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Suppletion is central to the debate on the nature of roots: whether roots are characterized by their phonology or are phonologically abstract. Borer (2014) holds that so-called suppletive verbs consist of different phonologically constant roots with overlapping semantics. Harley (2014), however, argues that suppletive verbs instantiate root suppletion: one abstract root with distinct phonological realizations dependent on grammatical environment. This squib presents additional evidence from verbal suppletion in Creek (Muskogean) that supports the view that roots are abstract. Creek suppletive verbs are part of a larger three-way number-marking paradigm and their distribution is dependent on the formal number features of their first argument.

As the oxygen redox ability shows great effects on the catalytic performances of ceria-zirconia based materials, many strategies have been utilized to improve the oxygen storage capacity. Here in this study, we report a simple and facile approach to prepare a SO42–-modified La, Y-doped ceria-zirconia material (SO/CZLY-f) with high oxygen storage capacity. Due to the additional redox process between SO42− and S2−, oxygen storage capacity of SO/CZLY-f (745.3 μmol O2/g) is about 1.6 times higher than that of La, Y-doped ceria-zirconia material without SO42– modification. Moreover, the catalytic activities and stability of the corresponding Pd-only three-way catalyst were measured. Compared to that of Pd@CZLY-f, the operation window of CO, full conversion temperature of HC and NO over Pd@SO/CZLY-f are obviously widened and lowered, respectively. After aging treatment at 1100 °C for 4 h, the superiority of aged Pd-loading composite is still maintained.

Formal concept analysis, rough sets, and three-way decisions are prominent theories and methods for data representation and analysis. They have been applied to data mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence as well as many other areas. This special issue contains thirty high quality state-of-art research that addresses theoretic and applicational aspects of formal concept analysis, rough sets, and three-way decisions.

The theory of three-way decision is built on the philosophy of thinking in threes. The essence of three-way decision is trisecting the whole and taking different strategies for different parts accordingly. The theory of three-way decision has been successfully implemented to diverse fields since it provides an elegant and efficient solution for solving complicated problems. In this paper, a useful representation for hesitant fuzzy sets is obtained by means of canonical soft sets. We also define unit interval parameterized soft sets and their derived hesitant fuzzy sets. Mutual representations and inner connections between hesitant fuzzy sets and soft sets are examined. With the help of soft rough sets, a generalized rough model based on hesitant fuzzy sets is established. A novel three-way decision method is presented for solving decision-making problems by means of hesitant fuzzy sets and canonical soft sets. Finally, a numerical example regarding peer review of research articles is given to illustrate the validity and efficacy of the proposed method.

This paper aims to develop a novel conflict resolution model using decision-theoretic fuzzy rough set to handle more complex real scenarios by allowing decision-makers to express their opinions more freely on a scale from −1 to 1. Further, many algorithms are developed to handle change in information systems, and detailed experimental analysis is done to validate the proposed model’s efficiency and practicality.

In the present study, a global kinetic model of three-way-catalyst-coated gasoline particulate filters was developed to understand the relevant kinetic mechanisms taking place both in clean and rea...

Genetic purity is one of the quality criteria required for successful seed production of maize. In hybrid seed production, genetic purity is contaminated due to out-crossing from other varieties or selfing events. In this study, Single nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) and Grow-out test (GOT) method was used for the objective to assess genetic purity of maize hybrid varieties with their parents produced by various seed growers in the country. Six three way cross hybrid (3WCH) maize varieties and seven single crosses were collected from different sources then planted with their parents in 2019. Genetic purity analysis by SNP revealed that 74% of an inbred line showed an acceptable genetic purity level (>95%). However, five inbred lines (CML395, A7033, F7215, SC22 and 124-b(113)) revealed heterogeneity >0.05 ranged from 0.13 to 0.20. All single crosses except A7033/F7215 and all the 3WCH varieties showed the genetic purity level ranging from 40 to 66% and 44 to 63% across seed sources, respectively. Based on GOT results, the level of type in single crosses and 3WCH variety across seed sources ranged from 7.1 to 46.4% and 3.6 to 35.7%, respectively. Generally, in the current result both SNP and GOT showed both heterogeneity and homogeneity of seed. This implies the presence of variation among seed producers in terms of producing high quality seed. Therefore, awareness should have to be given for each individual seed producers on quality seed production techniques and procedures that they have to follow. Similarly, genetic purity analysis could be conducted further in the seed system to provide error correction and to ensure seed quality assurance and control.

