Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems - Volume 32, issue 6

Authors: Nazari-Shirkouhi, Salman | Miri-Nargesi, Sina | Ansarinejad, Ayyub

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Many companies outsource their information systems (ISs) to share risk, reduce cost and achieve high level of performance quality. One of the most important steps in IS outsourcing is selection of the best appropriate candidate information systems for outsourcing. To address such problem, the multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods could be applied. Therefore two MCDM approaches consisting of the integrated fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (FTOPSIS) for evaluating and selecting the appropriate Information System Project (ISP) can be employed. The proposed method has been applied in an actual case, …an online book store in Iran. The FAHP is used to analyze the structure of the outsourcing problem and determine weights of the criteria, and FTOPSIS method is used for final ranking of ISPs. Finally to validate the obtained results, a sensitivity analysis is carried out. Show more

Keywords: Information system outsourcing, multiple-criteria decision making, FAHP, FTOPSIS, sensitivity analysis

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-12495

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 3921-3943, 2017

Authors: Vashisth, Pooja | Khurana, Purnima | Bedi, Punam

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Recommender Systems (RSs) are largely used nowadays to generate interest items or products for web users of diverse nature. Therefore, this work focuses on using fuzzy logic to accommodate diversity and uncertainty in user choices and interest. This would help in generating better recommendations with different tastes that correspond to different interest choices of the user. In this paper, a fuzzy hybrid multi-agent recommender system is designed and developed. The novelty of our approach is the use of interval type-2 fuzzy sets to create user models capable of capturing the inherent ambiguity of human behavior related to diverse users’ tastes. …In the due course, we also extended an existing, well known hybrid recommendation method, by integrating the proposed fuzzy approach into the recommendation process. As a result, a new RS approach was developed, which was capable of improving the prediction accuracy of system and at the same time reducing errors by being able to extract more information from the available dataset. Experimental study and analysis was conducted using two case studies namely book purchase and shopping women apparels. As a result, the proposed recommendation approach was found to perform considerably well as compared to its counterparts, even under data sparsity conditions. Show more

Keywords: Keyword recommendation, preferences, interval type-2 fuzzy sets, personalization, user modeling

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-14538

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 3945-3960, 2017

Authors: Bakhtiarifar, Mohammad Hasan | Amiri, Amirhossein | Alaeddini, Adel

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Economic-statistical design of control charts has been extensively discussed in the recent literature of Statistical Process Control (SPC). Meanwhile, X ¯ control charts have received more attention due to their simplicity and vast applications. However, due to the effects of multiple factors in real applications, it is difficult to specify accurate values for the economic parameters such as cost and profit, which are associated with the design of X ¯ chart. Hence, It is necessary to enter uncertainty parameters into the control chart design model. In this paper, …an economic-statistical design of X ¯ Shewhart control chart with fuzzy parameters has been studied. Two modeling methods have been proposed and then Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA II) are applied to optimize the multi-objective model with the two aggregated and non-aggregated approaches. A numerical example is given for validation of the proposed models and solution algorithms. Finally, some sensitivity analyses are conducted. Show more

Keywords: Statistical Process Control (SPC), fuzzy parameters, economic-statistical design, Shewhart control chart, Genetic algorithm (GA), Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II)

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-151097

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 3961-3971, 2017

Authors: Yang, Hong | Liu, Xiaodong | Zhang, Le

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This paper deals with observer-based tracking controller design for time-delay switched fuzzy system with unmeasurable premise variables. A switched fuzzy system, which integrates fuzzy and switching features, can describe continuous and discrete modes and complex nonlinear phenomena of objective reality as well as their coupling and interactions. A fuzzy state observer is investigated for estimating the unmeasured states and unmeasurable premise variables. The stability and the switching control law based on measured state of the dynamic errors system are then analyzed by multiple Lyapunov function approach. In this study, the H∞ tracking control problem of a time-delay switched fuzzy …system is solvable, which some sub time-delay fuzzy systems are allowed to be unstable. The variation-of-constants formula is used to overcome the difficulties caused by the estimation error and exotic disturbance. Finally, a competitive experiment on an R/C hovercraft is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes. Show more

Keywords: Switched fuzzy system, time-delay, unmeasurable premise variables, tracking control, observer

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-151256

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 3973-3985, 2017

Authors: Kianian, Sahar | Khayyambashi, Mohammad Reza | Movahhedinia, Naser

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Finding community structures in online social networks is an important methodology for understanding the internal organization of users and actions. Most previous studies have focused on structural properties to detect communities. They do not analyze the information gathered from the posting activities of members of social networks, nor do they consider overlapping communities. To tackle these two drawbacks, a new overlapping community detection method involving social activities and semantic analysis is proposed. This work applies a fuzzy membership to detect overlapping communities with different extent and run semantic analysis to include information contained in posts. The available resource description format …contributes to research in social networks. Based on this new understanding of social networks, this approach can be adopted for large online social networks and for social portals, such as forums, that are not based on network topology. The efficiency and feasibility of this method is verified by the available experimental analysis. The results obtained by the tests on real networks indicate that the proposed approach can be effective in discovering labelled and overlapping communities with a high amount of modularity. This approach is fast enough to process very large and dense social networks. Show more

Keywords: Community detection, semantic analysis, social network, fuzzy relation model, overlapping communities

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-151276

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 3987-3998, 2017

Authors: Cai, Fei | Chen, Honghui

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Query completion service, normally known in the form of query auto completion (QAC) and widely provided by common search engines, assists users to formulate their queries after only typing few keystrokes. Previous work on QAC basically ranks query candidates according to their query popularity which is collected from the search logs, ignoring the internal semantic similarity between terms inside a query. However, we argue semantically related terms are apt to be combined when generating a query. In addition, as users often engage in QAC at word boundary (i.e., after typing a full word), we suppose that the time-aware popularity of …the first word in a query candidate could affect the ranking of QAC candidates. Hence, based on the Markov assumption, we propose a new QAC ranking method, which models the QAC engagement as a Markov Chain and takes the semantic similarity between query terms into account. We contrast our proposed model with the traditional query popularity-based QAC approaches and verify its effectiveness in terms of Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR). The experimental results show that our model significantly outperforms the baselines, achieving an average MRR improvement around 4% over the baselines. Show more

