Soft Computing Applications For Group Decision Making And Consensus Modeling

This book offers a concise introduction and comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the field of decision-making and consensus modeling, with a special emphasis on fuzzy methods. It consists of a collection of authoritative contributions reporting on the decision-making process from different perspectives: from psychology to social and political sciences, from decision sciences to data mining, and from computational sciences in general, to artificial and computational intelligence and systems. Written as a homage to Mario Fedrizzi for his scholarly achievements, creative ideas and long lasting services to different scientific communities, it introduces key theoretical concepts, describes new models and methods, and discusses a range of promising real-world applications in the field of decision-making science. It is a timely reference guide and a source of inspiration for advanced students and researchers

This book concisely presents a broad range of models and theories on social systems. Because of the huge spectrum of topics involving social systems, various issues related to Mathematics, Statistics, Teaching, Social Science, and Economics are discussed. In an effort to introduce the subject to a wider audience, this volume, part of the series “Studies in Systems, Decision and Control”, equally addresses the needs of mathematicians, statisticians, sociologists and philosophers. The studies examined here are divided into four parts. The first part, “Perusing the Minds Behind Scientific Discoveries”, traces the winding path of Syamal K. Sen and Ravi P. Agarwal’s scholarship throughout history, and most importantly, the thought processes that allowed each of them to master their subject. The second part covers “Theories in Social Systems” and the third discusses “Models in Social Systems”, while the fourth and final part is dedicated to “Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences”. Given its breadth of coverage, the book will offer inquisitive readers a valuable point of departure for exploring these rich, vast, and ever-expanding fields of knowledge.

This book presents the proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Soft Computing Applications, SOFA 2018, held on 13–15 September 2018 in Arad, Romania. The workshop was organized by Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, in conjunction with the Institute of Computer Science, Iasi Branch of the Romanian Academy, IEEE Romanian Section, Romanian Society of Control Engineering and Technical Informatics – Arad Section, General Association of Engineers in Romania – Arad Section and BTM Resources Arad. The papers included in these proceedings, published post-conference, cover the research including Knowledge-Based Technologies for Web Applications, Cloud Computing, Security Algorithms and Computer Networks, Business Process Management, Computational Intelligence in Education and Modelling and Applications in Textiles and many other areas related to the Soft Computing. The book is directed to professors, researchers, and graduate students in area of soft computing techniques and applications.

This SpringerBrief provides a pioneering, central point of reference for the interested reader in Large Group Decision Making trends such as consensus support, fusion and weighting of relevant decision information, subgroup clustering, behavior management, and implementation of decision support systems, among others. Based on the challenges and difficulties found in classical approaches to handle large decision groups, the principles, families of techniques, and newly related disciplines to Large-Group Decision Making (such as Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Social Network Analysis, Opinion Dynamics, Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences), are discussed. Real-world applications and future directions of research on this novel topic are likewise highlighted.

One of the risks during pregnancy, with high negative impact on both pregnant and fetus is cardiovascular disease suffering. Early diagnosis and appropriate treatment of this pathology significantly reduce the risk for pregnant. The treatment of pregnant women with heart diseases is characterized by the insufficient availability of experts with knowledge of medical specialties involved, and by the presence of situations of indeterminacy, uncertainty, vagueness, and incomplete data.

This book explores several branches of the social sciences and their perspectives regarding their relations with decision-making processes: computer science, education, linguistics, sociology, and management. The decision-making process in social contexts is based on the analysis of sound alternatives using evaluative criteria. Therefore, this process is one that can be rational or irrational, and can be based on knowledge and/or beliefs. A decision-making process always produces a final decision, which may or may not imply prompt action, and increases the chances of choosing the best possible alternative. The book is divided into four main parts. The concepts covered in the first part, on computer science, explore how the rise of algorithms and the growth in computing power over the years can influence decision-making processes. In the second part, some traditional and innovative ideas and methods used in education are presented: compulsory schooling, inclusive schools, higher education, etc. In turn, the third part focuses on linguistics aspects, and examines how progress is manifested in language. The fourth part, on sociology, explores how society can be influenced by social norms, human interactions, culture, and religion. Management, regarded as a science of the decision-making process, is explored in the last part of this book. Selected organizations’ strategies, objectives and resources are presented, e.g., human resources, financial resources, and technological resources. The book gathers and presents, in a concise format, a broad range of aspects regarding the decision-making process in social contexts, making it a valuable and unique resource for the scientific community.

This book explores clustering operations in the context of social networks and consensus-reaching paths that take into account non-cooperative behaviors. This book focuses on the two key issues in large-scale group decision-making: clustering and consensus building. Clustering aims to reduce the dimension of a large group. Consensus reaching requires that the divergent individual opinions of the decision makers converge to the group opinion. This book emphasizes the similarity of opinions and social relationships as important measurement attributes of clustering, which makes it different from traditional clustering methods with single attribute to divide the original large group without requiring a combination of the above two attributes. The proposed consensus models focus on the treatment of non-cooperative behaviors in the consensus-reaching process and explores the influence of trust loss on the consensus-reaching process.The logic behind is as follows: firstly, a clustering algorithm is adopted to reduce the dimension of decision-makers, and then, based on the clusters’ opinions obtained, a consensus-reaching process is carried out to obtain a decision result acceptable to the majority of decision-makers. Graduates and researchers in the fields of management science, computer science, information management, engineering technology, etc., who are interested in large-scale group decision-making and consensus building are potential audience of this book. It helps readers to have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of clustering analysis and consensus building in large-scale group decision-making.

Knowledge-based systems, fully integrated with software, have become essential enablers for both science and commerce. But current software methodologies, tools and techniques are not robust or reliable enough for the demands of a constantly changing and evolving market, and many promising approaches have proved to be no more than case-oriented methods that are not fully automated. This book presents the proceedings of the 17th international conference on New Trends in Intelligent Software Methodology, Tools and Techniques (SoMeT18) held in Granada, Spain, 26-28 September 2018. The SoMeT conferences provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and experience, foster new directions in software development methodologies and related tools and techniques, and focus on exploring innovations, controversies, and the current challenges facing the software engineering community. The 80 selected papers included here are divided into 13 chapters, and cover subjects as diverse as intelligent software systems; medical informatics and bioinformatics; artificial intelligence techniques; social learning software and sentiment analysis; cognitive systems and neural analytics; and security, among other things. Offering a state-of-the-art overview of methodologies, tools and techniques, this book will be of interest to all those whose work involves the development or application of software.