This paper attempts at applying adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for analysis of the resonant frequency of a microstrip rectangular patch antenna with two equal size slots which are placed on the patch vertically. The resonant frequency is calculated as the position of slots is shifted to the right and left sides on the patch. As a result , the antenna resonates at more than one frequency . Commonly, machine algorithms based on artificial neural networks are employed to recognize the whole resonant frequencies. However ,they fail to estimate the resonant frequencies correctly as in some cases variations are not very sensible and the resonant frequencies overlap each other . It can be concluded that artificial neural networks could be replaced in such designs by the adaptive network-based fuzzy Inference system due to its high approximation capability and much faster convergence rate.

ABSTRACT Ethiopia is a developing country, where majority of the population lives in rural areas without access to electricity. 83% of the total population of the country use traditional biomass energy as a basic source of energy. In contrast, the country is endowed with sufficient renewable energy resources which can be used as a standalone electric energy supply system for electrifying remote areas of the country. These resources are mainly micro hydropower and wind which can be used individually or the best combination of one another. The application of hybrid renewable energy system has become an important alternative solution for rural electrification program. The Modeling and control of a hybrid PV-Wind-Hydro DG system is also addressed. Dynamic models for the major system components, namely, wind energy conversion system, PV energy conversion system, hydro, inverter, and overall fuzzy logic controller units are developed. Then, a simulation model for the proposed hybrid power system has been developed using MATLAB /Simulink environment. This is done by creating subsystem sets of the major dynamic component models and then assembling into a single aggregate model. The overall power management strategy for coordinating and/or controlling the different energy sources is also presented in the thesis work. Generally there are 800 households with total electric demand of 71.6KW.To satisfy this demand 52%, 35% and 13% is to be contributed from wind/hydro/solar respectively. To use the power economically fuzzy logic controller is used. The controller monitors the demand and the available sources and then switches to the appropriate power supply according to the written rules. Simulations have been carried out to verify the system dynamic performance using a practical load profile and weather data. The result shows that the overall power management strategy is effective and the load demand is balanced. To complete this work, a grid extension from the closest substation has been compared with hybrid system. Cost of the grid extension is estimated based on the data obtained from EEP office. This is done in order to compare the cost of the designed hybrid power system against the cost of grid extension. The result shows that breakeven grid extension distance to be 23.9km which indicates that grid extension is preferable.

Agricultural greenhouse is largely answered in the agricultural sphere, despite the shortcomings it has, including overheating during the day and night cooling which sometimes results in the thermal inversion mainly due to its low inertia. The glasshouse dressed chapel is relatively more efficient than the conventional tunnel greenhouse. Its proliferation on the ground is more or less timid because of its relatively high cost[14-22]. Agricultural greenhouse aims to create a favorable microclimate to the requirements of growth and development of culture, from the surrounding weather conditions, produce according to the cropping calendars fruits, vegetables and flower species out of season and widely available along the year. It is defined by its structural and functional architecture, the quality thermal, mechanical and optical of its wall, with its sealing level and the technical and technological accompanying[12-13]. The greenhouse is a very confined environment, where multiple components are exchanged between key stakeholders and them factors are light, temperature and relative humidity[8]. This state of thermal evolution is the level sealing of the cover of its physical characteristics to be transparent to solar, absorbent and reflective of infrared radiation emitted by the enclosure where the solar radiation trapping effect otherwise called "greenhouse effect" and its technical and technological means of air that accompany. The socio-economic analysis of populations in the world leaves appear especially the last two decades of rapid and profound transformations These changes are accompanied by changes in eating habits, mainly characterized by rising consumption spread along the year[14]. To effectively meet this demand, greenhouse-systems have evolved, particularly towards greater control of production conditions (climate, irrigation, ventilation techniques, CO2 supply, etc ...). Technological progress has allowed the development of greenhouses so that they become increasingly sophisticated and of an industrial nature (heating, air conditioning, control, computer, regulation, etc ...). New climate driving techniques have emerged, including the use of control devices from the classic to the use of artificial intelligence[10-11] such as neural networks and / or fuzzy logic, etc... As a result, the greenhouse growers prefer these new technologies while optimizing the investment in the field to effectively meet the supply and demand of these fresh products cheaply and widely available throughout the year.

Solar energy is a renewable resource of energy that is broadly utilized and has the least emissions among the renewable energies. In this study, machine learning methods of artificial neural networks (ANNs), least squares support vector machines (LSSVM), and neuro-fuzzy are used for advancing prediction models for thermal performance of a photovoltaic-thermal solar collector (PV/T). In the proposed models, the inlet temperature, flow rate, heat, solar radiation, and the sun heat have been considered as the inputs variables. Data set has been extracted through experimental measurements from a novel solar collector system. Different analyses are performed to examine the credibility of the introduced approaches and evaluate their performance. The proposed LSSVM model outperformed ANFIS and ANNs models. LSSVM model is reported suitable when the laboratory measurements are costly and time-consuming, or achieving such values requires sophisticated interpretations.

Water quality assessment in pastoral of Tibetan Plateau, which is water sources for about 40% of world's population and the runoff-yield area of Yellow rivers, is very important. In this paper, Xiahe county which belongs to Tibetan Plateau pastoral was investigated. Six parameters(via, chloride, COD, ammonia nitrogen, nitrate, fluoride, sulfate) were selected to assess the water quality and health degree by using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation methods. The hydrochemical type in surface water was of HCO3--Mg2+-Ca2+ type. The cations and anions in surface water were mainly from weathering and dissolution of carbonate rock. Results showed that the water quality in all 69 sampling sites was all of class Ⅰ. The integrated health degree reached more than 0.85 and the health rate were 100%. Although ammonia nitrogen was regarded as the main contamination factor, but it had a little effect on the entire body of water. Overall, the surface water qualities of most samples in Xiahe County was good condition.

The paper presents an adaptation of numerical solution of first order linear differential equation in fuzzy environment. The numerical method is re-established and studied with fuzzy concept to estimate its uncertain parameters whose values are not precisely known. Demonstrations of fuzzy solutions of the governing methods are carried out by the approaches, namely Modified Runge Kutta method and Runge Kutta Merson method. The results are compared with the exact solution which is found using generalized Hukuhara derivative (gH-derivative) concepts. Additionally, different illustrative examples and an application in industry of the methods are also undertaken with the useful table and graph to show the usefulness for attained to the proposed approaches.

Recently, many authors have been interested to introduce fuzzy implications over t-norms and t-conorms. In this paper, we introduce (S,N) and residuum fuzzy implication for Dubois t-norm and Hamacher's t-norm. Also, new concepts so-called (T,N) and residual fuzzy co-implication in dual Heyting Algebra are investigated. Some examples as well as application are discussed as well.

In this paper, we scrutinize the axiomatic system of effect algebras which is given by D. J. Foulis and M.K. Bennett in the paper Effect Algebras and Unsharp Quantum Logics. We prove that this axiomatic system consists of independent axioms. To do this, we construct some models to indicate the indepence of each axiom. Therefore none of these axioms can be reduced when constructing any effect algebra. As a result, any algebra is an effect algebra if and only if it verifies (E1)-(E4) axioms.

Recycling waste products is an environmental-friendly activity that can bring benefits to accompany, saving manufacturing costs and improving economic efficiency. For the beer industry, recycling bottles can reduce manufacturing costs and reduce the industry's carbon footprint. This paper presents a model for a multi-objective collection-distribution center location and allocation problem in a closed loop supply chain for the beer industry, in which the objective is to minimize total costs and transportation pollution. Uncertainties in the form of randomness and fuzziness are jointly handled in this paper to ensure a more practical problem solution, for which returned bottle sand unusable bottles are considered fuzzy random variables. A heuristic algorithm based on priority-based global-local-neighbor particle swarm optimization (pb-glnPSO) is applied to ensure reliable solutions for this NP-hard problem. A case study on a beer operation company is conducted to illustrate the application of the proposed model and demonstrate the priority-based global-local-neighbor particle swarm optimization.

Intuitionistic fuzzy set, which can be represented using the triangular intuitionistic fuzzy number (TIFN), is a more generalized platform for expressing imprecise, incomplete and inconsistent information when solving multi-criteria decision-making problems, as well as for reflecting the evaluation information exactly in different dimensions. In this paper, the TIFN has been applied for solving some multi-criteria decision-making problems by developing a new triangular intuitionistic fuzzy geometric aggregation operator, that is the generalized triangular intuitionistic fuzzy ordered weighted geometric averaging (GTIFOWGA) operator, and defining some triangular intuitionistic fuzzy geometric aggregation operators including the triangular intuitionistic fuzzy weighted geometric averaging (TIFWGA) operator, the ordered weighted geometric averaging (TIFOWGA) operator and the hybrid geometric averaging (TIFHWGA) operator. Based on these operators, a new approach for solving multicriteria decision-making problems when the weight information is fixed has been proposed. Finally, the proposed method has been compared with some similar existing computational approaches by virtue of a numerical example to verify its feasibility and rationality.

In this paper, an in-wheel vibration absorber for In-wheel-motor electric vehicle (IWM EV) is designed, and a comprehensive control strategy of in-wheel absorber and vehicle suspension is proposed to improve vehicle ride comfort. The proposed in-wheel vibration absorber, designed for suppressing the motor vibration, is composed of a spring and a controllable damper. The values of in-wheel spring stiffness and damper initial coefficient are determined by using the improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) algorithm, which is carried on the typical driving condition. To deal with the negative interaction effects between vehicle suspension and in-wheel absorber, the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) algorithm is utilized to control suspension damper, and the fuzzy PID method is utilized to control in-wheel damper. Based on the four evaluation indexes including vehicle body vertical acceleration, suspension dynamic deflection, wheel dynamic load and motor wallop, the simulation results show that, the proposed LQR control of suspension effectively improves vehicle ride comfort, and the fuzzy PID control of in-wheel damper exhibits superior performance of motor vibration suppressing in comparison to conventional electric wheel.

Reinforcement learning (RL) is an extensively applied control method for the purpose of designing intelligent control systems to achieve high accuracy as well as better performance. In the present article, the PID controller is considered as the main control strategy for brushless DC (BLDC) motor speed control. For better performance, the fuzzy Q-learning (FQL) method as a reinforcement learning approach is proposed to adjust the PID coefficients. A comparison with the adaptive PID (APID) controller is also performed for the superiority of the proposed method, and the findings demonstrate the reduction of the error of the proposed method and elimination of the overshoot for controlling the motor speed. MATLAB/SIMULINK has been used for modeling, simulation, and control design of the BLDC motor.

This paper formulates the performance evaluation of cloud services as a multicriteria group decision making problem, and presents a fuzzy multicriteria group decision making method for evaluating the performance of cloud services. Interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers are used to model the inherent subjectiveness and imprecision of the performance evaluation process. An effective algorithm is developed based on the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method and the Choquet integral operator for adequately solving the performance evaluation problem. An example is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed fuzzy multicriteria group decision making method for solving the multicriteria group decision making problem in real world situations.