Keywords: Information retrieval, query completion, query suggestion, semantics, query formulation

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-151404

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 3999-4008, 2017

Authors: Rao, Congjun | Xiao, Xinping | Xie, Ming | Goh, Mark | Zheng, Junjun

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Under the development mode of low carbon economy, selecting the best low carbon supplier is the basis and prerequisite for establishing low carbon supply chain, and is the inevitable choice to achieve sustainable development for enterprises. In this paper, we investigate the problem of low carbon supplier selection in the multi-source and multi-attribute procurement. Concretely, we establish a new evaluation index system of low carbon supplier selection based on cost, low carbon, quality and service capacity. Then we present a multi-attribute decision making method for low carbon supplier selection based on a linguistic 2-tuple VIKOR method. In this proposed decision …method, the hybrid attribute values (the real numbers and linguistic fuzzy variables coexist) are transformed into linguistic 2-tuples, and a ranking method based on an extended VIKOR method is then presented to rank all alternative suppliers. We also give an application example to highlight the implementation, availability, and feasibility of the proposed decision making method. Show more

Keywords: Low carbon economy, low carbon supplier selection, multi-attribute decision making, linguistic 2-tuple, extended VIKOR method

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-151813

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4009-4022, 2017

Authors: Yu, Miao

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In recent years, the electronic information and network technology has developed rapidly, meanwhile, E-commerce has been widely applied in society. Especially the online shopping, relying on its rich products, low price, no time and geographical restrictions and several other distinctive characteristics, which has absorbed attentions of many consumers. In recent years, China’s online retail market has seen a big growth. The market share of e-commerce has gradually increased and become a mainstay of China’s e-commerce development. However, with the fast growth of e-commerce, consumers’ requirements for enterprise service quality is also getting higher and higher. Logistics services is considered to …be one of the three main inhibitions of e-commerce and improve logistics service quality has gradually become an important way of e-commerce enterprises to obtain competitive advantage. At present, the research on how to evaluate the quality of e-commerce logistics services has not yet formed a complete and scientific theoretical system and method. In this paper, we have proposed the induced hesitant fuzzy uncertain linguistic Einstein correlated average (IHFULECA) operator. Then, we used the IHFULECA operator to design the multiple attribute decision making problems to estimate the E-commerce logistics service quality. At last, an example is given to shown the effectiveness of the proposed method. Show more

Keywords: Assessment, hesitant fuzzy uncertain linguistic values, induced hesitant fuzzy uncertain linguistic Einstein correlated average (IHFULECA) operator, E-commerce logistics service quality

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-152069

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4023-4029, 2017

Authors: Gollou, Abbas Rahimi | Ghadimi, Noradin

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper, a new feature selection and forecast engine is presented for day ahead prediction of electricity prices, which are so valuable for both producers and consumers in the new competitive electric power markets. In a competitive electricity market, forecast of energy prices is a key information for the market participants. However, price signal usually has a complex behavior due to its nonlinearity, non-stationary, and time variance. Also, an appropriate feature selection is crucial for accurate forecasting. In this paper, a two-step approach that identifies a set of candidate features based on the data characteristics proposed and then selects …a subset of them using correlation and instance-based feature selection methods, applied in a systematic way. Then, a combination of wavelet transform (WT) and a hybrid forecast method is presented based on neural network (NN) and an optimization algorithms. The proposed method is examined on PJM electricity market and compared with some of the most recent price forecast methods. These comparisons illustrate effectiveness of the proposed strategy. Show more

Keywords: Neural network, price forecast, feature selection, hybrid forecast engine

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-152073

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4031-4045, 2017

Authors: Modhej, D. | Sanei, M. | Shoja, N. | HosseinzadehLotfi, F.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The present paper is an attempt to integrate inverse Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for a large dataset with multiple Decision Making Units (DMUs). The purpose of this study is to determine the best possible values of inputs for a large number of DMUs when their output levels are changed and their efficiency values remain unchanged. When the ANN is used to develop inverse DEA, it is not necessary to solve the inverse DEA model for every single DMU. Therefore, this approach can save the computer’s memory and the CPU time especially for very large scale …datasets. To illustrate the ability of the proposed methodology, a set of 600 Iranian bank branches is used. Show more

Keywords: Artificial neural network, data envelopment analysis, inverse optimization, efficiency, resource allocation

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-152271

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4047-4058, 2017

Authors: Ghafour, Karzan | Ramli, Razamin | Zaibidi, Nerda Z.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Queueing models, in which the arrival and/or departure procedure do not follow the Poisson assumption, are more complex and may produce less tractable systematic results. In a production network, each stage or echelon can be portrayed with a lining framework with stock, especially when the procedure is liable to a long sitting tight time for retailers to meet the item. In particular, these problems lead to the uncertainty in demand and lead-time, both of which can be assumed as a probabilistic problem. Therefore, it is vital to create a mechanism to facilitate and reduce the long waiting time in the …system. This paper considers an M/G/6-first come first service queueing model under the continued review (R , Q ) policy. The DMEI-FCFS model is developed to reduce the long expected waiting time of the retailers in the system. The proposed model is able to reduce the expected waiting time in the system from 13 hours and 30 minutes to 6 hours and 2 minutes. From the model, the optimal expected number of the retailers and also the expected waiting time for both the queue and the system can be determined. Finally, the evaluation of the DMEI-FCFS model is conducted based on the performance measures of the expected waiting time in the system and also sensitivity analysis by using a simulation. Show more

Keywords: Poisson arrival rate, Gamma service time, multi service channels and three echelons

