Some characteristics of matroids through rough sets

At present, practical application and theoretical discussion of rough sets are two hot problems in computer science. The core concepts of rough set theory are upper and lower approximation operators based on equivalence relations. Matroid, as a branch of mathematics, is a structure that generalizes linear independence in vector spaces. Further, matroid theory borrows extensively from the terminology of linear algebra and graph theory. We can combine rough set theory with matroid theory through using rough sets to study some characteristics of matroids. In this paper, we apply rough sets to matroids through defining a family of sets which are constructed from the upper approximation operator with respect to an equivalence relation. First, we prove the family of sets satisfies the support set axioms of matroids, and then we obtain a matroid. We say the matroids induced by the equivalence relation and a type of matroid, namely support matroid, is induced. Second, through rough sets, some characteristics of matroids such as independent sets, support sets, bases, hyperplanes and closed sets are investigated.Comment: 13 page

Representation of maxitive measures: an overview

Idempotent integration is an analogue of Lebesgue integration where $\sigma$-maxitive measures replace $\sigma$-additive measures. In addition to reviewing and unifying several Radon--Nikodym like theorems proven in the literature for the idempotent integral, we also prove new results of the same kind.Comment: 40 page

Time series forecasting using a TSK fuzzy system tuned with simulated annealing

In this paper, a combination of a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy system (TSK) and simulated annealing is used to predict well known time series by searching for the best configuration of the fuzzy system. Simulated annealing is used to optimise the parameters of the antecedent and the consequent parts of the fuzzy system rules. The results of the proposed method are encouraging indicating that simulated annealing and fuzzy logic are able to combine well in time series prediction

Managing Interacting Criteria: Application to Environmental Evaluation Practices

The need for organizations to evaluate their environmental practices has been recently increasing. This fact has led to the development of many approaches to appraise such practices. In this paper, a novel decision model to evaluate company’s environmental practices is proposed to improve traditional evaluation process in different facets. Firstly, different reviewers’ collectives related to the company’s activity are taken into account in the process to increase company internal efficiency and external legitimacy. Secondly, following the standard ISO 14031, two general categories of environmental performance indicators, management and operational, are considered. Thirdly, since the assumption of independence among environmental indicators is rarely verified in environmental context, an aggregation operator to bear in mind the relationship among such indicators in the evaluation results is proposed. Finally, this new model integrates quantitative and qualitative information with different scales using a multi-granular linguistic model that allows to adapt diverse evaluation scales according to appraisers’ knowledge