In recent years, new metaheuristic algorithms have been developed taking as reference the inspiration on biological and natural phenomena. This nature-inspired approach for algorithm development has been widely used by many researchers in solving optimization problem. These algorithms have been compared with the traditional ones algorithms and have demonstrated to be superior in complex problems. This paper attempts to describe the algorithms based on nature, that are used in fuzzy clustering. We briefly describe the optimization methods, the most cited nature-inspired algorithms published in recent years, authors, networks and relationship of the works, etc. We believe the paper can serve as a basis for analysis of the new are of nature and bio-inspired optimization of fuzzy clustering.

Monitoring complex electro-mechanical processes is not straightforward despite the arsenal of techniques nowadays availanle. This paper presents a method based on Adaptive-Network-based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) to estimate eccentricity of its spinning axis. The method is experimentally tested on an ultra-precision rotating device commonly used for micro-scale turning. The developed model has three inputs, two obtained from a frequency domain analysis of a vibration signal and the third, which is the device rotation frequency. A comparative study demonstrates that an adaptive neural-fuzzy inference system model provides better error-based performance indices for detecting imbalance than a non-linear regression model. This simple, fast, and non-intrusive imbalance detection strategy is proposed to counteract eventual deterioration in the performance of ultra-high precision rotating machines due to vibrations.

Multi-stakeholder based construction projects are subject to various risk factors due to dynamic business environments. These risks affect project activities which indirectly impact construction costs, resulting in delays and poor building quality. So, managing these project risks requires suitable risk mitigation strategies to evaluate and analyse their severity. Hence, risk evaluation and assessment of construction projects is a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. In present real-life problems, evaluation of project risks is often uncertain and even incomplete, and the prevailing methodologies fail to handle such situations. To address the problem, this paper extends the analytical network process (ANP) methodology in the D number domain to handle three types of ambiguous evaluations, viz. complete, uncertain, and incomplete, and assesses the weight of risk criteria. The D number based approach overcomes the deficiencies of the exclusiveness hypothesis and completeness constraint of Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory. Here, preference ratings of the decision matrix for each decision-maker are determined using a D number extended consistent fuzzy preference relation (D-CFPR). An extended multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) method in D number is then developed to rank and select the best alternative risk response strategy. Finally, an illustrative example from construction sector is presented to check the feasibility of the proposed approach. For checking the reliability of alternative ranking, a comparative analysis is performed with different MCDM approaches (D-COPRAS, D-ARAS, D-MABAC, and D-TOPSIS). Based on different criteria weights, a sensitivity analysis of obtained ranking of the hybrid D-ANP-MABAC model is performed for verify the robustness of the proposed method.

Gas Path Analysis and matching turbine engine models to experimental data are inverse problems of mathematical modelling which are characterized by parametric uncertainty. This results from the fact that the number of measured parameters is significantly lower than the number of components’ performance parameters needed to describe the real engine. In these conditions, even small measurement errors can result in a high variation of results, and obtained efficiency, loss factors etc. can appear out of the physical range. The current methods of engine model identification have developed considerably to provide stable, precise and physically adequate solutions. Presented in this work is an estimation method of engine components’ parameters based on multi-criteria identification which provides stable estimations of parameters and their confidence intervals with the known measurement errors. A priori information about the engine, its parameters and performance is used directly in the regularised identification procedure. The mathematical basis for this approach is the fuzzy sets theory. Forming objective functions and scalar convolutions synthesis of these functions is used to estimate gas-path components’ parameters. A comparison of the proposed approach with traditional methods showed that its main advantage is high stability of estimation in the parametric uncertainty conditions. Regularization reduces scattering, excludes incorrect solutions which do not correspond to a priori assumptions, and also helps to implement the Gas Path Analysis at the limited number of measured parameters. The method can be used for matching thermodynamic models to experimental data, Gas Path Analysis and also adapting dynamic models for the needs of the engine control system.

Recently, the medical image processing is extensively used in several areas. In earlier detection and treatment of these diseases is very helpful to find out the abnormality issues in that image. Here there are number of methods available for segmentation to detect the lung nodule of computer tomography (CT) image. The main result of this paper, the earlier detection of lung nodules using Pre-processing techniques of top-hat transform, median and adaptive bilateral filter was compared both filtering methods and proved the adaptive bilateral filter is suitable method for CT images. The proposed segmentation technique uses novel strip method and the image is split into number of strips 3, 4, 5 and 6. A marker- watershed method based on PSO and Fuzzy C-mean Clustering method was proposed method. Firstly, the input image was reduced noise reduction and smoothing and the filter image is using strips method and then the image is segmented by marker watershed method. Secondly, the enhanced PSO technique was used to locate the better accurate value of the clustering centers of Fuzzy C-mean Clustering. Final stage, with the accurate value of centers and the enhanced target function and the small region of the segmented object was clustered by Fuzzy C-mean. In segmentation algorithm presented in this paper gives 95% of accuracy rate to detect lung nodules when strip count is 5.

This study presents a vibration control using actively tunable vibration absorbers (ATVA) to suppress vibration of a thin plate. The ATVA’s is made of a sandwich hollow structure embedded with the electrorheological fluid (ERF). ERF is considered to be one of the most important smart fluids and it is suitable to be embedded in a smart structure due to its controllable viscosity property. ERF’s apparent viscosity can be controlled in response to the electric field and the change is reversible in 10 microseconds. Therefore, the physical properties of the ERF-embedded smart structure, such as the stiffness and damping coefficients, can be changed in response to the applied electric field. A mathematical model is difficult to be obtained to describe the exact characteristics of the ERF embedded ATVA because of the nonlinearity of ERF’s viscosity. Therefore, a fuzzy modeling and experimental validations of ERF-based ATVA from stationary random vibrations of thin plates are presented in this study. Because Type-2 fuzzy sets generalize Type-1 fuzzy sets so that more modelling uncertainties can be handled, a semi-active vibration controller is proposed based on Type-2 fuzzy sets. To investigate the different performances by using different types of fuzzy controllers, the experimental measurements employing type-1 fuzzy and interval type-2 fuzzy controllers are implemented by the Compact RIO embedded system. The fuzzy modeling framework and solution methods presented in this work can be used for design, performance analysis, and optimization of ATVA from stationary random vibration of thin plates.

The fault diagnosis of wind farms has been proven to be a challenging task and motivates the research activities carried out through this work. Therefore, this paper deals with the fault diagnosis of a wind park benchmark model, and it considers viable solutions to the problem of earlier fault detection and isolation. The design of the fault indicator involves data-driven approaches, as they can represent effective tools for coping with poor analytical knowledge of the system dynamics, noise, uncertainty and disturbances. In particular, the proposed data-driven solutions rely on fuzzy models and neural networks that are used to describe the strongly nonlinear relationships between measurement and faults. The chosen architectures rely on nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input models, as they can represent the dynamic evolution of the system along time. The developed fault diagnosis schemes are tested by means of a high-fidelity benchmark model, that simulates the normal and the faulty behaviour of a wind farm installation. The achieved performances are also compared with those of a model-based approach relying on nonlinear differential geometry tools. Finally, a Monte-Carlo analysis validates the robustness and the reliability of the proposed solutions against typical parameter uncertainties and disturbances.

Human footprint is having a unique set of ridges unmatched by any other human being, and therefore it can be used in different identity documents for example birth certificate, Indian biometric identification system AADHAR card, driving license, PAN card, and passport. There are many instances of the crime scene where an accused must walk around and left the footwear impressions as well as barefoot prints and therefore it is very crucial to recovering the footprints to identify the criminals. Footprint-based biometric is a considerably newer technique for personal identification. Fingerprints, retina, iris and face recognition are the methods most useful for attendance record of the person. This time world is facing the problem of global terrorism. It is challenging to identify the terrorist because they are living as regular as the citizens do. Their soft target includes the industries of special interests such as defense, silicon and nanotechnology chip manufacturing units, pharmacy sectors. They pretend themselves as religious persons, so temples and other holy places, even in markets is in their targets. These are the places where one can obtain their footprints easily. The gait itself is sufficient to predict the behaviour of the suspects. The present research is driven to identify the usefulness of footprint and gait as an alternative to personal identification.

A hybrid fuzzy MADM method is proposed in this paper for evaluating airline service quality. Fuzzy set theory is used since it helps in measuring the ambiguity of concepts associated with human being’s subjective judgment. After reviewing service quality evaluation models especially in airline industry, SSQAI model was adopted as a construct for evaluating airline service quality in Iran. Fuzzy DEMATEL was applied to determine the degree of influence and impact of criteria on each other and extract cause and effect relations between them that helped in ranking criteria based on degree of relationship. Then, ANP network map was constructed based on the relation map generated from Fuzzy DEMATEL analysis. Fuzzy ANP approach assisted in prioritizing criteria based on the need for improvement and enabled in a more accurate measurement in decision making process taking the advantage of using linguistic variables. Fuzzy DEMATEL results demonstrates that expertise, Problem-solving, and conduct has the most influence on other factors and in opposite Valence, Waiting Time, Comfort are the factors which get the most impact from other factors and according to Fuzzy ANP analysis Valence, Convenience, Problem-solving, and Safety&Security are the factors with most priorities that need improvement.

The term fuzzy refers to things that are unclear or vague. In the real world, we often encounter a situation where we cannot determine whether the state is true or false, and fuzzy logic allows for more flexible reasoning. This is a form of multivalued logic where the truth values ​​of variables can be any real number between 0 and 1, as opposed to Boolean logic where the logical values ​​can only be 0 or 1. Fuzzy logic is therefore a problem-solving technique used to evaluate all available information and thus make the best decisions. When applied to marketing, fuzzy logic allows treating customers in an individual and personalized way, instead of being fully identified within a particular market segment. Fuzzy marketing considers the degree to which a customer belongs to certain segments and subsequently allows them to be targeted with messages that engage them emotionally. To better understand the application and importance of fuzzy logic in marketing strategy, we developed a systematic review of the bibliometric literature (LRSB). It was possible to create a connection between these concepts, marketing and fuzzy logic, to increase the efforts of marketing professionals to achieve competitiveness in the unpredictable business environment.

Quantitative and qualitative fuzzy measures have been proposed to hesitant fuzzy sets (HFSs) from different points. However, few of the existing HFSs fuzzy measures refer to the grey relational analysis (GRA) theory. Actually, the GRA theory is very useful in the fuzzy measure domain, which has been developed for such the intuitionistic fuzzy sets. Therefore, in this paper, we apply the GRA theory to the HFSs and interval-valued hesitant fuzzy sets (IVHFS) domain. We propose the HFSs grey relational degree, HFSs slope grey relational degree, HFSs synthetic grey relational degree and IVHFSs grey relational degree, which describe the closeness, the variation tendency and both the closeness and variation tendency of HFSs and closeness of IVHFSs, respectively, greatly enriching the fuzzy measures of HFSs. Furthermore, with the help of the TOPSIS method, we develop the grey relational based MADM methodology to solve the HFSs and IVHFSs MADM problems. Finally, combined with two practical MADM examples about energy policy selection with HFSs information and emergency management evaluation with IVHFSs information, we obtain the most desirable decision results, and compared with the previous methods, the validity, effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed grey relational degree for HFSs and IVHFSs are demonstrated in detail.

