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Soft computing techniques have reached a significant level of recognition and - ceptance from both the academic and industrial communities. The papers collected in this volume illustrate the depth of the current theoretical research trends and the breadth of the application areas in which soft computing methods are making c- tributions. This volume consists of forty six selected papers presented at the Fourth Inter- tional Conference on Recent Advances in Soft Computing, which was held in N- th th tingham, United Kingdom on 12 and 13 December 2002 at Nottingham Trent University. This volume is organized in five parts. The first four parts address mainly the f- damental and theoretical advances in soft computing, namely Artificial Neural Networks, Evolutionary Computing, Fuzzy Systems and Hybrid Systems. The fifth part of this volume presents papers that deal with practical issues and ind- trial applications of soft computing techniques. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the authors who submitted contributions for inclusion. We are also indebted to Janusz Kacprzyk for his - vices related to this volume. We hope you find the volume an interesting refl- tion of current theoretical and application based soft computing research.

This Festschrift volume is published in honor of Takao Terano on the occasion of his retirement. Takao Terano is a leading expert in the areas of agent-based modelling, knowledge systems, evolutionary computation, and service science.The contributions in this volume reflect the breadth and impact of his work. The volume contains 12 full papers related to Takao Terano's research. They deal with various aspects of artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, collaborative and social computing, social networks, ubiquitous computing.

ISDA'03 General Chair's Message On behalf of the ISDA'03 organizing committee, I wish to extend a very warm welcome to the conference and Tulsa in August 2003. The conference program committee has organized an exciting and invigorating program comprising pres­ entations from distinguished experts in the field, and important and wide-ranging contributions on state-of-the-art research that provide new insights into'Current Innovations in Intelligent Systems Design and Applications'. ISDA'03 builds on the success of last years. ISDA'02 was held in Atlanta, USA, August 07-08,2002 and attracted participants from over 25 countries. ISDA'03, the Third International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, held during August 10-13, 2003, in Tulsa, USA presents a rich and exciting program. The main themes addressed by this conference are: Architectures of intelligent systems Image, speech and signal processing Internet modeling Data mining Business and management applications Control and automation Software agents Knowledge management ISDA'03 is hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences, Oklahoma State Univer­ sity, USA. ISDA'03 is technically sponsored by IEEE Systems Man and Cyber­ netics Society, World Federation on Soft Computing, European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technology, Springer Verlag- Germany, Center of Excellence in In­ formation Technology and Telecommunications (COEITT) and Oklahoma State University. ISDA'03 received 117 technical paper submissions from over 28 countries, 7 tutorials, 3 special technical sessions and 1 workshop proposal.

Criticism is the habitus of the contemplative intellect, whereby we try to recognize with probability the genuine quality of a l- erary work by using appropriate aids and rules. In so doing, c- tain general and particular points must be considered. The art of interpretation or hermeneutics is the habitus of the contemplative intellect of probing into the sense of somewhat special text by using logical rules and suitable means. Note : Hermeneutics differs from criticism as the part does from the whole. Antonius Gvilielmus Amo Afer (1727) There is no such thing as absolute truth. At best it is a subj- tive criterion, but one based upon valuation. Unfortunately, too many people place their fate in the hands of subjective without properly evaluating it. Arnold A. Kaufmann and Madan M. Gupta The development of cost benefit analysis and the theory of fuzzy decision was divided into two inter-dependent structures of identification and measurement theory on one hand and fuzzy value theory one the other. Each of them has sub-theories that constitute a complete logical system.

Innovations in Intelligent Systems is a rare collection of the latest developments in intelligent paradigms such as knowledge-based systems, computational intelligence and hybrid combinations as well as practical applications in engineering, science, business and commerce. The book covers central topics such as intelligent multi-agent systems, data mining, case-based reasoning, and rough sets. Essential techniques to the development of intelligent machines are investigated such as pattern recognition and classification, machine learning, natural language processing, grammar, evolutionary schemes, fuzzy-neural procedures, and intelligent vision. The book also includes useful applications ranging from medical diagnosis and technical/medical language translation, to power demand forecasting and manufacturing plants. Due to its depth and breadth of the coverage and the usefulness of the techniques and applications, this book is a valuable reference for experts and students alike.

