On the Semantics of Bipolarity and Fuzziness

This paper analyzes the relationship between fuzziness and bipolarity, notions which were devised to address different kinds of uncertainty: linguistic imprecision, in the former, and knowledge relevance and character or polarity, in the latter. Although different types of fuzziness and bipolarity have been defined, these relations are not always clear. This paper proposes the use of four-valued extensions to provide a formal method to rigorously define and compare the semantics and logical structure of diverse combinations of fuzziness and bipolarity types. As a result, this paper claims that these notions and their different types are independent and not semantically equivalent despite its possible formal equivalence

Strain monitoring of RC members strengthened with smart NSM FRP bars

Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars can be used as internal reinforcement for new reinforced concrete (RC) structures and as near-surface mounted (NSM) reinforcement for the strengthening of RC structures. The NSM method is an emerging strengthening technique for RC structures, where FRP bars are embedded into grooves cut in the cover of RC members. In both cases, strain monitoring of the FRP bars is desirable either for the investigation of the structural behavior or for the long-term health monitoring of the structure. This paper presents a study in which fiber-optic sensors were embedded into glass FRP (GFRP) bars to produce smart GFRP bars for NSM applications. The manufacturing process of the smart FRP bars is illustrated and their performance in tensile, bond and beam flexural tests is examined to assess the effectiveness of these smart FRP bars for achieving the dual purpose of structural strengthening and strain monitoring. On the basis of the test results, the advantages and limitations of fiber-optic sensors compared to electrical strain gages in the strain monitoring of NSM FRP bars are discussed. The bond and beam test results also confirm the effectiveness of the NSM method for the strengthening of RC structures

(S,N)-implications on bounded lattices

Since the birth of the fuzzy sets theory several extensions have been proposed. For these extensions, different sets of membership functions were considered. Since fuzzy connectives, such as conjunctions, negations and implications, play an important role in the theory and applications of fuzzy logics, these connectives have also been extended. An extension of fuzzy logic, which generalizes the ones considered up to the present, was proposed by Joseph Goguen in 1967. In this extension, the membership values are drawn from arbitrary bounded lattices. The simplest and best studied class of fuzzy implications is the class of (S,N)-implications, and in this chapter we provide an extension of (S,N)-implications in the context of bounded lattice valued fuzzy logic, and we show that several properties of this class are preserved in this more general framework