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-152509

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4059-4068, 2017

Authors: Mohagheghi, Vahid | Mousavi, S. Meysam | Vahdani, Behnam | Siadat, Ali

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: High and new technology-project as a tool to achieve productive forces through scientific and technological knowledge is characterized as knowledge based with high risk and returns. Often conflicting objectives of these projects have complicated their assessment and selection process. This paper offers a novel approach of high technology-project portfolio selection in two main parts. In the first part, a new risk reduction compromise decision-making model is proposed that applies a new approach in determining the weights of experts and in avoiding information loss. The objective function of a new interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2Fs) based mathematical model of project portfolio …selection is formed by the outcome. To depict model’s applicability, data from case study of high technology-project selection in the literature is used to present the efficacy of the model. Show more

Keywords: High and new technology-projects, project portfolio selection, compromise solutions, mathematical modeling, interval type-2 fuzzy sets

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-152510

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4069-4079, 2017

Authors: Ebrahimnejad, S. | Naeini, M.A. | Gitinavard, H. | Mousavi, S.M.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In current global business, outsourcing of information technology (IT) has become a growing approach. In this respect, selecting a service activity of IT outsourcing as well as IT outsourcing projects could be designed based on multi-criteria decision-making frameworks. This study proposes a new decision-making approach based on group decision analysis under interval-valued hesitant fuzzy (IVHF)-environment to rank the IT outsourcing services’ activities. The IVHFSs could assist the decision makers by assigning some interval-values membership degrees for an IT outsourcing services’ activities among the conflict criteria under a set to margin of errors. For this purpose, the preferences and opinions of …decision makers are expressed by linguistic terms, which are converted to interval-valued hesitant fuzzy elements. In the proposed approach, the weights of criteria and decision makers are computed based on interval-valued hesitant fuzzy preference evaluation method and interval-valued hesitant fuzzy utility degree method, respectively. Consequently, the criteria and decision makers’ weights are provided in the procedure of proposed evaluating and ranking approach to decrease the errors. In addition, the decision makers’ judgments are aggregated in the last step of the proposed approach to avoid the loss of data. Finally, the proposed interval-valued hesitant fuzzy approach is implemented to a real case study to indicate the applicability of the presented approach. In addition, a comparative analysis is provided to discuss the obtained results. Show more

Keywords: IT outsourcing, group decision making model, interval-valued hesitant fuzzy sets theory, IT services providers

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-152520

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4081-4093, 2017

Authors: Abiri, Ebrahim | Bezareh, Zobeideh | Darabi, Abdolreza

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The memory includes flip flap cells which can store binary information. Therefore by designing the binary storing cell, which has the low chip area and power consumption, the high capacity memories with high performance can be presented. The gate diffusion input (GDI) method employed in designing low power logic gates can decrease the chip area and parasitic and interconnection capacitors. In this paper, the modified-GDI (m-GDI) method is used based on a basic GDI method in order to design master-slave D-Flip Flap (M/S-DFF) circuit. By employing the presented M/S-DFF circuit and the Boolean functions of m-GDI method, Random Access Memory …(RAM) cell is designed. For optimizing the performance of the proposed memory cell and gaining the minimum power and propagation delay, the transistors size is adjusted with non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) in MATLAB software. Finally, the 4-words×4-bits RAM (4×4 RAM) cell is designed and evaluated by employing optimized RAM cell with algorithm. Due to the achieved results, the power consumption of the 4×4 RAM cell is 72.3% , while its propagation delay and Power-Delay Product (PDP) criterion are decreased 75.9% and 93% , respectively, in compare with similar cells which aren’t optimized. The circuit simulation is done with Synopsys H-SPICE simulator in 32 nm CNTFET technology. For ensuring the accurate function of this algorithm, it is experimented on memory cell and decoder. By comparing NSGA-II algorithm with Multiple Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) algorithm, it can be observed that this method has good ability in multi-objective optimization. Show more

Keywords: Gate Diffusion Input (GDI) method, carbon nano tube (CNT) field effect transistor (CNTFET), Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA- II), Random Access Memory (RAM), Power-Delay Product (PDP), multiple objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO)

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-152591

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4095-4108, 2017

Authors: Gao, Xiao-Yan | Yang, Xiao-Fei

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper, the concept of compactness measures of (L , M )-fuzzy Q-convergence spaces is introduced. It is used to define compactness measures of (L , M )-fuzzy topological spaces and pointwise (L , M )-fuzzy quasi-uniform spaces. It is shown that the concept of compactness measures satisfies the lattice-valued Tychonoff theorem in the framework of (L , M )-fuzzy Q-convergence spaces and (L , M )-fuzzy topological spaces. Also, it is proved that the compactness measures of a pointwise (L , M )-fuzzy quasi-uniform space is equal to the compactness measures of its induced (L , M )-fuzzy …topological space. Show more

Keywords: Compactness, (L, M)-fuzzy Q-convergence space, (L, M)-fuzzy topology, Pointwise (L, M)-fuzzy quasi-uniformity

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-152603

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4109-4118, 2017

Authors: Naz, Shafaq | Shabir, Muhammad

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This paper deals with a particular class of hyperstructures called semihypergroups, which is a generalization of semigroups. We introduce the notions of SU-qausi hyperideal, SU-bi-hyperideal, SU-generalized bi-hyperideal, SU-interior hyperideal and discuss several properties of these hyperideals. We also characterize regular and intra-regular semihypergroups by the properties of their SU-hyperideals.