We introduce a new variation on the domination theme which we call vertex domination as reducing waste of time in transportation planning and optimization of transport routes. We determine the vertex domination number $\gamma_v$ for several classes of fuzzy graphs. The bounds is obtained for it. In fuzzy graphs, monotone decreasing property and monotone increasing property are introduced. We prove both of the vizing's conjecture and the Grarier-Khelladi's conjecture are monotone decreasing fuzzy graph property for vertex domination. We obtain Nordhaus-Gaddum (NG) type results for these parameters. The relationship between several classes of operations on fuzzy graphs with the vertex domination number of them is studied. Finally, we discuss about vertex dominating set of a fuzzy tree by using the bridges and $\alpha$-strong edges equivalence.

Most of the municipalities in the Gulf region are facing performance related issues in their municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems. They lack to possess a deliberate inter-municipality benchmarking processes. Instead of identifying the performance gaps for their key components (e.g., personnel productivity, operational reliability, etc.) and adopt proactive measures, the municipalities primarily rely on an efficient emergency response. A novel hierarchical modeling framework, based on deductive reasoning, is developed for performance assessment of MSWM systems. Fuzzy rule based modeling using Simulink-MATLAB was used for performance inferencing at different levels, i.e., component, sub-components, etc. The model is capable of handling the inherent uncertainties due to limited data and imprecise knowledge base. The model’s outcomes can exclusively assist the managers working at different levels of organizational hierarchy for effective decision-making. Performance of the key component, assists the senior management to assess the overall compliance level of performance objectives. Subsequently, operation management can hone in the sub-components to acquire useful information for intra-municipality performance management. While, individual indicators are useful for inter-municipality benchmarking. The model has been implemented on two municipalities operating in Qassim Region, Saudi Arabia. The results demonstrate the model’s pragmatism for continuous performance improvement of MSWM systems in the country and elsewhere.

Most of existing fuzzy forecasting models partition historical training time series into fuzzy time series and build fuzzy-trend logical relationship groups to generate forecasting rules. The determination process of intervals is complex and uncertainty. In this paper, we present a novel fuzzy forecasting model based on high-order fuzzy-fluctuation trends and the fuzzy-fluctuation logical relationships of the training time series. Firstly, we compare each data with the data of its previous day in historical training time series to generate a new fluctuation trend time series(FTTS). Then, fuzzify the FTTS into fuzzy-fluctuation time series(FFTS) according to the up, equal or down range and orientation of the fluctuations. Since the relationship between historical FFTS and the fluctuation trend of future is nonlinear, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed to estimate the required parameters. Finally, use the acquired parameters to forecast the future fluctuations. In order to compare the performance of the proposed model with that of the other models, we apply the proposed method to forecast the Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index (TAIEX) time series datasets. The experimental results and the comparison results show that the proposed method can be successfully applied in stock market forecasting or such kinds of time series. We also apply the proposed method to forecast Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SHSECI) to verify its effectiveness and universality.

Knowledge-based approaches are useful alternatives to predict the Failure Probability (FP) coping with the insufficient data, process integrity, and complexity issue in manufacturing systems. This study proposes a Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) approach as proactive knowledge-based technique to estimate the FP based maintenance planning with subjective information from domain experts. However, the classical-FTA still suffers from uncertainty and static structure limitations which poses a substantial dilemma in predicting FP. To deal with the uncertainty issues, a Fuzzy-FTA (FFTA) model was developed by statistical analysing the effective attributes such as experts' trait impacts, scales variation and, assorted membership and defuzzification functions. Besides, a Bayesian Network (BN) theory was conducted to overcome the static limitation of classical-FTA. The results of FFTA model revealed that the changes in decision attributes were not statistically significant on FP variation while BN model considering conditional rules to reflect the dynamic relationship between events had more impact on predicting FP. After all, the integrated FFTA-BN model was used in the optimization model to find the optimal maintenance intervals according to estimated FP and the total expected cost. As a practical example, the proposed model was implemented in a semi-automatic filling system in an automotive production line. The outcomes could be useful for upgrading the availability and safety of complex equipment in manufacturing systems.

We define a new seasonal forecasting method based on fuzzy transforms. We use the best interpolating polynomial for extracting the trend of the time series and generate the inverse fuzzy transform on each seasonal subset of the universe of discourse for predicting the value of a an assigned output. Like first example, we use the daily weather dataset of the municipality of Naples (Italy) starting from data collected from 2003 till to 2015 making predictions on the following outputs: mean temperature, max temperature and min temperature, all considered daily. Like second example, we use the daily mean temperature measured at the weather station “Chiavari Caperana” in the Liguria Italian Region. We compare the results with our method, the average seasonal variation, ARIMA and the usual fuzzy transforms concluding that the best results are obtained under our approach in both examples.

Grading of rice grains has gain attentions due its requirement of quality assessment during import or export. Rice grain quality depends on milling operation, where rice hull is removed with a huller system followed by whitening operation. In such process, adjustment of rollers, control, and operation is important in terms of quality of milled rice. Especially, the basmati rice needed more quality assurance as it is not parboiled rice and exported globally with a high product value. In this present work, the basic problem of quality assessment in rice industry is addressed with digital image processing based technique. Machine vision and digital image processing provide an alternative with the automated, nondestructive, cost-effective, and fast approach as compared with traditional method which is done manually by human inspectors. A model of quality grade testing and identification is built based on morphological features using digital image processing and knowledge based adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). The qualities of rice kernels are determined with the help of shape descriptors and geometric features using the sample images of milled rice. The adopted technique has been tested on a sufficient number of training images of basmati rice grain. The proposed method gives a promising result in an evaluation of rice quality with 100% classification accuracy for broken and whole grain. The milling efficiency is also assessed using the ratio between head rice and broken rice percentage and it is 77.27% for the test sample. The overall results of the adopted methodology are promising in terms of classification accuracy and efficiency.

Wind turbine plants are complex dynamic and uncertain processes driven by stochastic inputs and disturbances, as well as different loads represented by gyroscopic, centrifugal, and gravitational forces. Moreover, as their aerodynamic models are nonlinear, both modelling and control become challenging problems. On one hand, high-fidelity simulators should contain different parameters and variables in order to accurately describe the main dynamic system behaviour. Therefore, the development of modelling and control for wind turbine systems should consider these complexity aspects. On the other hand, these control solutions have to include the main wind turbine dynamic characteristics without becoming too complicated. The main point of this paper is thus to provide two practical examples of development of robust control strategies when applied to a simulated wind turbine plant. Experiments with the wind turbine simulator and the Monte–Carlo tools represent the instruments for assessing the robustness and reliability aspects of the developed control methodologies when the model-reality mismatch and measurement errors are also considered. Advantages and drawbacks of these regulation methods are also highlighted with respect to different control strategies via proper performance metrics.

In this paper, we employ fuzzy Sumudu transform for solving system of linear fuzzy differential equations with fuzzy constant coefficients. The system with fuzzy constant coefficients is interpreted under strongly generalized differentiability. For this purpose, new procedures for solving the system are proposed. A numerical example is carried out for solving system adapted from fuzzy radioactive decay model. Conclusion is drawn in the last section and some potential research directions are given.

The aim of this article is introduced the concept of double framed T-soft fuzzy set (DFT-soft fuzzy set) which is the combination of soft set and fuzzy set. We also defined the notions and apply this concept in BCK/BCI-algebras. By using example, we also discussed the concept of double framed T-soft fuzzy algebra (DFT-soft fuzzy algebra) and double framed B-soft fuzzy algebra (DFB-soft fuzzy algebra) and also investigated their properties. Each double framed T-soft fuzzy algebra is double framed B-soft fuzzy algebra but by using example, we proved that converse may or may not be possible.

This paper focuses on evaluating airline service quality from the perspective of passengers view. Until now a lot of researches has performed in airline service quality evaluation in the world but a little research has been conducted in Iran, yet. In this research a framework for measuring airline service quality in Iran is proposed. After reviewing airline service quality criteria, SSQAI model was selected because of its comprehensiveness in covering airline service quality dimensions. SSQAI questionnaire items were redesigned to adopt with Iranian airlines requirements and environmental circumstances in the Iran's economic and cultural context. This study includes fuzzy decision-making theory, considering the possible fuzzy subjective judgment of the evaluators during airline service quality evaluation. Fuzzy TOPSIS have been applied for ranking airlines service quality performances. Three major Iranian airlines which have the most passenger transfer volumes in domestic and foreign flights, were chosen for evaluation in this research. Results demonstrated Mahan airline has got the best service quality performance rank in gaining passengers' satisfaction with delivery of high quality services to its passengers, among the three major Iranian airlines. IranAir and Aseman airlines placed in the second and third rank, respectively, according to passenger's evaluation.Statistical analysis have been used in analyzing passenger responses. Due to abnormality of data, Non-parametric tests were applied. To demonstrate airline ranks in every criterion separately, Friedman test was performed. Variance analysis and Tukey test were applied to study the influence of increasing in age and educational level of passengers' on degree of their satisfaction from airline's service quality. Results showed that age has not significant relation with passenger satisfaction of airlines, however increasing in educational level demonstrated a negative impact on passengers' satisfaction from airline's service quality.

Permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) AC servo system shows the characteristics of uncertainty, time-varying and non-linearity, which makes it difficult for traditional PID control to achieve ideal control effect. Fuzzy control has strong adaptability to the problems of parameter variation, non-linearity and model inaccuracy of the controlled object. Vector control strategy is used to study its control principle and the realization of SVPWM. Because the motor object has certain fractional order characteristics, the fuzzy parameter self-tuning PIλ control is chosen as the position regulator of servo motor. It combines the accuracy of fractional order PI control and the adaptability of fuzzy control. A simulation model of PMSM three-closed-loop system is built in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The results show that the control method is effective and can satisfy the trajectory tracking of servo control.

This paper presents a method to detect and classify the high impedance fault that occur in the medium voltage distribution network using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). The network is designed using Matlab software and various faults such as high impedance, symmetrical and unsymmetrical fault have been applied to study the effectiveness of the proposed ANFIS classifier method. This is achieved by training the ANFIS classifier using the features (standard deviation values) extracted from the three phase fault current signal by DWT technique for various cases of fault with different values of fault resistance in the system. The success and discrimination rate obtained for identifying and classifying the high impedance fault from the proffered method is 100% whereas the values are 66.7% and 85% respectively for conventional fuzzy based approach. The results indicate that the proposed method is more efficient to identify and discriminate the high impedance fault accurately from other power system faults in the system.

