A General Qualitative Spatio-Temporal Model Based on Intervals

Many real-world problems involve qualitative reasoning about space and/or time. Actually, it is an adequate tool for dealing with situations in which information is not sufficiently precise. However, despite its numerous applications, it is difficult for people from outside the field to incorporate the required reasoning techniques into their methods. In this paper, we present a general, easy-to-use framework that integrates and solves the reasoning process of all qualitative models based on intervals. This framework has been divided into: (1) a representation magnitude and (2) the resolution of the reasoning process. Mainly, the developed method for solving the reasoning process is based on the definition of two algorithms: the qualitative sum and the qualitative difference. In addition, here, different instances of the model as well as some practical applications of them are presented

APPLICATION OF QUALITATIVE REASONING IN ENGINEERING

Qualitative reasoning is an alternative problem-solving technique useful for the conceptual design of structures. Qualitative reasoning represents the relationships between parameters in a model, and a search computation assigns values represented by intervals and relevant points in the behavior. The traditional difference between analysis and design or input and output parameters in a procedural computation is not existent in qualitative reasoning, since all the parameters in a model are equally represented. Qualitative reasoning derives values for parameters even with incomplete and imprecise knowledge about the model. This work presents a qualitative structural analysis framework, suitable for the evaluation of conceptual designs as well as for tutoring systems. The framework has been implemented in a computer program called Agrippa using the computer language Prolog. Based on a representation of fundamental principles of equilibrium, compatibility, and force-deformation and an incomplete knowledge of geometry and topology, Agrippa derives the signs and relative magnitude of forces and displacements for three-dimensional models of structures

A recommender system based on group consensus

This paper presents the foundation for a new methodology for a collaborative recommender system (RS). This methodology is based on the degree of consensus of a group of users stating their preferences via qualitative orders-of-magnitude. The structure of distributive lattice is considered in defining the distance between users and the RSs new users. This proposed methodology incorporates incomplete or partial knowledge into the recommendation process using qualitative reasoning techniques to obtain consensus of its users for recommendations.Postprint (published version

Fuzzy qualitative simulation with multivariate constraints

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On fuzzy-qualitative descriptions and entropy

This paper models the assessments of a group of experts when evaluating different magnitudes, features or objects by using linguistic descriptions. A new general representation of linguistic descriptions is provided by unifying ordinal and fuzzy perspectives. Fuzzy qualitative labels are proposed as a generalization of the concept of qualitative labels over a well-ordered set. A lattice structure is established in the set of fuzzy-qualitative labels to enable the introduction of fuzzy-qualitative descriptions as L-fuzzy sets. A theorem is given that characterizes finite fuzzy partitions using fuzzy-qualitative labels, the cores and supports of which are qualitative labels. This theorem leads to a mathematical justification for commonly-used fuzzy partitions of real intervals via trapezoidal fuzzy sets. The information of a fuzzy-qualitative label is defined using a measure of specificity, in order to introduce the entropy of fuzzy-qualitative descriptions. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft