How best to Design Fuzzy Sets and Systems:In memory of Prof. Lotfi A. Zadeh

The fundamental shift in dealing with uncertainties [12] and computerised reasoning was made by the late Professor Lotfi Aliasker Zadeh (1921–2017) in 1965 in his seminal paper [1]. For the last over five decades the Fuzzy Sets theory has matured and was applied to a long list of applications spanning from engineering, social sciences, biology to transport, mathematics and many mor

B2B eContract Handling - A Survey of Projects, Papers and Standards

The rapid development of IT gives rise to changes in many industries and different spheres of life. It simplifies and speeds up processes and data processing. As a result, it changes the processes and the data involved in them. The area of commerce and contracting in particular undergoes similar changes. The new developments aim at speeding up, facilitating and globalizing the process of contracting. This inevitably leads to new contracting processes and changes the standard approach for contracting. This report presents a survey of the research, development, and standardization efforts in the area of business-to-business e-contracting. The report is divided into three parts. The first part presents a multi-dimensional contracting framework. The second part reviews current standardization processes and developments in the e-commerce field. The third part provides summaries and comments on a selected set of papers on e-contracting. Depending on their goals, focus and content, the papers are categorized in accordance with the contract cycle phases described in one of the dimensions of the contracting framework. Where appropriate, the content of the papers is related to the dimensions of the contracting framework. This report further provides an acronym list of the most common abbreviations in e-commerce terminology

On the existence and uniqueness of solutions for maximum equations

An existence-uniqueness result for the Cauchy problem for a system of ordinary differential equations with maximums is established

On the existence and uniqueness of solutions for maximum equations

An existence-uniqueness result for the Cauchy problem for a system of ordinary differential equations with maximums is established

Macromolecular nanocrystal structural analysis with electron and X-rays: A comparative review

Crystallography has long been the unrivaled method that can provide the atomistic structural models of macromolecules, using either X-rays or electrons as probes. The methodology has gone through several revolutionary periods, driven by the development of new sources, detectors, and other instrumentation. Novel sources of both X-ray and electrons are constantly emerging. The increase in brightness of these sources, complemented by the advanced detection techniques, has relaxed the traditionally strict need for large, high quality, crystals. Recent reports suggest high-quality diffraction datasets from crystals as small as a few hundreds of nanometers can be routinely obtained. This has resulted in the genesis of a new field of macromolecular nanocrystal crystallography. Here we will make a brief comparative review of this growing field focusing on the use of X-rays and electrons sources

A Reference Architecture for Electronic Business-to-Business Collaboration Setup and Enactment Systems

The question what a business-to-business (B2B) collaboration setup and enactment application-system should look like remains open. An important element of such collaboration constitutes the inter-organizational disclosure of business-process details so that the opposing parties may protect their business secrets. For that purpose, eSourcing [37] has been developed as a general businessprocess collaboration concept in the framework of the EU research project Cross- Work. The eSourcing characteristics are guiding for the design and evaluation of an eSourcing Reference Architecture (eSRA) that serves as a starting point for software developers of B2B-collaboration systems. In this paper we present the results of a scenario-based evaluation method conducted with the earlier specified eSourcing Architecture (eSA) that generates as results risks, sensitivity, and tradeoff points that must be paid attention to if eSA is implemented. Additionally, the evaluation method detects shortcomings of eSA in terms of integrated components that are required for electronic B2B-collaboration. The evaluation results are used for the specification of eSRA, which comprises all extensions for incorporating the results of the scenario-based evaluation, on three refinement levels.Peer reviewe

Interpretable policies for reinforcement learning by empirical fuzzy sets

This paper proposes a method and an algorithm to implement interpretable fuzzy reinforcement learning (IFRL). It provides alternative solutions to common problems in RL, like function approximation and continuous action space. The learning process resembles that of human beings by clustering the encountered states, developing experiences for each of the typical cases, and making decisions fuzzily. The learned policy can be expressed as human-intelligible IF-THEN rules, which facilitates further investigation and improvement. It adopts the actor–critic architecture whereas being different from mainstream policy gradient methods. The value function is approximated through the fuzzy system AnYa. The state–action space is discretized into a static grid with nodes. Each node is treated as one prototype and corresponds to one fuzzy rule, with the value of the node being the consequent. Values of consequents are updated using the Sarsa() algorithm. Probability distribution of optimal actions regarding different states is estimated through Empirical Data Analytics (EDA), Autonomous Learning Multi-Model Systems (ALMMo), and Empirical Fuzzy Sets ( ε FS). The fuzzy kernel of IFRL avoids the lack of interpretability in other methods based on neural networks. Simulation results with four problems, namely Mountain Car, Continuous Gridworld, Pendulum Position, and Tank Level Control, are presented as a proof of the proposed concept