This research work explains the practical realization of hybrid solar wind based standalone power system with maximum power point tracker (MPPT) to produce electrical power in rural places (residential applications). The solar inspired Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) based MPPT algorithm is employed for the purpose of fast and accurate tracking power from solar and wind system. Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) inverter controlling strategy is adopted in this presented work compared to classical PI control. Moreover, single Cuk converter is operated as impedance power adapter to execute MPPT functioning. Satisfactory practical results have been realized using dSPACE (DS1104) platform that justify the superiority of proposed algorithms designed under various operating situations.

A quantum hybrid (QH) intelligent approach that blends the adaptive search capability of the quantum-behaved particle swarm optimisation (QPSO) method with the intuitionistic rationality of traditional fuzzy k-nearest neighbours (Fuzzy k-NN) algorithm (known simply as the Q-Fuzzy approach) is proposed for efficient feature selection and classification of cells in cervical smeared (CS) images. From an initial multitude of seventeen (17) features describing the geometry, colour, and texture of the CS images, the QPSO stage of our proposed technique is used to select the best subset features (i.e. global best particles) that represent a pruned down collection of seven (7) features. Using a dataset of almost 1000 images, performance evaluation of our proposed Q-Fuzzy approach assesses the impact of our feature selection on classification accuracy by way of three experimental scenarios that are compared alongside two other approaches: The All-features (i.e. classification without prior feature selection) and another hybrid technique combining the standard PSO algorithm with the Fuzzy k-NN technique (P-Fuzzy approach). In the first and second scenarios, we further divided the assessment criteria in terms of classification accuracy based on the choice of best features and those in terms of the different categories of the cervical cells. In the third scenario, we introduced new QH hybrid techniques, i.e. QPSO combined with other supervised learning methods, and compared the classification accuracy alongside our proposed Q-Fuzzy approach. Furthermore, we employed statistical approaches to establish qualitative agreement with regards to the feature selection in scenarios 1 and 3. The synergy between the QPSO and Fuzzy k-NN in the proposed Q-Fuzzy approach marginally improves classification accuracy as manifest in the reduction in number cell features, which is crucial for effective cervical cancer detection and diagnosis.

Flash flood is one of the most significant natural disasters in China, particularly in mountainous area, causing heavy economic damage and casualties of life. Accurate risk assessment is critical to an efficient flash flood management. There are more than 530,000 small watersheds in 2058 counties in China where flash flood should be prevented. In practice, with limited fund and different risk levels, the priorities of each small watershed for flash flood prevention and control are also needed for an efficient flash flood management. This paper, take Licheng county in China as an example, aims to give out these priorities for management. First, sensitive indexes are identified among index system, which includes 9 indexes based on underlying surface characteristics of small watershed in hilly region. Second, the range of each index and the rank division of each index for evaluation are determined. Based on the rank divisions for evaluation, the flash flood risk grade eigenvalue (H) is calculated by Variable Fuzzy Method (VFM ) using 1000 samplings generated by Latin hypercube sampling method. Third, the key sensitivity factors that affect flash flood risk grade eigenvalue (H) are assessed by two different global sensitivity analysis methods -- stepwise regression analysis and mutual entropy. Both results indicate that watershed slope (S) is the most sensitive factor; the second is antecedent precipitation index (CN); while other factors are slightly different sensitive in sequence. This study shows that stepwise regression analysis and mutual information analysis are appropriate for the sensitivity analysis of mountain flash flood risk. Finally, based on watershed slope (S), the priorities of flash flood prevention and control of 119 small watersheds in Licheng county are given out.

This article puts forward the bi-matrix games with crisp parametric payoffs based on interval value function approach. We conclude that the equilibrium solution of the game model can converted into optimal solutions of the pair of the non-linear optimization problem. Finally, experiment results show the efficiency of the model.

Software engineers from all over the world solve independently a lot of similar problems. In this condition the problem of code or even better architecture reusing becomes an issue of the day. In this paper two phase approach to determining the functional and structural likenesses of software projects is proposed. This approach combines two methods of artificial intelligence: natural language processing techniques with a novel method for comparing software projects based on ontological representation of their architecture automatically obtained from the projects source code. Additionally several similarity metrics are proposed to estimate similarity between projects.

A novel metaheuristic optimization method is proposed based on an earthquake that is a geology phenomenon. The novel Earthquake Algorithm (EA) proposed, adapts the principle of propagation of geology waves P and S through the earth material composed by random density to ensure the dynamic balance between exploration and exploitation, in order to reach the best solution to optimization complex problems by searching for the optimum into the search space. The performance and validation of the EA are compared against the Bat Algorithm (BA) and the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) by using 10 diverse benchmark functions. In addition, an experimental engineering application is implemented to evaluate the proposed algorithm. Early results show a feasibility of the proposed method with a clearly constancy and stability. It is important highlight the fact that the main purpose of this paper is to present a new line of research, which is opened from the novel EA.

Natural events such as floods, fires, tsunamis, earthquakes and others have nowadays caused serious damage to human beings and nature. The precise detection of these natural events and especially the earthquake has nowadays become the focus of many computer and geoscientific researchers. Computer science and machine learning algorithms have revolutionized early detection and prediction of these events. Hence, a fuzzy method has been initially used in this article to enhance the authenticity of data based on application of effective variables and then combination of neural network algorithms of the MLP perceptron and radial network of RBF in form of a collective learning system in order to more accurately identify seismic events on a small scale. It was observed after simulating the proposed method that the proposed method has significantly improved based on actual error and root-mean-square error (RMSE) criteria compared to basic methods.

The paper proposes TOPSIS method for solving multi-objective multi-level programming problem (MO-MLPP) with fuzzy parameters via fuzzy goal programming (FGP). At first, - cut method is used to transform the fuzzily described MO-MLPP into deterministic MO-MLPP. Then, for specific , we construct the membership functions of distance functions from positive ideal solution (PIS) and negative ideal solution (NIS) of all level decision makers (DMs). Thereafter, FGP based multi-objective decision model is established for each level DM for obtaining individual optimal solution. A possible relaxation on decisions for all DMs is taken into account for satisfactory solution. Subsequently, two FGP models are developed and compromise optimal solutions are found by minimizing the sum of negative deviational variables. To recognize the better compromise optimal solution, the concept of distance functions is utilized. Finally, a novel algorithm for MO-MLPP involving fuzzy parameters is provided and an illustrative example is solved to verify the proposed procedure.

In fuzzy decision problems, the ordering of fuzzy numbers is the basic problem. Among which, the fuzzy preference relation is the reasonable one to represent preference relation by a fuzzy membership function. This paper studies the Nakamura’s and Kołodziejczyk’s preference relations. Eight cases of representing different level of overlapping between two triangular fuzzy numbers are considered. We analyze the ranking behaviors of all possible combinations of decomposition and intersection of two fuzzy numbers for the Nakamura’s and Kołodziejczyk’s preference relations of these test cases. The results indicate that the decomposition and intersection can affect the fuzzy preference relations, thereby the final total order relation of fuzzy numbers.

Exoskeleton robots are a rising technology in industrial contexts to assist humans in onerous applications. Mechanical and control design solutions are intensively investigated to achieve a high performance human-robot collaboration (e.g., transparency, ergonomics, safety, etc.). However, the most of the investigated solutions involve high-cost hardware, complex design solutions and standard actuation. In the presented work, an industrial exoskeleton for lifting and transportation of heavy parts is proposed. A low-cost mechanical design solution is proposed, exploiting compliant actuation at the shoulder joint to increase safety and transparency in human-robot cooperation. A hierarchic model-based controller is then proposed (including the modeling of the compliant actuator) to actively assist the human while executing the task. An inner optimal controller is proposed for trajectory tracking, while an outer fuzzy logic controller is proposed to online deform the task trajectory on the basis of the human’s intention of motion. A gain scheduler is also designed to calculate the optimal control gains on the basis of the performed trajectory. Simulations have been performed in order to validate the performance of the proposed device, showing promising results. The prototype is under realization.

The Pythagorean fuzzy set (PFS), which is characterized by a membership and a non-membership degree and the square sum of them is less or equal to one, can act as an effective tool to express decision makers’ fuzziness and uncertainty. Considering that the Heronian mean (HM) is a powerful aggregation operator which can take the interrelationship between any two arguments, we study the HM in Pythagorean fuzzy environment and propose new operators for aggregating interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy information. First, we investigate the HM and geometric HM (GHM) under interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy environment and develop a series of aggregation operators for interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IVIFNs) including interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy Heronian mean (IVIFHM), interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy geometric Heronian mean (IVIFGHM), interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted Heronian mean (IVIFWHM) and interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted geometric Heronian mean (IVIFWGHM). Second, some desirable and important properties of these aggregation operators are discussed. Third, based on these aggregation operators, a novel approach to multi-attribute decision making (MADM) is proposed. Finally, to demonstrate the validity of the approach, a numerical example is provided and discussed. Moreover, we discuss several real-world applications of these operators within policy-making contexts.

Oil has become the object of global exploits and fierce competition among the major world powers as it is a key strategic non-renewable resource. Transnational petroleum investment is therefore an important mechanism available to countries and international corporations to control oil resources even though there are numerous inherent uncertainties and risks. A new risk assessment index system is proposed in this paper based on use of the Delphi expert scoring system and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation that aims to minimize the potential risks inherent to multinational petroleum investment. This approach encapsulates political, legal, socioeconomic, and infrastructural factors to develop a technical method that can be used for transnational petroleum investment risk assessment. An evaluation of oil investment risk within a case study area is also presented; results provide reference data that can be applied by national and international oil companies to mitigate risks of transnational oil investment.

Human non-conscious reasoning is one of the most successful procedures developed to solve everyday problems in an efficient way. This is why the field of artificial intelligence should analyze, formalize and emulate the multiple ways of non-conscious reasoning with the purpose of applying them in knowledge based systems, neurocomputers and similar devices for aiding people in the problem-solving process. In this paper, a framework for those non-conscious ways of reasoning is presented based on object-oriented representations, fuzzy sets and multivalued logic.

