A fuzzy set is a pair ( U , m ) {\displaystyle (U,m)} where U {\displaystyle U} is a set (often required to be non-empty) and m : U → [ 0 , 1 ] {\displaystyle m\colon U\rightarrow [0,1]} a membership function. The reference set U {\displaystyle U} (sometimes denoted by Ω {\displaystyle \Omega } or X {\displaystyle X} ) is called universe of discourse, and for each x ∈ U , {\displaystyle x\in U,} the value m ( x ) {\displaystyle m(x)} is called the grade of membership of x {\displaystyle x} in ( U , m ) {\displaystyle (U,m)} . The function m = μ A {\displaystyle m=\mu _{A}} is called the membership function of the fuzzy set A = ( U , m ) {\displaystyle A=(U,m)} .
For a finite set U = { x 1 , … , x n } , {\displaystyle U=\{x_{1},\dots ,x_{n}\},} the fuzzy set ( U , m ) {\displaystyle (U,m)} is often denoted by { m ( x 1 ) / x 1 , … , m ( x n ) / x n } . {\displaystyle \{m(x_{1})/x_{1},\dots ,m(x_{n})/x_{n}\}.}
Let x ∈ U {\displaystyle x\in U} . Then x {\displaystyle x} is called
The (crisp) set of all fuzzy sets on a universe U {\displaystyle U} is denoted with S F ( U ) {\displaystyle SF(U)} (or sometimes just F ( U ) {\displaystyle F(U)} ).
For any fuzzy set A = ( U , m ) {\displaystyle A=(U,m)} and α ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] {\displaystyle \alpha \in [0,1]} the following crisp sets are defined:
Note that some authors understand "kernel" in a different way; see below.
Main article: Fuzzy set operations
Although the complement of a fuzzy set has a single most common definition, the other main operations, union and intersection, do have some ambiguity.
By the definition of the t-norm, we see that the union and intersection are commutative, monotonic, associative, and have both a null and an identity element. For the intersection, these are ∅ and U, respectively, while for the union, these are reversed. However, the union of a fuzzy set and its complement may not result in the full universe U, and the intersection of them may not give the empty set ∅. Since the intersection and union are associative, it is natural to define the intersection and union of a finite family of fuzzy sets recursively. It is noteworthy that the generally accepted standard operators for the union and intersection of fuzzy sets are the max and min operators:
The case of exponent two is special enough to be given a name.
Taking 0 0 = 1 {\displaystyle 0^{0}=1} , we have A 0 = U {\displaystyle A^{0}=U} and A 1 = A . {\displaystyle A^{1}=A.}
In contrast to the general ambiguity of intersection and union operations, there is clearness for disjoint fuzzy sets: Two fuzzy sets A , B {\displaystyle A,B} are disjoint iff
which is equivalent to
and also equivalent to
We keep in mind that min/max is a t/s-norm pair, and any other will work here as well.
Fuzzy sets are disjoint if and only if their supports are disjoint according to the standard definition for crisp sets.
For disjoint fuzzy sets A , B {\displaystyle A,B} any intersection will give ∅, and any union will give the same result, which is denoted as
with its membership function given by
Note that only one of both summands is greater than zero.
For disjoint fuzzy sets A , B {\displaystyle A,B} the following holds true:
This can be generalized to finite families of fuzzy sets as follows: Given a family A = ( A i ) i ∈ I {\displaystyle A=(A_{i})_{i\in I}} of fuzzy sets with index set I (e.g. I = {1,2,3,...,n}). This family is (pairwise) disjoint iff
A family of fuzzy sets A = ( A i ) i ∈ I {\displaystyle A=(A_{i})_{i\in I}} is disjoint, iff the family of underlying supports Supp ∘ A = ( Supp ( A i ) ) i ∈ I {\displaystyle \operatorname {Supp} \circ A=(\operatorname {Supp} (A_{i}))_{i\in I}} is disjoint in the standard sense for families of crisp sets.
