Conjunctors and their residual implicators: characterizations and construction methods

In many practical applications of fuzzy logic it seems clear that one needs more flexibility in the choice of the conjunction: in particular, the associativity and the commutativity of a conjunction may be removed. Motivated by these considerations, we present several classes of conjunctors, i.e. binary operations on $[0,1]$ that are used to extend the boolean conjunction from $\{0,1\}$ to $[0,1]$, and characterize their respective residual implicators. We establish hence a one-to-one correspondence between construction methods for conjunctors and construction methods for residual implicators. Moreover, we introduce some construction methods directly in the class of residual implicators, and, by using a deresiduation procedure, we obtain new conjunctors

Guest editorial: foreword to the special issue on aggregation operators

The fourteen papers in this special section are devoted to aggregation operators with respect to knowledge based systems.<br /

An analysis of the R\"uschendorf transform - with a view towards Sklar's Theorem

In many applications including financial risk measurement, copulas have shown to be a powerful building block to reflect multivariate dependence between several random variables including the mapping of tail dependencies. A famous key result in this field is Sklar's Theorem. Meanwhile, there exist several approaches to prove Sklar's Theorem in its full generality. An elegant probabilistic proof was provided by L. R\"{u}schendorf. To this end he implemented a certain "distributional transform" which naturally transforms an arbitrary distribution function $F$ to a flexible parameter-dependent function which exhibits exactly the same jump size as $F$. By using some real analysis and measure theory only (without involving the use of a given probability measure) we expand into the underlying rich structure of the distributional transform. Based on derived results from this analysis (such as Proposition 2.5 and Theorem 2.12) including a strong and frequent use of the right quantile function, we revisit R\"{u}schendorf's proof of Sklar's theorem and provide some supplementing observations including a further characterisation of distribution functions (Remark 2.3) and a strict mathematical description of their "flat pieces" (Corollary 2.8 and Remark 2.9)

2-Increasing binary aggregation operators

In this work we investigate the class of binary aggregation operators (=agops) satisfying the 2-increasing property, obtaining some characterizations for agops having other special properties (e.g., quasi-arithmetic mean, Choquet-integral based, modularity) and presenting some construction methods. In particular, the notion of P-increasing function is used in order to characterize the composition of 2-increasing agops. The lattice structure (with respect to the pointwise order) of some subclasses of 2-increasing agops is presented. Finally, a method is given for constructing copulas beginning from 2- increasing and 1-Lipschitz agops

A generalization of a copula-based construction of fuzzy implications

In this paper we complement and generalize some constructions of fuzzy implications based on two arbitrary copulas, obtaining new fuzzy implications. By means of (restricted) aggregation functions acting on [0, 1]S, where Sis a fixed finite or infinite set, and related S-systems of fuzzy implications and transforming functions, we introduce and discuss a rather general method for constructing fuzzy implications. Several examples illustrating our results are also included

The Target-Based Utility Model. The role of Copulas and of Non-Additive Measures

My studies and my Ph.D. thesis deal with topics that recently emerged in the field of decisions under risk and uncertainty. In particular, I deal with the "target-based approach" to utility theory. A rich literature has been devoted in the last decade to this approach to economic decisions: originally, interest had been focused on the "single-attribute" case and, more recently, extensions to "multi-attribute" case have been studied. This literature is still growing, with a main focus on applied aspects. I will, on the contrary, focus attention on some aspects of theoretical type, related with the multi-attribute case. Various mathematical concepts, such as non-additive measures, aggregation functions, multivariate probability distributions, and notions of stochastic dependence emerge in the formulation and the analysis of target-based models. Notions in the field of non-additive measures and aggregation functions are quite common in the modern economic literature. They have been used to go beyond the classical principle of maximization of expected utility in decision theory. These notions, furthermore, are used in game theory and multi-criteria decision aid. Along my work, on the contrary, I show how non-additive measures and aggregation functions emerge in a natural way in the frame of the target-based approach to classical utility theory, when considering the multi-attribute case. Furthermore they combine with the analysis of multivariate probability distributions and with concepts of stochastic dependence. The concept of copula also constitutes a very important tool for this work, mainly for two purposes. The first one is linked to the analysis of target-based utilities, the other one is in the comparison between classical stochastic order and the concept of "stochastic precedence". This topic finds its application in statistics as well as in the study of Markov Models linked to waiting times to occurrences of words in random sampling of letters from an alphabet. In this work I give a generalization of the concept of stochastic precedence and we discuss its properties on the basis of properties of the connecting copulas of the variables. Along this work I also trace connections to reliability theory, whose aim is studying the lifetime of a system through the analysis of the lifetime of its components. The target-based model finds an application in representing the behavior of the whole system by means of the interaction of its components

The Target-Based Utility Model. The role of Copulas and of Non-Additive Measures

My studies and my Ph.D. thesis deal with topics that recently emerged in the field of decisions under risk and uncertainty. In particular, I deal with the "target-based approach" to utility theory. A rich literature has been devoted in the last decade to this approach to economic decisions: originally, interest had been focused on the "single-attribute" case and, more recently, extensions to "multi-attribute" case have been studied. This literature is still growing, with a main focus on applied aspects. I will, on the contrary, focus attention on some aspects of theoretical type, related with the multi-attribute case. Various mathematical concepts, such as non-additive measures, aggregation functions, multivariate probability distributions, and notions of stochastic dependence emerge in the formulation and the analysis of target-based models. Notions in the field of non-additive measures and aggregation functions are quite common in the modern economic literature. They have been used to go beyond the classical principle of maximization of expected utility in decision theory. These notions, furthermore, are used in game theory and multi-criteria decision aid. Along my work, on the contrary, I show how non-additive measures and aggregation functions emerge in a natural way in the frame of the target-based approach to classical utility theory, when considering the multi-attribute case. Furthermore they combine with the analysis of multivariate probability distributions and with concepts of stochastic dependence. The concept of copula also constitutes a very important tool for this work, mainly for two purposes. The first one is linked to the analysis of target-based utilities, the other one is in the comparison between classical stochastic order and the concept of "stochastic precedence". This topic finds its application in statistics as well as in the study of Markov Models linked to waiting times to occurrences of words in random sampling of letters from an alphabet. In this work I give a generalization of the concept of stochastic precedence and we discuss its properties on the basis of properties of the connecting copulas of the variables. Along this work I also trace connections to reliability theory, whose aim is studying the lifetime of a system through the analysis of the lifetime of its components. The target-based model finds an application in representing the behavior of the whole system by means of the interaction of its components