The aim of this expository article is to present recent developments in the centuries-old discussion on the interrelations between several types of domination in graphs. However, the novelty even more prominent in the newly discovered simplified presentations of several older results. Domination can be seen as arising from real-world application and extracting classical results as first described by this article.The main part of this article, concerning a new domination and older one, is presented in a narrative that answers two classical questions: (i) To what extend must closing set be dominating? (ii) How strong is the assumption of domination of a closing set? In a addition, we give an overview of the results concerning domination. The problem asks how small can a subset of vertices be and contain no edges or, more generally how can small a subset of vertices be and contain other ones. Our work was as elegant as it was unexpected being a departure from the tried and true methods of this theory that had dominated the field for one fifth a century. This expository article covers all previous definitions. The inability of previous definitions in solving even one case of real-world problems due to the lack of simultaneous attentions to the worthy both of vertices and edges causing us to make the new one. The concept of domination in a variety of graphs models such as crisp, weighted and fuzzy, has been in a spotlight. We turn our attention to sets of vertices in a fuzzy graph that are so close to all vertices, in a variety of ways, and study minimum such sets and their cardinality. A natural way to introduce and motivate our subject is to view it as a real-world problem. In its most elementary form, we consider the problem of reducing waste of time in transport planning. Our goal here is to first describe the previous definitions and the results, and then to provide an overview of the flows ideas in their articles. The final outcome of this article is twofold: (i) Solving the problem of reducing waste of time in transport planning at static state; (ii) Solving and having a gentle discussions on problem of reducing waste of time in transport planning at dynamic state. Finally, we discuss the results concerning holding domination that are independent of fuzzy graphs. We close with a list of currently open problems related to this subject. Most of our exposition assumes only familiarity with basic linear algebra, polynomials, fuzzy graph theory and graph theory.

In the manufacturing industry, cutting tool failure is a probable fault which causes damage to the cutting tools, workpiece quality and unscheduled downtime. It is very important to develop a reliable and inexpensive intelligent tool wear monitoring system for use in cutting processes. A successful monitoring system can effectively maintain machine tools, cutting tool and workpiece. In the present study, the tool condition monitoring system has been developed for Die steel (H13) milling process. Effective design of experiment and robust data acquisition system ensured the machining forces impact in the milling operation. Also, ANFIS based model has been developed based on cutting force-tool wear relationship in this research which has been implemented in the tool wear monitoring system. Prediction model shows that the developed system is accurate enough to perform an online tool wear monitoring system in the milling process.

Satellites are subject to various severe vibration during different phases of flight. The concept of satellite smart adapter is proposed in this study to achieve active vibration control of launch vehicle on satellite. The satellite smart adapter has 18 active struts in which the middle section of each strut is made of piezoelectric stack actuator. Comprehensive conceptual design of the satellite smart adapter is presented to indicate the design parameters, requirements and philosophy applied which are based on the reliability and durability criterions to ensure successful functionality of the proposed system. The coupled electromechanical virtual work equation for the piezoelectric stack actuator in each active strut is drived by applying D'Alembert's principle. Modal analysis is performed to characterize the inherent properties of the smart adapter and extraction of a mathematical model of the system. Active vibration control analysis was conducted using fuzzy logic control with triangular membership functions and acceleration feedback. The control results conclude that the proposed satellite smart adapter configuration which benefits from piezoelectric stack actuator as elements of its 18 active struts has high strength and shows excellent robustness and effectiveness in vibration suppression of launch vehicle on satellite.

This paper aims to investigate impact of employees’ gender on OCB as per the employees’ perception in Jordanian governmental hospitals. A convenient sample of 126 employees working in the three main governmental hospitals in north of Jordan has been taken for the purpose of this study. The collected data includes linguistic terms that suffer from uncertainty which, in turn, cannot be dealt with traditional numerical values. The result prove that gender impact on OCB has shown statistically significant differences at (α=0.05) as far as altruism, courtesy, and civic virtue are concerned; and this variable stands in favor of males with the total score of 0.011%. Similarly, as far as the effect of age factor on OCB is concerned, there have been statistically significant differences at (α=0.05) in relation to courtesy, sportsmanship, and civic virtue with the total score of 0.27%. Finally, the results provide a baseline data for further studies which may contribute more significant in the field of OCB.

In fuzzy group decision making problems and fuzzy shortest path problems, the addition and subtraction are the basic problems. For the mixed normal fuzzy numbers and trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, the addition and subtraction operations are approximated by the normal fuzzy numbers in this paper. The behaviors of approximated normal fuzzy numbers are the same as those of the normal distributions from the viewpoint of probability. An application of the addition and subtraction operations of mixed fuzzy numbers to the fuzzy sample mean is also proposed.

The health of the landing gear retraction and extension hydraulic system may be assessed using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE), however the traditional FCE method depends solely on human assessment by specialists, which is excessively subjective. To address the issue of excessive human subjective variables in the assessment, an improved FCE model based on enhanced risk coefficient is provided, which includes four consideration indexes: failure probability, failure severity, failure detection difficulty, and failure repair difficulty. To reduce subjective human judgment errors entirely due to expert experience, the improved FCE takes into account the likelihood of failure using a statistical method, the severity of failure using a fault simulation analysis based on the LMS Imagine.Lab AMESim simulation platform, and the difficulty of fault detection and repair using the aircraft manufacturer's professional maintenance information. As part of the evaluation model, the range of health assessment values and accompanying treatment methods are included, making it easier to implement on a daily basis in aircraft maintenance. As a final step, the simulation is evaluated and the simulated faults are calculated.

A real-time two-way direct load control (TWDLC) of central air-conditioning chillers in wide area is proposed to provide demand response. The proposed TWDLC scheme is designed to optimize the load shedding ratio of every customer under control to ensure the target load to be shed is met at every scheduling period. In order to overcome the load reduction uncertainties of TWDLC, an innovative solution is proposed by applying a certain degree of loosening on the constraint of the actual shed load. Fuzzy linear programming is utilized to solve the optimization problem with fuzzy constraints. The proposed fuzzy linear programming problem is solved by delicately transforming it into a regular liner programming problem. A selection scheme used to obtain the feasible candidates set for load shedding at every sampling interval of TWDLC is also designed along with the fuzzy linear programming.

As the number of ships for marine transportation increases with the advancement of global trade, encountering multiple ships in marine traffic becomes common. This situation raises the risk of collision of the ships; hence this paper proposes a novel Fuzzy-logic based intelligent conflict detection and resolution algorithm, where the collision courses and possible avoiding actions are analyzed by considering ship motion dynamics and the input and output fuzzy membership functions are derived. As a conflict detection module, the Collision Risk (CR) is measured for each ship by using a scaled nondimensional Distance to the Closest Point of Approach (DCPA) and Time to the Closest Point of Approach (TCPA) as inputs. Afterwards, the decisions for collision avoidance are made based on the calculated CR, encountering angle and relative angle of each ship measured from others. In this regard, the rules for the Fuzzy interface system are defined in accordance with the COLREGs, and the whole system is implemented on the MATLAB Simulink platform. In addition, to deal with the multiple ship encounters, the paper proposes a unique maximum-course and minimum-speed change approach for decision making, which has been found to be efficient to solve Imazu problems, and other complicated multiple-ship encounters.

Cooperative non-orthogonal multi access communication is a promising paradigm for the future wireless networks because of its advantages in terms of energy efficiency, wider coverage and interference mitigating. In this paper, we study the secrecy performance of a downlink cooperative non-orthogonal multi access (NOMA) communication system under the presence of an eavesdropper node. Smart node selection based on feed forward neural networks (FFNN) is proposed in order to improve the physical layer security (PLS) of a cooperative NOMA network. The selected cooperative relay node is employed to enhance the channel capacity of the legal users, where the selected cooperative jammer is employed to degrade the capacity of the wiretapped channel. Simulations of the secrecy performance metric namely the secrecy capacity ($C_S$) are presented and compared with the conventional technique based on fuzzy logic node selection technique. Based on our simulations and discussions the proposed technique outperforms the existing technique in term the of secrecy performance.

Electricity demand prediction is vital for energy production management and proper exploitation of the present resources. Recently, several novel machine learning (ML) models have been employed for electricity demand prediction to estimate the future prospects of the energy requirements. The main objective of this study is to review the various ML models applied for electricity demand prediction. Through a novel search and taxonomy, the most relevant original research articles in the field are identified and further classified according to the ML modeling technique, perdition type, and the application area. A comprehensive review of the literature identifies the major ML models, their applications and a discussion on the evaluation of their performance. This paper further makes a discussion on the trend and the performance of the ML models. As the result, this research reports an outstanding rise in the accuracy, robustness, precision and the generalization ability of the prediction models using the hybrid and ensemble ML algorithms.

Today project management in every field of life is prerequisite for the success of project by increasing quality reduces cost and schedule. But selecting tools and techniques to achieve our objectives and implement our plan fully is very difficult task because choice creates complexity. So, we discuss AHP to make decision simple. Ranking critical success factor, cloud computing services, risk prioritization, selection of right ETL software and many other systems AHP plays its important role. For the improvement of today’s complex systems it is very important to prioritize and select projects to remove the root cause of the problem. To attain the right selection of construction equipment for carrying out schedule tasks with high efficiency, production and financial capability is the main purpose of procurement of construction equipment process. Certain conflicts can occur due to the construction of UML models in a collaborative way. AHP is used to remove these conflicts and for establishing and evaluating modelers judgments. Nowadays it is very important and critical decision to choose the best option from multiple alternatives for a successful career after passing 12th standard and also it affects our future. “AHP and TOPSIS” methods are used for this purpose. In this paper, an “AHP and Fuzzy AHP” based hierarchical trust model has been used to rate the service providers and their various plans for infrastructure as a service.

In modern mathematics, many concepts and ideas are described in terms of category theory. From this viewpoint, it is desirable to analyze what can be determined if, instead of the basic category of sets, we consider a similar category of fuzzy sets. In this paper, we describe a natural fuzzy analog of the category of sets and functions, and we show that, in this category, fuzzy relations (a natural fuzzy analogue of functions) can be determined in category terms -- of course, modulo 1-1 mapping of the corresponding universe of discourse and 1-1 re-scaling of fuzzy degrees.

Vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) is a type of mobile network which is used for establishing connection between vehicles (M2M) and also between vehicles and nearby stationary equipment which are often road-side equipment. The main target of VANET is to provide security and convenience for the passengers. In order to achieve this goal, a special electronic device called OBU (On-Board Unit) is embedded in each vehicle which makes the connection between vehicles and between the vehicles and the road-side equipment possible. In this paper, the Location-Aware Clustering in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (LAC-VANET) is proposed. We try to achieve the main and major goal in VANET networks, i.e. fast propagation of security and urgent messages in ITS systems, using clustering and selecting the best cluster head based on Fuzzy logic such that the cluster head can transfer important information such as the obstacles and accidents detected on the road with a suitable speed and without creating a large traffic load in the vehicle network in order to notify other vehicles and prevent the danger and vehicle accidents. Moreover, LAC-VANET method is evaluated here via extensive simulations carried out in NS-2. The simulation results indicate that the VANET network performance metrics are improved in terms of average throughput, Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), end to end delay, and packet loss rate.

We propose a new Mamdani fuzzy rule-based system in which the fuzzy sets in the antecedents and consequents are assigned in a discrete set of points and approximated by using the extended inverse fuzzy transforms, whose components are calculated by verifying that the dataset is sufficiently dense with respect to the uniform fuzzy partition. We test our system in the problem of spatial analysis consisting in the evaluation of the liveability of residential housings in all the municipalities of the district of Naples (Italy). Comparisons are done with the results obtained by using trapezoidal fuzzy numbers in the fuzzy rules.