The book aims at surveying results in the application of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic to economics and engineering. New results include fuzzy non-linear regression, fully fuzzified linear programming, fuzzy multi-period control, fuzzy network analysis, each using an evolutionary algorithm; fuzzy queuing decision analysis using possibility theory; fuzzy differential equations; fuzzy difference equations; fuzzy partial differential equations; fuzzy eigenvalues based on an evolutionary algorithm; fuzzy hierarchical analysis using an evolutionary algorithm; fuzzy integral equations. Other important topics covered are fuzzy input-output analysis; fuzzy mathematics of finance; fuzzy PERT (project evaluation and review technique). No previous knowledge of fuzzy sets is needed. The mathematical background is assumed to be elementary calculus.

Decision makers in managerial and public organizations often encounter de­ cision problems under conflict or competition, because they select strategies independently or by mutual agreement and therefore their payoffs are then affected by the strategies of the other decision makers. Their interests do not always coincide and are at times even completely opposed. Competition or partial cooperation among decision makers should be considered as an essen­ tial part of the problem when we deal with the decision making problems in organizations which consist of decision makers with conflicting interests. Game theory has been dealing with such problems and its techniques have been used as powerful analytical tools in the resolution process of the decision problems. The publication of the great work by J. von Neumann and O. Morgen­ stern in 1944 attracted attention of many people and laid the foundation of game theory. We can see remarkable advances in the field of game theory for analysis of economic situations and a number of books in the field have been published in recent years. The aim of game theory is to specify the behavior of each player so as to optimize the interests of the player. It then recommends a set of solutions as strategies so that the actions chosen by each decision maker (player) lead to an outcome most profitable for himself or her­ self.

This book presents the application of some AI related optimization techniques in the operation and control of electric power systems. With practical applications and examples the use of functional analysis, simulated annealing, Tabu-search, Genetic algorithms and fuzzy systems for the optimization of power systems is discussed in detail. Preliminary mathematical concepts are presented before moving to more advanced material. Researchers and graduate students will benefit from this book. Engineers working in utility companies, operations and control, and resource management will also find this book useful. ​

Finding exact solutions to many combinatorial optimization problems in busi­ ness, engineering, and science still poses a real challenge, despite the impact of recent advances in mathematical programming and computer technology. New fields of applications, such as computational biology, electronic commerce, and supply chain management, bring new challenges and needs for algorithms and optimization techniques. Metaheuristics are master procedures that guide and modify the operations of subordinate heuristics, to produce improved approx­ imate solutions to hard optimization problems with respect to more simple algorithms. They also provide fast and robust tools, producing high-quality solutions in reasonable computation times. The field of metaheuristics has been fast evolving in recent years. Tech­ niques such as simulated annealing, tabu search, genetic algorithms, scatter search, greedy randomized adaptive search, variable neighborhood search, ant systems, and their hybrids are currently among the most efficient and robust optimization strategies to find high-quality solutions to many real-life optimiza­ tion problems. A very large nmnber of successful applications of metaheuristics are reported in the literature and spread throughout many books, journals, and conference proceedings. A series of international conferences entirely devoted to the theory, applications, and computational developments in metaheuristics has been attracting an increasing number of participants, from universities and the industry.