Independent of the t/s-norm pair, intersection of a disjoint family of fuzzy sets will give ∅ again, while the union has no ambiguity:
Again only one of the summands is greater than zero.
For disjoint families of fuzzy sets A = ( A i ) i ∈ I {\displaystyle A=(A_{i})_{i\in I}} the following holds true:
For a fuzzy set A {\displaystyle A} with finite support Supp ( A ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {Supp} (A)} (i.e. a "finite fuzzy set"), its cardinality (aka scalar cardinality or sigma-count) is given by
In the case that U itself is a finite set, the relative cardinality is given by
This can be generalized for the divisor to be a non-empty fuzzy set: For fuzzy sets A , G {\displaystyle A,G} with G ≠ ∅, we can define the relative cardinality by:
which looks very similar to the expression for conditional probability. Note:
For any fuzzy set A {\displaystyle A} the membership function μ A : U → [ 0 , 1 ] {\displaystyle \mu _{A}:U\to [0,1]} can be regarded as a family μ A = ( μ A ( x ) ) x ∈ U ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] U {\displaystyle \mu _{A}=(\mu _{A}(x))_{x\in U}\in [0,1]^{U}} . The latter is a metric space with several metrics d {\displaystyle d} known. A metric can be derived from a norm (vector norm) ‖ ‖ {\displaystyle \|\,\|} via
For instance, if U {\displaystyle U} is finite, i.e. U = { x 1 , x 2 , . . . x n } {\displaystyle U=\{x_{1},x_{2},...x_{n}\}} , such a metric may be defined by:
For infinite U {\displaystyle U} , the maximum can be replaced by a supremum. Because fuzzy sets are unambiguously defined by their membership function, this metric can be used to measure distances between fuzzy sets on the same universe:
which becomes in the above sample:
Again for infinite U {\displaystyle U} the maximum must be replaced by a supremum. Other distances (like the canonical 2-norm) may diverge, if infinite fuzzy sets are too different, e.g., ∅ {\displaystyle \varnothing } and U {\displaystyle U} .
Similarity measures (here denoted by S {\displaystyle S} ) may then be derived from the distance, e.g. after a proposal by Koczy:
or after Williams and Steele:
where α > 0 {\displaystyle \alpha >0} is a steepness parameter and exp ( x ) = e x {\displaystyle \exp(x)=e^{x}} .
Sometimes, more general variants of the notion of fuzzy set are used, with membership functions taking values in a (fixed or variable) algebra or structure L {\displaystyle L} of a given kind; usually it is required that L {\displaystyle L} be at least a poset or lattice. These are usually called L-fuzzy sets, to distinguish them from those valued over the unit interval. The usual membership functions with values in [0, 1] are then called [0, 1]-valued membership functions. These kinds of generalizations were first considered in 1967 by Joseph Goguen, who was a student of Zadeh.11 A classical corollary may be indicating truth and membership values by {f, t} instead of {0, 1}.
An extension of fuzzy sets has been provided by Atanassov. An intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) A {\displaystyle A} is characterized by two functions:
with functions μ A , ν A : U → [ 0 , 1 ] {\displaystyle \mu _{A},\nu _{A}:U\to [0,1]} with ∀ x ∈ U : μ A ( x ) + ν A ( x ) ≤ 1 {\displaystyle \forall x\in U:\mu _{A}(x)+\nu _{A}(x)\leq 1} .
This resembles a situation like some person denoted by x {\displaystyle x} voting
After all, we have a percentage of approvals, a percentage of denials, and a percentage of abstentions.
For this situation, special "intuitive fuzzy" negators, t- and s-norms can be defined. With D ∗ = { ( α , β ) ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] 2 : α + β = 1 } {\displaystyle D^{*}=\{(\alpha ,\beta )\in [0,1]^{2}:\alpha +\beta =1\}} and by combining both functions to ( μ A , ν A ) : U → D ∗ {\displaystyle (\mu _{A},\nu _{A}):U\to D^{*}} this situation resembles a special kind of L-fuzzy sets.
