meaningful to combine coverings with
geometric lattices to solve the optimization problems. In this paper, we obtain
geometric lattices from coverings through matroids and then apply them to the
issue of attribute reduction. First, a geometric lattice structure of a
covering is constructed through transversal matroids. Then its atoms are
studied and used to describe the lattice. Second, considering that all the
closed sets of a finite matroid form a geometric lattice, we propose a
dependence space through matroids and study the attribute reduction issues of
the space, which realizes the application of geometric lattices to attribute
reduction. Furthermore, a special type of information system is taken as an
example to illustrate the application. In a word, this work points out an
interesting view, namely, geometric lattice to study the attribute reduction
issues of information systems
An alternative approach to firms’ evaluation: expert systems and fuzzy logic
Discounted Cash Flow techniques are the generally accepted methods for valuing firms. Such methods do not provide explicit acknowledgment of the value determinants and overlook their interrelations. This paper proposes a different method of firm valuation based on fuzzy logic and expert systems. It does represent a conceptual transposition of Discounted Cash Flow techniques but, unlike the latter, it takes explicit account of quantitative and qualitative variables and their mutual integration. Financial, strategic and business aspects are considered by focusing on twenty-nine value drivers that are combined together via “if-then” rules. The output of the system is a real number in the interval [0,1], which represents the value-creation power of the firm. To corroborate the model a sensitivity analysis is conducted. The system may be used for rating and ranking firms as well as for assessing the impact of managers’ decisions on value creation and as a tool of corporate governance.Firms’ evaluation, fuzzy logic, expert system, rating, acquisition, sensitivity analysis
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