Keywords: SU-subsemihypergroup, SU-quasi-hyperideal, SU-bi-hyperideal, SU-generalizedbi-hyperideal, SU-interior hyperideal, regular semihypergroup and intra-regular semihypergroup

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-15331

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4119-4134, 2017

Authors: Jiang, Qi-yu | Yang, Xiao-jing | Sun, Xiao-sheng

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Sub-health is the third state featuring a deterioration in physiological function between health and illness, and it has been a global problem received increasing attention. This paper presents a novel computational model for aided diagnosis of sub-health, which is with TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) diagnosis as an instance. All the original medical records of sub-health were obtained from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, and these records were divided into training set (training cases) and test set (test cases). Based on rough set and fuzzy mathematics, training set was used to extract important features in different …classifications of sub-health and generated fuzzy weight matrixes. The results of test set were achieved with integrated calculation of fuzzy weight matrixes and feature values of sub-health symptom. In order to further evaluate the novel model, it was compared with the linear model, Naive Bayesian classification and fuzzy comprehensive. The results showed that the accuracy of the novel model for the diagnosis of sub-health is higher than the linear model and Naive Bayesian classification, and is a little better than fuzzy comprehensive. So the novel model presented in this study can be used to assist the diagnosis of sub-health and play an active role in intelligent medical inthe future. Show more

Keywords: Aided decision, diagnosis model, fuzzy mathematics, rough set, TCM

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-15958

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4135-4143, 2017

Authors: Tong, Qiang | Cheng, Jingwei | Zhang, Fu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In recent years there have been a great deal of interests in effectively extracting information from RDF repositories. However, users often experience empty answer problems (EAP) when they are not familiar with the structure or content of a RDF dataset and issue a restrictive query to the system. A solution is to allow users to incorporate fuzzy conditions into the query to make it more flexible. Although a fuzzy query is more or less satisfactory, there are still occasions when no or too few entities in a RDF dataset satisfy the query criteria with a degree more than zero, which …is called a fuzzy-EAP problem. In this paper, we propose a query relaxation approach based on relative proximity relations to tackle this problem. We present a framework of fuzzy query relaxation over RDF datasets, and present query relaxation algorithms for atomic f-SPARQL queries and complex f-SPARQL queries. Moreover, this paper reports on a prototype implementation on an extension of LUBM dataset to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results show a relatively high recall as more relevant results are returned after relaxation. Show more

Keywords: Query relaxation, f-SPARQL, flexible RDF queries, relative proximity relation, minimal failing subqueries

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16675

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4145-4157, 2017

Authors: Rocha Filho, Orlando Donato | de Oliveira, Ginalber Luiz Serra

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper an evolving Neuro–Fuzzy Network Modeling based on recursive parameter estimation with fuzzy instrumental variable method, is proposed. The proposed methodology presents an online evolving clustering algorithm composed of participatory learning based on the maximum likelihood norm. To avoid the curse of dimensionality in relation to the number of evolving rules, the algorithm uses an online adaptive norm strategy in the creation of fuzzy rules. The performance of the proposed methodology is concerned to benchmark problems: experiments considering the convergence analysis, by proposal of three Lemmas and one Theorem, of the fuzzy instrumental variable applied to the parametric …estimation of nonlinear systems in a noise environment; nonlinear systems identification are performed and compared to evaluate the performance of the approach proposed with other models of evolving systems widely cited in the literature and statistical analysis of experimental results from black box modeling of a helicopter with two degrees of freedom are used for the purpose of show the performance and efficiency the proposed approach. Show more

Keywords: Evolving Neuro–Fuzzy, Takagi–Sugeno, black box modeling fuzzy instrumental variable

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16569

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4159-4172, 2017

Authors: Bagheri, Mansour | Miri, Mahmoud | Shabakhty, Naser

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper modeling of epistemic uncertainty in reliability analysis of structures under degradation of resistance has been brought into focus. Proposing a new method, random variables has been modeled in the form of fuzzy triangular numbers and applying alpha level set optimization method based on genetic algorithm and FORM method, the fuzzy time dependent reliability index of a steel corroded beam has been determined. The proposed method is operative in the problems in which most of random variables are fuzzy sets and in nonlinear limit state functions. The fuzzy time dependent reliability index including bounds of uncertainty, offers a …more comprehensive evaluation of reliability of structures compared to classic methods of time dependent reliability analysis. Survey results showed the accuracy and efficiently of the proposed method in comparison to the alternative search approaches thorough lower computational effort. Show more

Keywords: Fuzzy random variable (FRV), alpha level set optimization method, Genetic Algorithm (GA), first order reliability method (FORM), corrosion

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-161320

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4173-4182, 2017

Authors: Han, Yongming | Geng, Zhiqiang | Zhu, Qunxiong | Wang, Zun | Cui, Yunfei

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The petrochemical data has characteristics of multi-dimensional, uncertainty and noisy. So it is difficult to accurately evaluate the energy consumption of the petrochemical plants based on the production data. In order to solve this problem, an improved fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) algorithm based on data-driven with data fuzzification is proposed. The proposed algorithm can trade-off the subjective marks of experts’ opinions. Meanwhile, it is more efficient and accurate than other methods by using the airplane purchase data. Moreover, Monthly energy consumption data were disposed by the Gaussian membership function to obtain the minimum, median and maximum values of the …multi-criteria evaluation matrix. On the basis of the multi-criteria fuzzy data, energy consumption evaluation indices and comparison of different petrochemical plants can be obtained by the improved FAHP based on the triangle fuzzy number to find the best production configurations. Finally, the experimental results have shown effectiveness and practicability of the improved FAHP method. Meanwhile, it is able to point out the opportunities for improving production and energy efficiency of ethylene plants in petrochemical industries. Show more

Keywords: Data fuzzification, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), energy consumption estimation, ethylene plant

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16109

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4183-4195, 2017

Authors: Feng, Yuming | Li, Chuandong

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this letter, we study an impulsive control system with impulse time windows. Although the concept of impulse time windows is proposed a few years ago, but the comparison system theory has not been established. By generalizing the traditional impulsive control theory, we then establish the comparison system of the considered system and theoretically prove that the stability of an impulsive control system with impulse time windows can be derived by the corresponding comparison system. Lastly, by use of the results in this paper, the chaotic Lorenz system is stabilized.