Once more, this has been expanded by defining picture fuzzy sets (PFS) as follows: A PFS A is characterized by three functions mapping U to [0, 1]: μ A , η A , ν A {\displaystyle \mu _{A},\eta _{A},\nu _{A}} , "degree of positive membership", "degree of neutral membership", and "degree of negative membership" respectively and additional condition ∀ x ∈ U : μ A ( x ) + η A ( x ) + ν A ( x ) ≤ 1 {\displaystyle \forall x\in U:\mu _{A}(x)+\eta _{A}(x)+\nu _{A}(x)\leq 1} This expands the voting sample above by an additional possibility of "refusal of voting".
With D ∗ = { ( α , β , γ ) ∈ [ 0 , 1 ] 3 : α + β + γ = 1 } {\displaystyle D^{*}=\{(\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma )\in [0,1]^{3}:\alpha +\beta +\gamma =1\}} and special "picture fuzzy" negators, t- and s-norms this resembles just another type of L-fuzzy sets.12
One extension of IFS is what is known as Pythagorean fuzzy sets. Such sets satisfy the constraint μ A ( x ) 2 + ν A ( x ) 2 ≤ 1 {\displaystyle \mu _{A}(x)^{2}+\nu _{A}(x)^{2}\leq 1} , which is reminiscent of the Pythagorean theorem.131415 Pythagorean fuzzy sets can be applicable to real life applications in which the previous condition of μ A ( x ) + ν A ( x ) ≤ 1 {\displaystyle \mu _{A}(x)+\nu _{A}(x)\leq 1} is not valid. However, the less restrictive condition of μ A ( x ) 2 + ν A ( x ) 2 ≤ 1 {\displaystyle \mu _{A}(x)^{2}+\nu _{A}(x)^{2}\leq 1} may be suitable in more domains.1617
Main article: Fuzzy logic
As an extension of the case of multi-valued logic, valuations ( μ : V o → W {\displaystyle \mu :{\mathit {V}}_{o}\to {\mathit {W}}} ) of propositional variables ( V o {\displaystyle {\mathit {V}}_{o}} ) into a set of membership degrees ( W {\displaystyle {\mathit {W}}} ) can be thought of as membership functions mapping predicates into fuzzy sets (or more formally, into an ordered set of fuzzy pairs, called a fuzzy relation). With these valuations, many-valued logic can be extended to allow for fuzzy premises from which graded conclusions may be drawn.18
This extension is sometimes called "fuzzy logic in the narrow sense" as opposed to "fuzzy logic in the wider sense," which originated in the engineering fields of automated control and knowledge engineering, and which encompasses many topics involving fuzzy sets and "approximated reasoning."19
Industrial applications of fuzzy sets in the context of "fuzzy logic in the wider sense" can be found at fuzzy logic.
Main article: Fuzzy number
A fuzzy number20 is a fuzzy set that satisfies all the following conditions:
If these conditions are not satisfied, then A is not a fuzzy number. The core of this fuzzy number is a singleton; its location is:
Fuzzy numbers can be likened to the funfair game "guess your weight," where someone guesses the contestant's weight, with closer guesses being more correct, and where the guesser "wins" if he or she guesses near enough to the contestant's weight, with the actual weight being completely correct (mapping to 1 by the membership function).
The kernel K ( A ) = Kern ( A ) {\displaystyle K(A)=\operatorname {Kern} (A)} of a fuzzy interval A {\displaystyle A} is defined as the 'inner' part, without the 'outbound' parts where the membership value is constant ad infinitum. In other words, the smallest subset of R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } where μ A ( x ) {\displaystyle \mu _{A}(x)} is constant outside of it, is defined as the kernel.
However, there are other concepts of fuzzy numbers and intervals as some authors do not insist on convexity.