In double-sided lapping and polishing processes, the friction coefficients between the workpiece and platens or pads are important parameters for understanding or improving the lapping and polishing processes. However, the friction coefficients have not been investigated in detail owing to insufficient measurement methods for the torques acting on the upper and lower platens, which are necessary to evaluate the friction coefficients. Thus, a novel measurement method for the torque acting on the upper platen in a three-way double-sided machine was proposed in this study. In the method, the torque is measured based on the forces acting on the holders supporting the upper platen rotation. The torques were measured with the method in double-sided lapping experiments, and they were confirmed to agree with the theoretical torque variation. Furthermore, the friction coefficient between the workpiece and upper pad identified with the proposed method was also verified by comparing with the friction coefficient measured in the single-sided lapping experiment. In addition, the estimation method of the lower platen torque based on the motor torque was investigated by utilizing the proposed method, and we found the lower platen torque was estimated accurately by taking a sufficient warm-up time or by modeling the torque loss in transmission path. Therefore, accurate measurement of the torques acting on the upper and lower platens, which is an effective tool for understanding or improving the process, was realized.

The work proposes a new method to detect influential news in online communities. Influential news are articles that induce shifts in users’ opinions or, in general, lead to a polarization of opinions or change like-mindedness of users. The method aims at supporting online platform managers and editors in understanding the impact that social content and news can have on the dynamics of opinions. The influential news detection is conduced by using the Three-Way Decisions approach based on Probabilistic Rough Sets to perform a tri-partitioning of online users. The three parts are then mapped onto a structure, namely Hexagons of Opposition, allowing to reason on opinions, related to a given set of news, of specific communities. More in detail, several hexagons of opposition are constructed along the timeline, as recent news are considered, and compared to detect which news contribute to change opinions of the considered communities. Moreover, two indicators have been introduced to measure the impact of the news. The proposed method has been experimented on real data derived from existing datasets and the promising results have been discussed by using a qualitative approach.

Virtual machine migration (VMM) is a crucial way to ensure load balancing and save energy consumption of cloud hosts. In most previous studies, they apply the same virtual machine migration strategy for overloaded hosts, which ignore the possible communication between the migrated VM, and other factors. Thus, they are prone to incur excessive network overhead. This paper proposes a virtual machine migration strategy based on the three-way decision (VMM-3WD) to save cloud hosts’ energy consumption while considering the network correlation between virtual machines. The strategy first is to classify hosts into overloaded hosts, regular load hosts, and under-loaded hosts based on their load situation. Then, different migration strategies are targeted developed for these three types of cloud hosts. Specifically, the approach migrates the VMs in under-loaded hosts to regular load hosts. And then, the approach further develops two thresholds to divides overloaded hosts into massively overloaded hosts, moderately overloaded, and lightly overloaded hosts. The migration decision of VMs in all stages pursuing the goal of reducing the energy consumption of the network during the migration process. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the energy consumption generated by virtual machine migration and data center (DC) energy consumption while meeting the SLA.

The rising demand for maize (Zea mays L.) in West and Central Africa (WCA) requires the availability of economical, adaptable, and high-yielding hybrids in the sub-region. The screening of maize hy...

Nonoverlapping sequential pattern mining is an important type of sequential pattern mining (SPM) with gap constraints, which not only can reveal interesting patterns to users but also can effectively reduce the search space using the Apriori (anti-monotonicity) property. However, the existing algorithms do not focus on attributes of interest to users, meaning that existing methods may discover many frequent patterns that are redundant. To solve this problem, this article proposes a task called nonoverlapping three-way sequential pattern (NTP) mining, where attributes are categorized according to three levels of interest: strong, medium, and weak interest. NTP mining can effectively avoid mining redundant patterns since the NTPs are composed of strong and medium interest items. Moreover, NTPs can avoid serious deviations (the occurrence is significantly different from its pattern) since gap constraints cannot match with strong interest patterns. To mine NTPs, an effective algorithm is put forward, called NTP-Miner, which applies two main steps: support (frequency occurrence) calculation and candidate pattern generation. To calculate the support of an NTP, depth-first and backtracking strategies are adopted, which do not require creating a whole Nettree structure, meaning that many redundant nodes and parent–child relationships do not need to be created. Hence, time and space efficiency is improved. To generate candidate patterns while reducing their number, NTP-Miner employs a pattern join strategy and only mines patterns of strong and medium interest. Experimental results on stock market and protein datasets show that NTP-Miner not only is more efficient than other competitive approaches but can also help users find more valuable patterns. More importantly, NTP mining has achieved better performance than other competitive methods in clustering tasks. Algorithms and data are available at: https://github.com/wuc567/Pattern-Mining/tree/master/NTP-Miner .