Keywords: Impulsive control system, impulse time windows, comparison system

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16457

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4197-4204, 2017

Authors: Wang, Xia

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: With regard to the interaction between attributes which has influenced on decision results in Multiple attribute decision making, a multiple attribute decision making method of interval grey number based on degree of greyness and Choquet integral is presented. Degree of greyness of interval grey number is proved as a measure according to its definition, then discrete Choquet integral of degree of greyness of interval grey number is defined, and some of its properties are investigated. The weight of each attribute or attribute set is determined by Using degree of greyness of interval grey number and considering expert opinion, and the …effect evaluation vector of each scheme are integrated based on Choquet integral. Finally, an example on Ning meng of the Yellow River disaster was also presented to illustrate the usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed method. Show more

Keywords: Multiple attribute decision making, interaction, degree greyness, Choquet integral

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16916

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4205-4211, 2017

Authors: Wang, Guijun | Li, Xiaoping

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: A piecewise linear function (PLF) plays a key role in the study of approximation of fuzzy system to an unknown function. PLF is not only the extension of unitary piecewise linear function under multi-variant conditions but also an important bridge between fuzzy system and approximation function. In this paper, a specific PLF is first constructed by the mesh subdivision of a polyhedron, and its analytical expression is obtained. Secondly, we verify that a PLF has the approximation performance to a continuous function based on the maximum norm and matrix norm, and the Mamdani fuzzy system can also approximate to arbitrary …accuracy with respect to the maximum norm. Finally, we give a realization process how the constructed PLF approximate to a continuous function in the two-dimensional Euclidean space through a simulation example. The result shows that PLF is a new effective tool for further study on the general fuzzy system or automatic control theory. Show more

Keywords: Divided polyhedron, mesh construction, PLF, Mamdani fuzzy system, approximation

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16586

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4213-4225, 2017

Authors: Xia, Hongwei | Lam, Hak-Keung | Li, Li | Wen, Qiyong | Ma, Guangcheng

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This paper concerns the issue of stability and stabilization analysis for a class of nonlinear systems with time-delay, which is modeled as Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy system. First, in terms of Lyapunov stability theory, one novel stability criterion is proposed, as the membership functions is included in, the proposed criterion is less conservative. Next, by introducing the newly developed imperfect premise matching fuzzy controller design approach, membership functions dependent and membership function independent stabilization criteria are presented respectively, as the imperfect premise matching method does not require the fuzzy controller to share the same premise membership functions and the same number of …fuzzy rules as the fuzzy model, greater design flexibility can be achieved. Finally, several numerical examples are provided to illustrate the feasibility and superiority of the proposed approach. Show more

Keywords: Fuzzy-model-based system, stabilization, time-delay, imperfect premise matching

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16591

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4227-4233, 2017

Authors: Wang, Xiaoyuan | Zhang, Jinglei | Liu, Yaqi | Yunyun, Wang | Wang, Fang | Wang, Jingheng

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The adoption of automobile safety assistance and driving alert systems is an effective way to ensure traffic safety because such applications can accurately predict vehicle aggregation situations. Improving the drivers’ lane selection process is not only the most fundamental reason for transforming vehicle aggregating but also the basic component of traffic flow research. However, the effects of factors such as the characteristics of individual vehicles and drivers, the types of manipulators used in complex vehicle aggregation situations, and the influence of vehicle conflict on lane selection have not been addressed in previous studies. This paper assesses the characteristics of various …traffic manipulators, vehicles, and drivers to develop a lane selection model of basic urban expressway segments based on mixed fuzzy many-person, multi-objective, non-cooperative games. By analyzing drivers’ profits under different combinations of lane selection behavior, Nash equilibrium was confirmed in a single game process and optimal lane selection behavior was obtained in a dynamic game. The results show that the model’s prediction accuracy of lane changing is 85.2%. Show more

Keywords: Intelligent transportation systems, driver’s propensity, vehicle aggregation situation, many-person multi-objective decision problems, mixed fuzzy games

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16628

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4235-4246, 2017

Authors: Niu, Jiayi | Chen, Jing | Xu, Yitian

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: ɛ -insensitive loss function is often employed in the twin support vector regression (TSVR). However, it can not effectively address the data with Gaussian noise. Huber loss function can suppress a variety of noise and outliers and yields great generalization performance. Motivated by this, we propose a novel twin support vector regression with Huber loss for the noise data in this paper. Experiments on nine benchmark datasets with different Gaussian noise show the validity of our proposed algorithm. Finally, we apply our method to the financial time series data that usually contain noise and outlier, and it also produces great …performance. Show more

Keywords: Twin support vector regression, Gaussian loss, Huber loss, Gaussian noise

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16629

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4247-4258, 2017

Authors: Luo, Sheng | Xu, Jing-Hua | Zhang, Shu-You

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In spite of a large volume of segmentation algorithms, it is difficult to coherently segment a series of images from the same scene. Semantic segmentation might be a solution, but it is sophisticated with heavy computing cost. Many contour detectors could locate objects accurately, but the contours are broken, and Watershed algorithm could find the subtle ridges that could connect the broken contours, but often fails for over-segmentation. We try to combine these two methods to decompose images into meaningful regions, and propose an index S-measure to measure the segmentation consistency between images. Two steps are involved: detect edges by …contour detector, and fuse the broken edges by Watershed algorithm. To fuse the broken edges, two ways are proposed, dilating edges with same template and with adaptive width templates. Experiments illustrate that the decomposing is fast, effectively, meaningful, robustly, and coherently, and the segmentation is consistent between images even with some transformations. Show more

Keywords: Image analysis, image detection systems, image recognition, algorithms and filters, pattern recognition, image transforms

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16653

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4259-4271, 2017

Authors: Wu, Xiu-Yun | Li, Er-Qiang | Bai, Shi-Zhong

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Four properties of M -fuzzifying interval spaces, namely, M -fuzzifying geometric property, M -fuzzifying modular property, M -fuzzifying Pasch property and M -fuzzifying sand-glass property, are introduced and characterized. Those properties together with M -fuzzifying Peano property and M -fuzzifying JHC property are closely related to each other. For example, an M -fuzzifying idempotent Peano-Pasch interval operator possesses M -fuzzifying geometric property and M -fuzzifying sand-glass property. In addition, in an M -fuzzifying modular space, M -fuzzifying Peano property, M -fuzzifying Pasch property, M -fuzzifying geometric property and M -fuzzifying sand-glass property combined with JHC property are equivalent.