The use of set membership as a key component of category theory can be generalized to fuzzy sets. This approach, which began in 1968 shortly after the introduction of fuzzy set theory,21 led to the development of Goguen categories in the 21st century.2223 In these categories, rather than using two valued set membership, more general intervals are used, and may be lattices as in L-fuzzy sets.2425
There are numerous mathematical extensions similar to or more general than fuzzy sets. Since fuzzy sets were introduced in 1965 by Zadeh, many new mathematical constructions and theories treating imprecision, inaccuracy, vagueness, uncertainty and vulnerability have been developed. Some of these constructions and theories are extensions of fuzzy set theory, while others attempt to mathematically model inaccuracy/vagueness and uncertainty in a different way. The diversity of such constructions and corresponding theories includes:
The fuzzy relation equation is an equation of the form A · R = B, where A and B are fuzzy sets, R is a fuzzy relation, and A · R stands for the composition of A with R .
A measure d of fuzziness for fuzzy sets of universe U {\displaystyle U} should fulfill the following conditions for all x ∈ U {\displaystyle x\in U} :
In this case d ( A ) {\displaystyle d(A)} is called the entropy of the fuzzy set A.
For finite U = { x 1 , x 2 , . . . x n } {\displaystyle U=\{x_{1},x_{2},...x_{n}\}} the entropy of a fuzzy set A {\displaystyle A} is given by
or just
where S ( x ) = H e ( x ) {\displaystyle S(x)=H_{e}(x)} is Shannon's function (natural entropy function)
and k {\displaystyle k} is a constant depending on the measure unit and the logarithm base used (here we have used the natural base e). The physical interpretation of k is the Boltzmann constant kB.
Let A {\displaystyle A} be a fuzzy set with a continuous membership function (fuzzy variable). Then
and its entropy is
There are many mathematical constructions similar to or more general than fuzzy sets. Since fuzzy sets were introduced in 1965, many new mathematical constructions and theories treating imprecision, inexactness, ambiguity, and uncertainty have been developed. Some of these constructions and theories are extensions of fuzzy set theory, while others try to mathematically model imprecision and uncertainty in a different way.28
L. A. Zadeh (1965) "Fuzzy sets" Archived 2015-08-13 at the Wayback Machine. Information and Control 8 (3) 338–353. http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~zadeh/papers/Fuzzy%20Sets-Information%20and%20Control-1965.pdf ↩
Klaua, D. (1965) Über einen Ansatz zur mehrwertigen Mengenlehre. Monatsb. Deutsch. Akad. Wiss. Berlin 7, 859–876. A recent in-depth analysis of this paper has been provided by Gottwald, S. (2010). "An early approach toward graded identity and graded membership in set theory". Fuzzy Sets and Systems. 161 (18): 2369–2379. doi:10.1016/j.fss.2009.12.005. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
D. Dubois and H. Prade (1988) Fuzzy Sets and Systems. Academic Press, New York. ↩
Liang, Lily R.; Lu, Shiyong; Wang, Xuena; Lu, Yi; Mandal, Vinay; Patacsil, Dorrelyn; Kumar, Deepak (2006). "FM-test: A fuzzy-set-theory-based approach to differential gene expression data analysis". BMC Bioinformatics. 7 (Suppl 4): S7. doi:10.1186/1471-2105-7-S4-S7. PMC 1780132. PMID 17217525. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1780132 ↩
"AAAI". Archived from the original on August 5, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080805071058/http://www.aaai.org/aitopics/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/AITopics/FuzzyLogic ↩
Bellman, Richard; Giertz, Magnus (1973). "On the analytic formalism of the theory of fuzzy sets". Information Sciences. 5: 149–156. doi:10.1016/0020-0255(73)90009-1. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