There are many good AI books. Usually they consecrate at most one or two chapters to the imprecision knowledge processing. To our knowledge this is among the few books to be entirely dedicated to the treatment of knowledge imperfection when bui- ing intelligent systems. We consider that an entire book should be focused on this important aspect of knowledge processing. The expected audience for this book - cludes undergraduate students in computer science, IT&C, mathematics, business, medicine, etc., graduates, specialists and researchers in these fields. The subjects treated in the book include expert systems, knowledge representation, reasoning under knowledge Imperfection (Probability Theory, Possibility Theory, Belief Theory, and Approximate Reasoning). Most of the examples discussed in details throughout the book are from the medical domain. Each chapter ends with a set of carefully pe- gogically chosen exercises, which complete solution provided. Their understanding will trigger the comprehension of the theoretical notions, concepts and results. Chapter 1 is dedicated to the review of expert systems. Hence are briefly discussed production rules, structure of ES, reasoning in an ES, and conflict resolution. Chapter 2 treats knowledge representation. That includes the study of the differences between data, information and knowledge, logical systems with focus on predicate calculus, inference rules in classical logic, semantic nets and frames.

This quite simply superb book focuses on various techniques of computational intelligence, both single ones and those which form hybrid methods. These techniques are today commonly applied to issues of artificial intelligence. The book presents methods of knowledge representation using different techniques, namely the rough sets, type-1 fuzzy sets and type-2 fuzzy sets. Next up, various neural network architectures are presented and their learning algorithms are derived. Then, the family of evolutionary algorithms is discussed, including connections between these techniques and neural networks and fuzzy systems. Finally, various methods of data partitioning and algorithms of automatic data clustering are given and new neuro-fuzzy architectures are studied and compared.

It was generally believed that the study of probability theory was started by Pascal and Fermat in 1654 when they succeeded in deriving the exact probabilitiesforcertaingamblingproblem. Greatprogresswasachievedwhen VonMisesinitializedtheconceptofsamplespace, and?lledthegapebetween probability theory and measure theory in 1931. An axiomatic foundation of probabilitytheorywasgivenbyKolmogoro?inhisFoundationsofProbability Theory of 1933. Since then, probability theory has been developed steadily and has been widely applied in science and engineering. Probability theory will be introduced in Chapter 2. Fuzzy set was initiated by Zadeh via membership function in 1965, and was well developed and applied in a wide variety of real problems. In order to measure a fuzzy event, Zadeh proposed the concept of possibility measure in 1978. Although possibility measure has been widely used, it has no se- duality property. However, a self-dual measure is absolutely needed in both theory and practice. In order to de?ne a self-dual measure, Liu and Liu gave the concept of credibility measure in 2002. Credibility theory is a branch of mathematics that studies the behavior of fuzzy phenomena. An axiomatic foundation of credibility theory was given by Liu in his Uncertainty Theory of 2004. Chapter 3 will provide the credibility theory. Sometimes, fuzziness and randomness simultaneously appear in a system.

“Fuzzy Control - the revolutionary computer technology that is changing our world” - these and other headlines could be read when in the early 90's news from Japan came over telling us about the success of fuzzy controllers. The idea which was put into practice had been suggested by Lot? A. Zadeh in Berkeley in 1965. It had been developed and tested in some practical - plications, especially in Europe. In Japan fuzzy control was celebrated as a technology re?ecting the Japanese way of thinking by its unsharpness and - plicitoverlappingofseveralstatements. Anewtechnologyboomwaspredicted for Japan which would make Europe lose ground. Consequently, this news created unrest. Research projects were initiated and development departments were engaged to translate fuzzy control into products. Adversaries and supporters hurried up to inform themselves and intensely discussed whether the “conventional” or the fuzzy control were the better alternative. Finally, the excitement cooled down since in recent years fuzzy control was analyzed fromthe classical pointofview. Thus,amoreobjective evaluation of its strong and weak points was possible. Furthermore, it was shown how fuzzy systems could be put to use in the steering level which is the level above the control loop, especially in interaction with other methods of soft computing and arti?cial intelligence. Based on these fundamentals, the aim of this book is to support the convenient use of fuzzy controllers and fuzzy systems in the branch of control engineering and automation systems.