Keywords: M-fuzzifying JHC convex structure, M-fuzzifying geometric property, M-fuzzifying Peano property, M-fuzzifying Pasch property, M-fuzzifying sand-glass property

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16667

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4273-4284, 2017

Authors: Qiao, Hong-Yu | Chang, Wen-Jer | Ku, Cheung-Chieh

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: A robust sliding mode fuzzy control problem of uncertain stochastic nonlinear systems is discussed subject to multiple performance requirements in this paper. The considered requirements focus on robust stability, strict input passivity and individual state constraint at the same time. In order to achieve robust performance, a reaching controller is designed to achieve the proposed integral sliding surface. Besides, a concept of Parallel Distributed Compensation (PDC) is used to design a fuzzy controller to guarantee individual variance constraint and strict input passivity. Based on Lyapunov theory, some sufficient conditions are derived into linear matrix inequality form that can be directly …solved by the convex optimization algorithm. Based on the proposed design method, a robust sliding mode fuzzy controller can be established to guarantee multiple performance constraints for uncertain stochastic nonlinear systems. Finally, a numerical example for the control of ship steering systems is employed to demonstrate the effectiveness and application of the proposed design method. Show more

Keywords: Sliding mode fuzzy control, robust control, Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model, input performance requirement, state performance requirement

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16765

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4285-4297, 2017

Authors: Han, Ying | Lim, Cheng-Chew | Chen, Sheng

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Triple I method was proven to be the effective reasoning method with solid logic foundation, however, the existing works about triple I method all neglect inconsistent bipolarity information in reasoning process, which exists in the way that our brain handles information. Considering that bipolar-valued fuzzy set theory is a powerful tool to describe inconsistent fuzzy bipolarity information, this paper introduces inconsistent bipolarity to triple I method for the first time, and systematically studies the triple I fuzzy modus tollens method with inconsistent bipolarity information based on the regular implication. First, some new concepts about inconsistent fuzzy …bipolarity information are introduced. And by introducing the concept of YinYang bipolar-valued induced function, we can induce bipolar-valued operations under the YinYang order relation from the corresponding unipolar ones. Then the triple I bipolar-valued fuzzy modus tollens methods under the YinYang order relation are proposed, together with the solutions. It is proved that the solutions can degenerate into two corresponding unipolar triple I fuzzy modus tollens solutions. Lastly, reductive property, approximation property and robustness of the proposed methods are discussed. Show more

Keywords: Fuzzy set, fuzzy reasoning, inconsistent bipolarity, triple I fuzzy modus tollens, YinYang order relation

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16891

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4299-4309, 2017

Authors: Alkhazaleh, Shawkat

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper as a generalization of neutrosophic soft set we introduce the concept of n-valued refined neutrosophic soft set and study some of its properties. We also, define its basic operations, complement, union intersection, “AND” and “OR” and study their properties.

Keywords: Neutrosophic set, soft set, neutrosophic soft set, time-neutrosophic soft set, n-valued refined neutrosophic set, n-valued refined neutrosophic soft set

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16950

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4311-4318, 2017

Authors: Mlakar, Uroš | Zorman, Milan | Fister Jr., Iztok | Fister, Iztok

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This paper proposes a modified single-objective binary cuckoo search for association rule mining (MBCS-ARM). The proposed algorithm includes a novel representations of individuals, which tackles the problems of large dimensionality with an increasing number of attributes. The MBCS-ARM also supports the mining of rules, where intervals of attributes can either be negative or positive. It uses an objective function composed of support and confidence weighted by two parameters, which control the importance of each measure in the found rules. It is tested on eight publicly available databases, while also compared to several single-objective evolutionary algorithms, and traditional algorithms, all found …in the KEEL software tool. The experiments show promising results of the MBCS-ARM, compared to other algorithms, by producing rules, which are interesting, simple, and also easy to understand, which is of great importance in domains like medicine. Show more

Keywords: Data mining, association rule mining, Apriori, swarm intelligence, modified binary cuckoo search

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16963

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4319-4330, 2017

Authors: Mohiuddine, S.A. | Hazarika, Bipan | Alotaibi, Abdullah

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: We define the notions of pointwise and uniform statistical convergence of double sequences of fuzzy valued functions and obtain relationships between these two kinds of convergence. We further introduce the notion of equi-statistical convergence of double sequences of fuzzy valued functions and show that uniformly statistically convergent double sequence is equi-statistically convergent while the converse is not true in general. We present several interesting results related to these kinds of convergence and their representations of sequences of α -level cuts. We provide some interesting illustrative examples in support of our results.

Keywords: Fuzzy valued function, double sequence, P-convergence, statistical convergence, equi-statistical convergence

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16974

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4331-4342, 2017

Authors: Li, Shuyang | Li, Hongxing

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: A method of approximating intuitionistic fuzzy numbers by trapezoidal intuitionistic fuzzy numbers with respect to a well-known metric is studied in this paper. Firstly, the representations of extended trapezoidal intuitionistic approximations of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers are discussed. Then the representations of trapezoidal intuitionistic and triangular intuitionistic approximations of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers are provided. Finally, the algorithms and examples of trapezoidal intuitionistic and triangular intuitionistic approximations are given, and the results of approximations are applied on ranking of intuitionistic fuzzy numbers.