Logistics Engineering has transcended over the decades into an approach for competitive benefits in organisational performance and logistics efficiency. Most industries are recognising that significant savings are available to companies that are able to ordinate and improve within their logistics operations. Companies today face great challenges because the successful supply of many products and services needs to the effective integration of logistics activities across a prolongation supply chain and an increasing geographical separation. Moreover, logistics integration approach involves both internal integration for an ordinated, unified process as well as relationships to react flexibly, changeability, and responsibility to customer's demands. In this study, by using of Fuzzy Vikor (F-Vikor), the best combination of RIR was selected and RIR Locating was done. The main aim of this paper is survey and design of the integrated operational logistics network (IOLN) and also, a proposed IOLN to integration of the Iran Khodro Co Supply Network.

Hamacher operation which is generalization of the Algebraic and Einstein operation, can widely provide a large number of arithmetical operation with respect to uncertainty information, and Heronian mean can deal with correlations of the input arguments or different criteria and don’t make calculation redundancy, meanwhile, the normal intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (NIFNs) can depict distinctively normal distribution information in practical decision making. In this paper, a multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problem is researched under the NIFNs environment, and a new MCGDM approach is introduced on the basis of the Hamacher operation. Firstly, according to Hamacher t-conorm and t-norm, some operational laws of NIFNs are presented. Secondly, it is noticed that Heronian mean can’t only once take into account mutual relation between attribute values once, but also consider the correlation between input argument and itself. Therefore, we develop some operators and study their properties in order to aggregate normal intuitionistic fuzzy numbers information, these operators include Hamacher Heronian mean (NIFHHM), Hamacher weighted Heronian mean (NIFHWHM), Hamacher geometric Heronian mean (NIFHGHM) and Hamacher weighted geometric Heronian mean (NIFHWGHM). Furthermore, we apply the proposed operators to the MCGDM problem and present a new method. The main characteristics of this new method involve that: (1) it is suitable to make decision under the normal intuitionistic fuzzy numbers environment and more reliable and reasonable to aggregate the normal distribution information. (2) it utilizes Hamacher operation which can provide more reliable and flexible decision-making results and offer an effective and powerful mathematic tool for the MAGDM under uncertainty. (3) it uses the Heronian mean operator which can considers relationships between the input arguments or the attributes and don’t brings subsequently about redundancy. Lastly, an application is given for showing the feasibility and effectiveness of the presented method in this paper.

Landing is one of the most dangerous tasks in all the operations on the aircraft carrier, and the landing safety is very important to the pilot and the flight deck operation. The problem of landing path selection is studied in this paper as there several candidates corresponding to different situations. A fuzzy path selection strategy is proposed to solve the problem considering the fuzziness of environmental information and human judgment, and the goal is to provide the pilot with more reasonable decision. The strategy is based on Fuzzy Multi-attribute Group Decision Making (FMAGDM), which has been widely used in industry. Firstly, the background of the path selection problem is given. Then the essential elements of the problem are abstracted to build the conceptual model. A group decision-making method is applied to denote the preference of each decision maker for each alternative route, and the optimal landing path under the current environment is determined taking into account the knowledge and the weight of both decision makers. Experimental studies under different setups, i.e., different environments, are carried out. The results demonstrate that the proposed path selection strategy is validated in different environments, and the optimal landing paths corresponding to different environments can be determined.

Solar energy is a renewable resources of energy which is broadly utilized and have the least pollution impact between the available alternatives of fossil fuels. In this investigation, machine leaening approaches of neural networks (NN), neuro-fuzzy and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) are used to build the models for prediction of the thermal performance of a photovoltaic-thermal solar collector (PV/T) by estimating its efficiency as an output of the model while inlet temperature, flow rate, heat, solar radiation, and heat of sun are input of the designed model. Experimental measurements was prepared by designing a solar collector system and 100 data extracted. Different analyses are also performed to examine the credibility of the introduced approaches revealing great performance. The suggested LSSVM model represented the best performance regarding the mean squared error (MSE) of 0.003 and correlation coefficient (R²) value of 0.99, respectively.

Not only does this paper present a novel type-2 fuzzy system for identification and behavior prognostication of an experimental solar cell set and a wind turbine, but also it brings forward an exquisite technique to acquire an optimal number of membership functions and the corresponding rules. It proposes a seven-layered NCPRT2FS. For fuzzification in the first two layers, Gaussian type-2 fuzzy membership functions with uncertainty in the mean, are exploited. The third layer comprises rule definition and the forth one embeds fulfillment of type reduction. The three last remained layers are the ones in which resultant left–right firing points, two end-points and output all get assessed correspondingly. It should not be neglected off the nutshell that recurrent feedback at the fifth layer exerts delayed outputs ameliorating efficiency of the suggested NCPRT2FS. Later in the paper, a modern structural learning, established on type-2 fuzzy clustering, is held forth. An adaptively rated learning back-propagation algorithm is extended to adjust the parameters ensuring the convergence as well. Eventually, solar cell photo-voltaic and wind turbine are deemed as case studies. The experimental data are exploited and the consequent yields emerge so persuasive.

Nowadays, model checking is applied as an accurate technique to verify software systems. The main problem of model checking techniques is the state space explosion. This problem occurs due to the exponential memory usage by the model checker. In this situation, using meta-heuristic and evolutionary algorithms to search for a state in which a property is satisfied/violated is a promising solution. Recently, different evolutionary algorithms like GA, PSO, etc. are applied to find deadlock state. Even though useful, most of them are concentrated on finding deadlock. This paper proposes a fuzzy algorithm in order to analyze reachability properties in systems specified through GTS with enormous state space. To do so, we first extend the existing PSO algorithm (for checking deadlocks) to analyze reachability properties. Then, to increase the accuracy, we employ a Fuzzy adaptive PSO algorithm to determine which state and path should be explored in each step to find the corresponding reachable state. These two approaches are implemented in an open-source toolset for designing and model checking GTS called GROOVE. Moreover, the experimental results indicate that the hybrid fuzzy approach improves speed and accuracy in comparison with other techniques based on meta-heuristic algorithms such as GA and the hybrid of PSO-GSA in analyzing reachability properties.

Today, mobile phones are at the center of many consumers' lives and a part of people's lives. Although this tool was considered a luxury initially, it has gradually become a necessary tool with the reduction of the price and the increase of its functions. Consumers choose specific models of mobile phones according to their needs. Mobile phones have quality features that are expressed in the form of quality dimensions. These dimensions are mostly expressed by word of mouth (WOM). In this research, first; we collected the opinions of 350 students about 4 brands of mobile phones based on Garvin's quality of dimensions, finally; the students’ opinions about mobile phones were evaluated with integrated TOPSIS with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers technique, and the priority of 4 phone brands was determined based on students' opinions.

This article discusses a transformer-free, high-efficiency DC-DC converter besides renewable energy applications. The traditional buck-boost, classic Zeta, Sepic, and Cuk converter does have the benefits of a simple design, low cost, as well as the capacity to execute voltage step-up and step-down. Conversely, because of the detrimental consequences of the parasitic constraints of the device, the voltage conversion gain of the traditional DC-DC converter is much more restricted and the efficiency is also significantly smaller, whereas this proposed converter does have a higher voltage gain and efficiency because it is used in a single power switch, resulting in reduced switching losses and voltage stress. The said converter's design is very simple, which simplifies the operation control and reduces switching and conduction losses, leading to an efficiency of 97.4 percent. This converter seems to have the same capabilities as the Zeta converter, including continuous desired output current and desired buck-boost operation. Such an article offers the operation principle and steady evaluation, as well as a comparison with other existing high step-up configurations. The proposed converter employs a fuzzy logic controller, which improves the voltage level as well as reduces the time taken to set the voltage output of a conventional PI and ANN controller, especially in comparison to the FLC controller. For deployment, Experimental Result and MATLAB/Simulink has been used, and the modeling results indicate that the proposed controller performance has improved

In this paper, it is introduced the notion of r-fuzzy β-T_i, i = 0, 1, 2 separation axioms related to a fuzzy operator β on the initial set X which is a generalization of previous fuzzy separation axioms. An r-fuzzy α-connectedness related to a fuzzy operator α on the set X is introduced which is a generalization of many types of r-fuzzy connectedness. An r-fuzzy α-compactness related to a fuzzy operator α on the set X is introduced which is a generalization of many types of fuzzy compactness.

Supplier selection is one of the most important multi criteria decision making (MCDM) problems for decision makers in competitive market. Organizations of today’s world are seeking new ways to reduce negative effects of their organizations to the environment and to reach a greener system. At this point, green supplier selection concept has gained great importance with its ability on incorporating environmental or green criteria into the classical supplier selection practices. Therefore, in this study, it is aimed at proposing a multi-phase MCDM model based on Best-Worst Method (BWM) and interval type-2 fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). A case study in a plastic injection molding facility in Turkey is performed to show the applicability of the proposed integrated methodology. The paper ensures insights into the decision making, methodology, and managerial implications. Results of the case study are examined and suggestions for future research are provided.

The hybridization of machine learning methods with soft computing techniques is an essential approach to improve the performance of the prediction models. Hybrid machine learning models, particularly, have gained popularity in the advancement of the high-performance control systems. Higher accuracy and better performance for prediction models of exergy destruction and energy consumption used in the control circuit of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems can be highly economical in the industrial scale to save energy. This research proposes two hybrid models of adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system-particle swarm optimization (ANFIS-PSO), and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system-genetic algorithm (ANFIS-GA) for HVAC. The results are further compared with the single ANFIS model. The ANFIS-PSO model with the RMSE of 0.0065, MAE of 0.0028, and R² equal to 0.9999, with a minimum deviation of 0.0691 (KJ/s), outperforms the ANFIS-GA and single ANFIS models.

The aim of this study is (a) to develop, test, and employ a combined method of unsupervised machine learning to objectively assess the condition of sports facility in primary schools (PSSFC) and (b) examine the examine the geographical and typological association with PSSFC. Based on the Sixth National Sports Facility Census (NSFC), six PSSFC indicators (indoor and outdoor facility included) were selected as the measurements and decomposed by using the t-stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE). Thereafter, the Fuzzy C-mean (FCM) algorithm was used to cluster the same type of PSSFC with selecting the optimum numbers of evaluation level. Overall 845 primary schools in Shanghai, China were recruited and tested by this combined approach of unsupervised machine learning. In addition, the two-way analysis of covariance was used to examine the location and types of school associated with PSSFC variables in each level. The combined method was found to have acceptable reliability and good interpretability, differentiating PSSFC into five gradient levels. The characteristics of PSSFC differ by the location and school type of individual school. Our findings are conducive to the regionalized and personalized intervention and promotion on the children’s physical activity (PA) upon the practical situation of particular schools.