N.R. Vemuri, A.S. Hareesh, M.S. Srinath: Set Difference and Symmetric Difference of Fuzzy Sets, in: Fuzzy Sets Theory and Applications 2014, Liptovský Ján, Slovak Republic http://www.math.sk/fsta2014/presentations/VemuriHareeshSrinath.pdf ↩
Goguen, J.A (1967). "L-fuzzy sets". Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications. 18: 145–174. doi:10.1016/0022-247X(67)90189-8. /wiki/Joseph_Goguen ↩
Bui Cong Cuong, Vladik Kreinovich, Roan Thi Ngan: A classification of representable t-norm operators for picture fuzzy sets, in: Departmental Technical Reports (CS). Paper 1047, 2016 http://digitalcommons.utep.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2050&context=cs_techrep ↩
Yager, Ronald R. (June 2013). "Pythagorean fuzzy subsets". 2013 Joint IFSA World Congress and NAFIPS Annual Meeting (IFSA/NAFIPS). pp. 57–61. doi:10.1109/IFSA-NAFIPS.2013.6608375. ISBN 978-1-4799-0348-1. S2CID 36286152. 978-1-4799-0348-1 ↩
Yager, Ronald R (2013). "Pythagorean membership grades in multicriteria decision making". IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems. 22 (4): 958–965. doi:10.1109/TFUZZ.2013.2278989. S2CID 37195356. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Yager, Ronald R. (December 2015). Properties and applications of Pythagorean fuzzy sets. Cham: Springer. pp. 119–136. ISBN 978-3-319-26302-1. 978-3-319-26302-1 ↩
Yanase J, Triantaphyllou E (2019). "A Systematic Survey of Computer-Aided Diagnosis in Medicine: Past and Present Developments". Expert Systems with Applications. 138: 112821. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2019.112821. S2CID 199019309. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Yanase J, Triantaphyllou E (2019). "The Seven Key Challenges for the Future of Computer-Aided Diagnosis in Medicine". International Journal of Medical Informatics. 129: 413–422. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.06.017. PMID 31445285. S2CID 198287435. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Siegfried Gottwald, 2001. A Treatise on Many-Valued Logics. Baldock, Hertfordshire, England: Research Studies Press Ltd., ISBN 978-0-86380-262-1 /wiki/Siegfried_Gottwald ↩
Zadeh, L.A. (1975). "The concept of a linguistic variable and its application to approximate reasoning—I". Information Sciences. 8 (3): 199–249. doi:10.1016/0020-0255(75)90036-5. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Zadeh, L.A. (1999). "Fuzzy sets as a basis for a theory of possibility". Fuzzy Sets and Systems. 100: 9–34. doi:10.1016/S0165-0114(99)80004-9. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
J. A. Goguen "Categories of fuzzy sets: applications of non-Cantorian set theory" PhD Thesis University of California, Berkeley, 1968 ↩
Michael Winter "Goguen Categories:A Categorical Approach to L-fuzzy Relations" 2007 Springer ISBN 9781402061639 /wiki/Springer_Verlag ↩
Winter, Michael (2003). "Representation theory of Goguen categories". Fuzzy Sets and Systems. 138: 85–126. doi:10.1016/S0165-0114(02)00508-0. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Goguen, J.A (1967). "L-fuzzy sets". Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications. 18: 145–174. doi:10.1016/0022-247X(67)90189-8. https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0022-247X%2867%2990189-8 ↩
Xuecheng, Liu (1992). "Entropy, distance measure and similarity measure of fuzzy sets and their relations". Fuzzy Sets and Systems. 52 (3): 305–318. doi:10.1016/0165-0114(92)90239-Z. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Li, Xiang (2015). "Fuzzy cross-entropy". Journal of Uncertainty Analysis and Applications. 3. doi:10.1186/s40467-015-0029-5. https://doi.org/10.1186%2Fs40467-015-0029-5 ↩
Burgin & Chunihin 1997; Kerre 2001; Deschrijver & Kerre 2003. - Burgin, M.; Chunihin, A. (1997). "Named Sets in the Analysis of Uncertainty". Methodological and Theoretical Problems of Mathematics and Information Sciences. Kiev: 72–85. ↩