Keywords: Fuzzy number, intuitionistic fuzzy number, trapezoidal intuitionistic approximation

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16992

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4343-4355, 2017

Authors: Fan, Wei

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Currently, most new ventures are knowledge-based enterprises; moreover, knowledge innovation constitutes the major activities of the enterprises’ production and knowledge management. Therefore, it is of great significance to be able to properly analyze and evaluate a new venture’s knowledge innovation ability. In this paper, we investigate the multiple attribute decision making problems with fuzzy number intuitionistic fuzzy information. Then, we develop the fuzzy number intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher power weighted geometric (FNIFHPWG) operator. Then, we apply the FNIFHPWG operator to deal with multiple attribute decision making for evaluating the knowledge innovation ability of new ventures based on knowledge management under the …fuzzy number intuitionistic fuzzy environments. Finally, an illustrative example for evaluating the knowledge innovation ability of new ventures based on knowledge management is given to verify the developed approach. Show more

Keywords: Multiple attribute decision making, fuzzy number intuitionistic fuzzy sets, Hamacher aggregation operators, fuzzy number intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher power weighted geometric (FNIFHPWG) operator, knowledge innovation ability, knowledge management

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16731

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4357-4365, 2017

Authors: Gao, Rong | Chen, Xiaowei

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Uncertain field is virtually an extension of uncertain process with the index space changing from a totally ordered set into a partially ordered one such as time-space or a surface. For describing the uncertain field, this paper introduces several concepts of uncertainty distribution and inverse uncertainty distribution. In addition, a sufficient and necessary condition is proved for the uncertainty distribution of an uncertain field. Then a concept of independence of uncertain fields is introduced and the operational law is derived for a strictly monotone function of independent uncertain fields. Furthermore, another two concepts of uncertain stationary independent increment field and …Liu field are proposed, and meanwhile some of their properties are investigated. Show more

Keywords: Uncertainty theory, uncertain process, uncertain field, uncertainty distribution

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16314

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4367-4378, 2017

Authors: Lv, Wendai | Guo, Meng

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: With the improvement of china’s market economy, all kinds of potential risks appear at the same time, when many listed corporations will enjoy the market economic environment brings infinite development opportunities. They may be under Special treatment at anytime, because of the financial crisis. In order to be advance to prevent the occurrence of the risks, it is necessary to predict the financial risk, timely understanding of the financial situation of the enterprise, and avoid the potential cause financial risk factors of enterprise. It is very important for the long-term and stable development of enterprises. In this paper, we introduce …some operations on the intuitionistic fuzzy sets, and further develop the intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher power weighted geometric (IFHPWG) operator. Then, we investigate several desirable properties of IFHPWG operator, e.g. idempotency, boundedness and monotonicity. Then, we apply the intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher power weighted geometric (IFHPWG) to solve the multiple attribute decision making with intuitionistic fuzzy information. Finally, an example for financial risk evaluation of listed companies is proposed to test the effectiveness of the proposed method. Show more

Keywords: Multiple attribute decision making, intuitionistic fuzzy numbers, intuitionistic fuzzy Hamacher power weighted geometric (IFHPWG) operator, financial risk evaluation, listed companies

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16389

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4379-4387, 2017

Authors: Yue, Chuan

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Projection can measure not only the distance but also the angle between two decision objects. It has become one of important tools for complex decisions. This research finds that the existing projection formulae are unreasonable in real vector and interval vector settings. To solve this problem, this paper develops two new normalized projection measures. And new projection measures are applied to group decision-making with hybrid decision information. The applicability and feasibility are shown by an experimental analysis. The results show that the projection measures improved in this paper are superior to the existing ones.

Keywords: Normalized projection measure, real vector, interval vector, group decision-making, hybrid information

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16537

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4389-4402, 2017

Authors: Liu, Peide | Zhang, Lili

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy set (NHFS) is an extension of neutrosophic set and the hesitant fuzzy set, which can easily express the uncertain, incomplete and inconsistent information, and the VIKOR (from Serbian: VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) method is an effective decision making tool which can select the optimal alternative by the maximizing “group utility” and minimizing “individual regret” with cognitive computation. In this paper, we firstly introduced some operational laws, comparison rules and the Hamming distance measure of neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy set, and described the traditional VIKOR method which only processes the crisp numbers. Then we extended the VIKOR method …to process the Neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy information (NHFI), and proposed an extended VIKOR method for the multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problems with NHFI, and an illustrative example shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Show more

Keywords: Multiple neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy set, VIKOR method, multiple criteria decision making (MCDM)

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-16136

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4403-4413, 2017

Article Type: Other

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4415-4415, 2017

Authors: Huang, Xiaoxia | Zhang, Qun | Yang, Qing

Article Type: Other

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169207

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4417-4417, 2017

Authors: Chen, Wei | Li, Jinqiu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: At present, partnership risk management is the key to affecting the success of R&D projects. Therefore, reasonably evaluating risk management capabilities of partners has become a critical issue of enterprises in project risk management. In view of the environmental uncertainty and information ambiguity in project risk management, this paper proposes a dynamic grey target decision making method with interval gray numbers based on error propagation and orthogonal projection, and applies it to evaluate risk management capability of partners in R&D projects. In this proposed method, firstly an error propagation model is used to determine attribute weight intervals; and according to …the off-target deviation degree theory, decision-making information in all of the periods is aggregated, obtaining a comprehensive decision matrix; then the concept of time degree is introduced, and a multi-objective nonlinear programming model is established to determine time weights; and the ranking of alternatives is obtained by orthogonal projection method. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by a numerical example. Show more

Keywords: Risk management, interval gray number, error propagation, orthogonal projection

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169208

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4419-4429, 2017

Authors: Gupta, Pankaj | Mehlawat, Mukesh Kumar | Grover, Nishtha | Chen, Wei

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a modified fuzzy intuitionistic multiple attribute decision (MAD) method retaining basic framework of the superiority and inferiority ranking (SIR) method. We utilize relative comparisons based on the advantage and disadvantage scores of intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) numbers so that the modified SIR method is better adapted to treat real-world MAD problems. The relative comparisons of the IF values use all the three parameters, namely membership degree (“more the better”), non-membership degree (“less the better”), and hesitancy degree (“less the better”) leading to trade-off values of the parameters. The modified IF-SIR flows, namely IF-superiority and IF-inferiority flows …are calculated using the advantage and disadvantage score matrices, respectively, derived from the relative comparisons. These score matrices are based on positive contributions of all three parameters of the IF values, wherever applicable. The ranking of the alternatives is done using a consolidated score function derived from the modified IF-SIR flows. The methodology is validated through an application of a real-case of supplier selection problem. Show more

Keywords: Multiple attribute decision making, intuitionistic fuzzy numbers, SIR method, supplier selection