This research work deals hybrid control system based integrated Cuk converter fed brushless DC motor (BLDCM) for power factor correction. In this work, moth-flame optimization (MFO) and fuzzy logic controller (FLC) has been combined and moth –flame fuzzy logic controller (MFOFLC) has been proposed. Firstly, the BLDC motor modelling is composed with power factor correction (PFC) based integrated Cuk converter and BLDC speed is regulated using variable DC-Link inverter voltage which makes low switching operation with less switched losses. Here, with the use of switched inductor, the task and execution of proposed converter is redesigned. The DBR (diode bridge rectifier) trailed by proposed PFC based integrated Cuk converter operates in discontinuous inductor conduction mode(DICM) for achievement of better power factor.MFO is exhibited for gathering of dataset from the input voltage signal. At that point separated datasets is send to FLC to improve the updating function and minimization of torque ripple. However, our main objective is to assess adequacy of proposed method, the power factor is broke down. The execution of the proposed control methodology is executed in MATLAB/Simulink working platform and the display is assessed with the existing techniques.

The airport ground handling service (AGHS) equipment vendor selection (AGHSEVS) problem is critical for ramp work safety management, because AGHS equipment malfunctions affect airport ramp work safety. Appropriate vendor selection can prevent aircraft damage and delays in airlines schedules, and ensure reliable and high-quality ground handling service. The AGHSEVS problem is a time-consuming and complex process that requires professional knowledge and experience to make judgments. Specifically, AGHSEVS is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. Previous research has seldom integrated MCDM methods with linear and goal programming to solve the AGHSEVS problem. The objective of this study was to develop a new system evaluation model for AGHSEVS by considering both qualitative and quantitative methods. We test the proposed approach on an AGHS company in Taiwan.

We present a new method for assessing the strength of fuzzy rules with respect to a dataset, based on the measures of the greatest energy and smallest entropy of a fuzzy relation. Considering a fuzzy automaton (relation) in which A is the input fuzzy set and B the output fuzzy set, the fuzzy relation R1 with greatest energy provides information about the greatest strength of the input-output and the fuzzy relation R2 with the smallest entropy provides information about uncertainty of the relationship input-output. We consider a new index of the fuzziness of the input-output based over R1 and R2. In our method this index is calculated for each pair of input and output fuzzy sets in a fuzzy rule. A threshold value is set for choosing the most relevant fuzzy rules with respect to the data.

One of the most crucial and economically beneficial tasks for energy customer is peak load curtailment. On account of the fast response of renewable energy resources (RERs) such as photovoltaic (PV) units and battery energy storage system (BESS), this task is closer to be efficiently implemented. Depends on the customer peak load demand and energy characteristics, the feasibility of this strategy may warry. When adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is exploited for forecasting, it can provide many benefits to address the above-mentioned issues and facilitate its easy implementation, with short calculating time and re-trainability. This paper introduces a data driven forecasting method based on fuzzy logic for optimized peak load reduction. First, the amount of energy generated by PV is forecasted using ANFIS which conducts output trend, and then, the BESS capacity is calculated according to the forecasted results. The trend of the load power is then decomposed in Cartesian plane into two parts, left and right from load peak, searching for BESS capacity equal. Network switching sequence over consumption is provided by a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) with respect to BESS capacity and PV energy output. Finally, to prove the effectiveness of the proposed ANFIS-based peak shaving method, offline digital time-domain simulations have been performed on a real-life practical test micro grid system in MATLAB/Simulink environment and the results have been experimentally verified by testing on a practical micro grid system with real-life data obtained from smart meter and also, compared with several previously-reported methods.

In this paper we address one of the most important topics in the field of Social Networks Analysis: the community detection problem with additional information. That additional information is modeled by a fuzzy measure that represents the possibility of polarization. Particularly, we are interested in dealing with the problem of taking into account the Polarization of nodes in the community detection problem. Adding this type of information to the community detection problem makes it more realistic, as a community is more probably to be defined if the corresponding elements are willing to maintain a peaceful dialogue. The polarization capacity is modeled by a fuzzy measure based on the JDJpol measure of polarization related to two poles. We also present an efficient algorithm for finding groups whose elements are no polarized. Hereafter, we work in a real case. It is a network obtained from Twitter, concerning the political position against the Spanish government taken by several influential users. We analyze how the partitions obtained change when some additional information related to how polarized that society is, is added to the problem.

In the present work, a novel and the robust computational investigation is carried out to estimate solubility of different acids in supercritical carbon dioxide. Four different algorithms such as radial basis function artificial neural network, Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network (ANN), Least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) are developed to predict the solubility of different acids in carbon dioxide based on the temperature, pressure, hydrogen number, carbon number, molecular weight, and acid dissociation constant of acid. In the purpose of best evaluation of proposed models, different graphical and statistical analyses and also a novel sensitivity analysis are carried out. The present study proposed the great manners for best acid solubility estimation in supercritical carbon dioxide, which can be helpful for engineers and chemists to predict operational conditions in industries.

The combination of artificial intelligence algorithms and numerical methods has recently become popular in the prediction of macroscopic and microscopic hydrodynamics parameters of bubble column reactors. The multi inputs and outputs machine learning can cover small phase interactions or large fluid behavior in industrial domains. This numerical combination can develop the smart multiphase bubble column reactor with the ability of low-cost computational time. It can also decrease case studies for the optimization process when big data is appropriately used during learning. There are still many model parameters that need to be optimized for a very accurate artificial algorithm, including data processing and initialization, the combination of inputs and outputs, number of inputs and model tuning parameters. For this study, we aim to train four inputs big data during learning process by an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system or adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) method, and we consider the superficial gas velocity as one of the input variables, while for the first time, one of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) outputs named gas velocity is used as an output of the artificial algorithm. The results show that the increasing number of input variables improves the intelligence of the ANFIS method up to , and the number of rules during learning process has a significant effect on the accuracy of this type of modeling. The results also show that propper selection of model parameters results in more accuracy in prediction of the flow characteristics in the column structure.

The paper presents design methodology for the production process of a new product from the point of view of the assembly operations technology criterion (Design for Assembly - DFA) in the conditions of high-volume production. Mentioned are DFA methods and techniques used in the implementation of a new product. Author presents a new method to assess design for manufacturability based on fuzzy variables based on fuzzy variables. An example was given to illustrate the proposed course of action

In this paper, the forecast horizon and solar variability influences on MHFM model based on multiscale decomposition, AR and NN models, are studied. This article follows the works published in [1] showing the performance of the MHFM using 3 multiscale decomposition methods and a forecast horizon equal to 1 hour. Several forecast horizon strategies and his influence on the MHFM performances are investigated. We show that the best strategy for a rRMSE variying from $4.43\%$ to $10.24\%$ is obtained for forecast horizons from $5$ minutes to $6$ hours. In a second part, the solar variability influence on the MHFM is studied. A classification based on a shows that the best performance of MHFM is obtained for clear sky days with a rRMSE of $2.91\%$ and worst for cloudy sky days with a rRMSE of $6.73\%$.

This study presents a path planning method for a mobile robot to be effectively operated through a multi-objective decision-making problem. Specifically, the proposed Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) determines an optimal position as a sub-goal within the multi-objective boundary. The key features of the proposed FAHP are evaluating the candidates according to the fuzzified relative importance among objectives to select an optimal solution. In order to incorporate FAHP into path planning, an AHP framework is defined, which includes the highest level (goal), middle level (objectives), and the lowest level (alternatives). The distance to the target, robot’s rotation, and safety against collision between obstacles are considered as objective functions. Comparative results obtained from the artificial potential field and AHP/FAHP simulations show that FAHP is much preferable for the mobile robot’s path planning than typical AHP.

A new model for risk assessment of urban rainstorm disasters, based on information diffusion method and variable fuzzy sets (IDM-VFS) was proposed. In addition, an integrated index system of urban rainstorm risk was established. In the proposed model, IDM was employed to calculate the classification standards of urban rainstorm risk levels, then the VFS was adopted to assess the dangerousness, sensitivity, vulnerability and comprehensive risk of urban rainstorm disasters. In the present study, the urban rainstorm risk of Jiangsu province was evaluated with the proposed model. The results show that Wuxi, Changzhou, Nanjing and Suzhou have higher dangerousness, due to sustained rainfall and strong rainfall intensity in short duration; Wuxi, Changzhou and Nanjing have higher sensitivity because of lower disaster resistance ability; and Wuxi and Suzhou have higher vulnerability because these cities have higher potential losses in face of urban rainstorm disasters. The comprehensive risk zoning map of urban rainstorm shows apparent regional characteristics: the northwestern cities have lower risk than the southern cities. Moreover, most cities of the Jiangsu province are of the moderate urban rainstorm risk level. The results are consistent with the actual situation of Jiangsu province, and the study can provide some decision-making references for the urban rainstorm management.

In this article, the evolution in space and in time of the coronavirus pandemic is studied by utilizing a neural network with a self-organizing nature for the spatial analysis of data, and a fuzzy fractal method for capturing the temporal trends of the time series of the countries. Self-organizing neural networks possess the capability for clustering countries in the space domain based on their similar characteristics with respect to their coronavirus cases. In this form enabling finding the countries that are having similar behavior and thus can benefit from utilizing the same methods in fighting the virus propagation. To validate the approach, publicly available datasets of coronavirus cases worldwide have been used. In addition, a fuzzy fractal approach is utilized for the temporal analysis of time series of the countries. Then, a hybrid combination of both the self-organizing maps and the fuzzy fractal approach is proposed for efficient COVID-19 forecasting of the countries. Relevant conclusions have emerged from this study, that may be of great help in putting forward the best possible strategies in fighting the virus pandemic. A lot of the existing works concerned with the Coronavirus have look at the problem mostly from the temporal viewpoint that is of course relevant, but we strongly believe that the combination of both aspects of the problem is relevant to improve the forecasting ability. The most relevant contribution of this article is the proposal of combining neural networks with a self-organizing nature for clustering countries with high similarity and the fuzzy fractal approach for being able to forecast the times series and help in planning control actions for the Coronavirus pandemic.

In the era of sustainable development, green supplier selection has become a key component of supply chain management, as it considers criteria such as carbon footprint, water usage, energy usage and recycling capacity. Since the green supplier selection problem involves subjective criteria and uncertainty in preferences, it is well suited to using multi-criteria decision-making methods (MCDM). Although few researchers have investigated MCDM for green supplier selection under uncertainty using intuitionistic and Pythagorean fuzzy sets. Still, the newly developed fermatean fuzzy can handle greater data uncertainty than intuitionistic and Pythagorean fuzzy sets. Since interval extension of fuzzy theory provides more accurate modeling, in this paper, we propose an interval extension of fermatean fuzzy set and discuss its fundamental set operations, arithmetic operations and related properties. We propose the Hamming distance function and the score function of the interval-valued fermatean fuzzy numbers. The recently developed Multi-attribute Border Approximation Area Comparison (MABAC) method is also considered due to its stable and simple computation compared to other conventional MCDM methods. Therefore, an interval-valued fermatean fuzzy MABAC method is proposed and solved to select a green supplier based on multiple criteria. The proposed method's comparative analysis and sensitivity analysis validate the proposed method's effectiveness and robustness.