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169209

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4431-4441, 2017

Authors: Hasuike, Takashi | Katagiri, Hideki

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This paper proposes a mathematical programming approach to construct an appropriate membership function extending our previous studies. It is important to set a membership function with both subjectivity and objectivity to obtain a reasonable optimal solution based on decision maker’s feelings in real-world decision making. In order to ensure objectivity of obtained membership function as well as subjectivity, an entropy-based approach based on mathematical programming is integrated into interval estimation considered by the decision maker. As a general entropy with fuzziness, fuzzy Harvda-Charvat entropy is introduced, which is a natural extension of fuzzy Shannon entropy. In addition, qualitative and subjective …evaluations based on the pairwise comparison are introduced to represent the differences between two membership values. The main step of our revised approach is to solve the proposed mathematical programming problem strictly using nonlinear programming. In this paper, the given membership function is assumed to be a piecewise linear membership function as approximation of nonlinear functions, and each intermediate value of partial linear function is optimally obtained. Show more

Keywords: Membership function, Harvda-Charvat entropy, scale for measuring, mathematical programming

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169210

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4443-4452, 2017

Authors: Huang, Xiaoxia

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This paper reviews the theory of uncertain portfolio selection which uses human estimates as inputs and applies uncertainty theory to select portfolios. The difference of the uncertain portfolio selection theory from the stochastic portfolio theory is given and the necessity and conditions for using the theory are presented. Some basic works are introduced, including different types of mathematical risk measurements, their features, and some basic uncertain portfolio selection models and their theorems. Finally, future work for uncertain portfolio selection is discussed.

Keywords: Uncertain portfolio selection, risk measurement, uncertain measure, uncertain variable, uncertainty theory

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169211

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4453-4465, 2017

Authors: Kar, Mohuya B. | Majumder, Saibal | Kar, Samarjit | Pal, Tandra

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In most real life investment situations future security returns are represented mainly based on expert’s judgments due to the occurrence of unexpected incidents in economic and social changes or lack of historical data. In order to tackle such uncertainties, the returns of the securities are evaluated by the experts instead of historical data. In this study, a multi-objective uncertain portfolio selection model has been proposed by defining average return as expected value, risk as variance and divergence among security returns as cross-entropy where the security returns are considered as uncertain variables. The transformed deterministic form of the proposed model is …presented by considering security returns as linear uncertain variables. The deterministic model is then solved by using two multi-objective genetic algorithms (MOGAs), namely, Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) and Archive-Based hYbrid Scatter Search (AbYSS). We use a dataset from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to illustrate the performance of the algorithms. Finally, a comparative study is performed in terms of certain performance matrices among NSGA-II and AbYSS. Show more

Keywords: Portfolio selection, uncertain variables, uncertain multi-objective programming, multi-objective genetic algorithm

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169212

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4467-4483, 2017

Authors: Katagiri, Hideki | Kato, Kosuke | Uno, Takeshi

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This article considers bilevel linear programming problems where the coefficients of the objective functions and the constraints in the problem are given as fuzzy parameters. Stackelberg problems and Stackelberg solutions under fuzziness have not been fully discussed so far. New Stackelberg solution concepts under fuzziness, called possibilistic Stackelberg solutions , are proposed by incorporating possibility theory into Stackelberg solutions in non-fuzzy environments. This paper shows some theoretical properties and theorems on the formulated fuzzy bilevel programming problems. It is shown that the proposed possibilistic Stackelberg solutions are obtained by using linear or nonlinear programming techniques. The effectiveness of the proposed …models is demonstrated by numerical experiments using transportation problems where the upper-level decision maker is a buyer and the lower-level one is a supplier. Show more

Keywords: Bilevel programming, fuzzy programming, possibility measure, necessity measure, quadratic membership functions

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169213

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4485-4501, 2017

Authors: Li, Hui-Jia | Xiang, Ju

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Detecting fuzzy network communities in directed network is a classic and very difficult task in the field of complex network analysis, principally for its applications in domains such as social or biological networks analysis. Present techniques rely heavily on network topology, which cannot provide a lot of important information, such as module correlation and hierarchical structure. In this paper, we present a new fuzzy community detection method, which is able to find fuzzy communities in directed line graphs by maximizing likelihood function. Firstly, the directed node graph is transformed to a new type directed line graph, and the direction and …weight of line graph are defined. Then, the community  unit consists of membership and correlation information is defined in the line graph. Specifically, there are two main contributions of this method: 1) to adequately characterize the community structure, the node and module correlation with different granularity can be calculated; 2) based on the membership and correlation information, we can extract the multiplex patterns between communities, according to different domain requirements. Furthermore, we are able to map the link community configuration to the optimal situation dynamically by maximizing the likelihood function with rigorous mathematical proof. Based on the spectral analysis of the Markovian transition matrix, a mathematical theory is provided to identify the optimum number of network communities, and to analyze the stability of the community structure. Extensive simulations using both synthetic and real-world benchmark networks are performed to verify the algorithmic performance. Show more

Keywords: Fuzzy community, line graph, optimization method, likelihood function, benchmark networks

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169214

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4503-4511, 2017

Authors: Li, Xingmei | Zhong, Zhiming | Zhang, Youzhong | Wang, Yaxian

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper, the project portfolio selection problem which considers the divisibility of projects is discussed. In a conventional method, some essential and uncertain variables, such as return, investment and set up cost, are given by estimation of experts due to lack of historical data. To better solve the problem, uncertainty theory is introduced into this study. A mean-variance model is proposed to help decision makers find an optimal portfolio and its time schedule. Specially, the situation where all the uncertain parameters are normal distribution is discussed. For efficient computation, an equivalent mixed integer linear programming representation is proposed. Another …mean-variance model without considering the divisibility is also proposed to see the contrast effect of net present value (NPV). At last, a numerical example under above two scenarios is demonstrated and the effect of risk level to the maximum expected NPV is discussed. Show more

Keywords: Project portfolio selection, divisibility, uncertain mean-variance model, uncertainty theory

DOI: 10.3233/JIFS-169215

Citation: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 4513-4522, 2017