In this paper, several two-dimensional clustering scenarios are given. In those scenarios, soft partitioning clustering algorithms (Fuzzy C-means (FCM) and Possibilistic c-means (PCM)) are applied. Afterward, VAT is used to investigate the clustering tendency visually, and then in order of checking cluster validation, three types of indices (e.g., PC, DI, and DBI) were used. After observing the clustering algorithms, it was evident that each of them has its limitations; however, PCM is more robust to noise than FCM as in case of FCM a noise point has to be considered as a member of any of the cluster.

In this study, the fuzzy c- means classifier has been studied with nine other similarity and dissimilarity measures: Manhattan distance, chessboard distance, Bray-Curtis distance, Canberra, Cosine distance, correlation distance, mean absolute difference, median absolute difference and normalised squared Euclidean distance. Both single and composite modes were used with a varying weight constant (m) and also at different α-cuts. The two best single norms obtained were combined to study the effect of composite norms on the datasets used. An image to image accuracy check was conducted to assess the accuracy of the classified images. Fuzzy Error Matrix (FERM) was applied to measure the accuracy assessment outcomes for a Landsat-8 dataset with respect to the Formosat-2 dataset. To conclude FCM classifier with Cosine norm performed better than the conventional Euclidean norm. But, due to the incapability of the FCM classifier to handle noise properly, the classification accuracy was around 75%.

While the importance of corporate governance has been broadly acknowledged in global financial markets and academic research, how to devise a practical evaluation system is relatively unexplored. This paper attempts to refine the Corporate Governance Evaluation System (CGES), constructed by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) since 2014. The current CGES has several debatable issues in its complicated design (e.g., it comprises over 80 indicators in different types). To resolve those issues, this study invited ten senior domain experts (including several CEOs of financial holding companies) to retrieve 13 essential criteria from the CGES in four dimensions. And this study integrates several multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods (i.e., Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), modified VIKOR, DEMATEL-based analytical network process (DANP)) and the fuzzy evaluation technique to rank the exemplary companies. The obtained ranking is consistent with the one released from the CGES in 2017. This study conducted additional experiments to ensure the robustness of the findings. The newly devised model not only supports the ranking decisions but also provides a managerial guidance for companies to pursue systematic improvements. These findings enrich the understanding of corporate governance and contribute to gaining business sustainability for financial holding companies.

Ability of quantitative structure – property / activity relationships (QSPRs/QSARs) to serve for epistemological processes in natural sciences is discussed. Some weirdness of QSPR/QSAR state-of-art are listed. There are some contradictions in the research results in this area. Sometimes, these should be classified as paradoxes or weirdness. These points often are ignored. Here these are listed and briefly commented. In addition, hypothesises on the future evolution of the QSPR/QSAR theory and practice are suggested.

Objective: This paper aims to build an Effort Estimation Model for design, coding and testing Web Applications Based Fuzzy and Practical Models, which will help in optimizing the efforts in software development. Methods/Analysis: Soft computing approach is adopted and applied in the effort estimation and then compared with practical efforts in the development process with interpreting the historical data available for the existing functionalities. Findings: The effort estimation model presented in this paper focuses on the first level estimates published by Project Managers and the second level estimates presented by Project Leaders or Developers for any new requirement or enhancement for a web application built on 3-tier architecture using Microsoft technologies. The model considers the classification of each task as either Low or Medium or High complexity. These tasks pertain to the lowest level parts in bottom-up estimation. Efforts are estimated for designing, coding and unit testing of these tasks and the efforts are summed up to get the effort estimation for the higher level which is a feature to be implemented. Novelty/Improvement: The paper also discusses about the application of the effort estimation model by taking a new requirement as a case study. The first level estimates calculated using the effort estimation model has a variance of about 25% when compared with the actual effort. This variance is very much acceptable considering the fact that the first level estimates can be tolerable up to 35%. The proposed effort estimation tool would help the project managers to efficiently control the project, manage the resources effectively, and improve the software development process and also trade off analyses among schedule, performance, quality and functionality. Fuzzy logic is used to verify the claims made in efforts estimation. It is proposed a new relation between the number of data and efforts value membership for actual data. And converts it into crisp value in the range [0…1] which helps to classify the complexity of the task and subtask in the design, coding and testing phases.

The fault diagnosis of wind turbine systems represent a challenging issue, especially for offshore installations, thus justifying the research topics developed in this work. Therefore, this paper addresses the problem of the fault diagnosis of wind turbines, and it present viable solutions of fault detection and isolation techniques. The design of the so--called fault indicator consists of its estimate, which involves data--driven methods, as they result effective tools for managing partial analytical knowledge of the system dynamics, together with noise and disturbance effects. In particular, the suggested data--driven strategies exploit fuzzy systems and neural networks that are employed to determine nonlinear links between measurements and faults. The selected architectures are based on nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input prototypes, as they approximate the dynamic evolution of the system along time. The designed fault diagnosis schemes are verified via a high--fidelity simulator, which describes the normal and the faulty behaviour of an offshore wind turbine plant. Finally, by taking into account the presence of uncertainty and disturbance implemented in the wind turbine simulator, the robustness and the reliability features of the proposed methods are also assessed. This aspect is fundamental when the proposed fault diagnosis methods have to be applied to offshore installations.

The fourth Industrial Revolution, well-known as “Industry 4.0”, based on the integration of information and communication technologies, has introduced significant improvements in manufacturing. However, vision systems still experience various impracticalities in dealing with the effect of complex lighting on the systems platform. Therefore, a machine vision system for automatic identification of pen parts under varying lighting conditions at a digital learning factory is proposed. The developed vision system presents a straightforward approach by effectively minimizing the environmental lighting effect on the identification process. First, the obtained information of the designed vision framework is exported to a program, where a reduction of non-uniform illumination is achieved through the implementation of Retinex image enhancement techniques. Then, the color-based Fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm, including improved mark watershed segmentation, is employed for pen parts object classification. Finally, the position features of the selected pen part are reported. The process applied to a total number of 210 upper pen parts (caps) and 241 lower pen parts (tubes) images under different lighting scenarios. Results indicate that average parts identification precision for cap and tube parts is different and equals to 98.64% and 95.26%, respectively. The present methodology provides a promising scheme that can be feasibly adapted for other industrial Color-based object recognition applications.

The most important issue in integrated next generation wireless systems (NGWS) by fourth generation networks which consists of various wireless architectures extending from cellular networks to satellite networks is to allow everyone around the world to connect seamlessly to applications anywhere at any time through the best network. Heterogeneous networks have created many challenges such as mobility management, handoff, resource management. For always best connectivity the selection of parameters plays an important role in the decision of vertical handoff, some of parameters are depend upon MT and some are depend upon the network conditions . In this paper we designed Intelligent Vertical Handoff based on Fuzzy Logic Decision model ( IVH-FL), IVH-FL model which has five parameters for vertical handoff decision : Received Signal Strength (RSS), Available bandwidth (B), Users Preference (UP), Mobile Speed (SM) and Power Consumption (PC), with the help of Fuzzy Logic tool box and concept of fuzzy linguistic variables. The results confirmed improvement performance , and reduced the number of unnecessary handover .

Growing agricultural demands for the global population are unlocking the path to developing innovative solutions for efficient water management. Herein, an intelligent variable rate irrigation system (fuzzy-VRI) is proposed for rapid decision-making to achieve optimized irrigation in various delimited zones. The proposed system automatically creates irrigation maps for a center pivot irrigation system for a variable-rate application of water. Primary inputs are spatial imagery on remotely sensed soil moisture (SSM), soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), canopy temperature (CT), and nitrogen content (NI). To eliminate localized issues with soil characteristics, we used the crop nitrogen content map to provide a focused insight on issues related to water shortage. The system relates these inputs to set reference values for the rotation speed controllers and individual openings of each central pivot sprinkler valve. The results showed that the system can detect and characterize the spatial variability of the crop and further, the fuzzy logic solved the uncertainties of an irrigation system and defined a control model for high-precision irrigation. The proposed approach is validated through the comparison between the recommended irrigation and actual irrigation at two field sites, and the results showed that the developed approach gives an accurate estimation of irrigation with a reduction in the volume of irrigated water of up to 27% in some cases. Future research should implement the fuzzy-VRI real-time during field trials in order to quantify its effect on irrigation use, yield, and water use efficiency.

The aim of this 9th expository article is to conclude a study on domination in two fuzzy models, including t−norm fuzzy graphs and fuzzy graphs. All parts are twofold even if we don’t men- tion, directly. I.e., all results depicts some properties about fuzzy graph and t−norm fuzzy graph.

In emergency scenarios service vehicles must identify potential route(s) and use the best available route. However, route identification requires intelligent decision-support systems which generally use non-traditional approaches with tools characterised by flexible non-hierarchical structures. Conventional models using group decision-support systems have been applied; however, when used in smart urban environments, emergency response services have limitations in their ability to identify unobstructed paths (routes) in dynamic operating environments. In this paper we introduce a novel path planning method for autonomous vehicle control in emergency situations. The proposed model uses self-organizing maps in an integrated Spiral STC algorithm termed the: Hybrid SOM-Spiral STC model which uses hedge algebras and \emph{Kansei} evaluation in group decision-support. The proposed model has been designed to quantify qualitative factors using sensor derived data processed with human sensibilities and preferences in emergency decision support. The experimental results show that the proposed model achieves significant improvements in group decision-support under dynamic uncertainty. We posit that our novel approach holds the prospect of improvements in the provision of emergency services.

Fermatean fuzzy linguistic (FFL) set theory provides an efficient tool for modeling a higher level of uncertain and imprecise information, which cannot be represented using intuitionistic fuzzy linguistic (IFL)/Pythagorean fuzzy linguistic (PFL) sets. On the other hand, the linguistic scale function is the better way to consider the semantics of the linguistic terms during the evaluation process. In the present paper, we first define some new modified operational laws for Fermatean fuzzy linguistic numbers (FFLNs) based on linguistic scale function (LSF) to overcome the shortcomings of the existing operational laws and prove some important mathematical properties of them. Based on it, the work defines several new aggregation operators (AOs), namely, the FFL-weighted averaging (FFLWA) operator, the FFL-weighted geometric (FFLWG) operator, the FFL-ordered weighted averaging (FFLOWA) operator, the FFL-ordered weighted geometric (FFLOWG) operator, the FFL-hybrid averaging (FFLHA) operator and the FFL-hybrid geometric (FFLHG) operator under FFL environment. Several properties of these AOs are investigated in detail. Further, based on these operators, a multiple attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) approach with FFL information is developed. Finally, to illustrate the effectiveness of the present approach, a real-life supplier selection problem is presented where the evaluation information of the alternatives is given in terms of FFLNs.