In contrast to two-way decisions (2WD), three-way decisions (3WD) can effectively reduce decision risks by utilizing a new delayed decision option. This article incorporates 3WD into multiattribute decision-making (MADM) based on an outranking relation. We construct the outranked set for each alternative and introduce a hybrid information table that combines an MADM matrix with a loss function table. We propose three strategies to design a new 3WD model for MADM. The rationality and effectiveness of the proposed 3WD method are demonstrated by solving a problem of enterprise project investment target selections. Finally, we provide the comparative analysis and two experimental evaluations. The results show that the proposed 3WD method is effective and practically useful.

By combining ideas from three-way decision and Pedrycz shadowed sets, this paper investigates two possible solutions to the problem of constructing a shadowed set from an Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set. The first solution treats the pair of membership and nonmembership functions as two evaluations and directly applies the two-evaluation based model of three-way decision. The second solution transforms the pair of membership and nonmembership functions into an evaluation and applies a single-evaluation based model of three-way decision. To address a fundamental issue of the determination of a pair of thresholds on evaluations, we present a general optimization based formulation and use Chebyshev distance to calculate the required thresholds. The results are useful for three-way decision with fuzzy sets, Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy sets, and shadowed sets.

A three-way decision (3WD) with group consensus using intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) involves two pivotal decision steps: achieving a consensus of loss functions and determining the threshold pair in 3WD. We focus on these decision steps and propose a convex combination-based approach to a three-way intuitionistic fuzzy group decision (3WIFGD) considering a group consensus. First, a similarity measure between IFSs is introduced to define a group consensus index (GCI) for an expert group based on loss functions. Then, an automated algorithm is designed with the GCI-based convex combination strategy to improve the group consensus of loss functions. Moreover, we theoretically prove that the GCI in this algorithm is improved and even converges linearly to “1” as the iteration number increases. Second, based on the aggregated collective consensus loss functions, we construct the optimization model pair by extending the existing models and prove its unique solution , leading to the thresholds. Third, a two-decision-steps-based method for 3WIFGD is developed to capture the rules underlying a group consensus. Finally, an illustrative example and its related comparisons are demonstrated to show the validity of our method.

The theory of three-way concept analysis has been developed into an effective tool for data analysis and knowledge discovery. In this paper, we propose neutrosophic three-way concept lattice by combining neutrosophic set with three-way concept analysis and present an approach for conflict analysis by using neutrosophic three-way concept lattice. Firstly, we propose the notion of neutrosophic formal context, in which the relationships between objects and attributes are expressed by neutrosophic numbers. Three pairs of concept derivation operators are proposed. The basic properties of object-induced and attribute-induced neutrosophic three-way concept lattices are examined. Secondly, we divide the neutrosophic formal context into three classical formal contexts and propose the notions of the candidate neutrosophic three-way concepts and the redundant neutrosophic three-way concepts. Two approaches of constructing object-induced (attribute-induced) neutrosophic three-way concept lattices are presented by using candidate, redundant and original neutrosophic three-way concepts respectively. Finally, we apply the neutrosophic formal concept analysis to the conflict analysis and put forward the corresponding optimal strategy and the calculation method of the alliance.

This paper presents the results of a study of double object constructions containing the cognate verbs English tell and Norwegian fortelle, based on data from the English–Norwegian Parallel Corpus. The results show that there is a certain degree of correspondence between the two verbs in constructions with nominal direct objects, with less mutual correspondence in constructions with finite clausal objects, very little correspondence in constructions with objects in the form of direct speech, and none whatsoever in the case of non-finite clausal objects, which only occur with tell. The paper then expands the topic to include tell predications in French. The data were retrieved from the Oslo Multilingual Corpus. It transpires that the form of French translations of Norwegian expressions are more similar, at least for some constructions, to the Norwegian originals than are their English counterparts.

A nanometric Rh overlayer on a Fe − Cr − Al metal foil prepared by pulsed arc-plasma deposition showed simultaneous removal of NO, CO and C3H6 in a simulated three-way catalyst reaction under stoichiometric conditions, whereas the conversions of NO and C3H6 decreased under lean conditions. The decrease of C3H6 conversion despite of excess O2 was caused by the preferential adsorption of O2 on the surface of Rh overlayer, inhibiting C3H6 adsorption and oxidation. Very small amount of Pt deposited on Rh overlayer can act as adsorption sites of C3H6, and the activity of Rh overlayer for C3H6 oxidation under lean conditions was successfully improved.

Decision-theoretic three-way approximation of a fuzzy set F exploits a three-element set { 0 , 0.5 , 1 } in order to approximate F. By relying on an optimum pair of thresholds ( α , β ) , it changes elements’ membership grade μ F ( x ) to 0 , 0.5 and 1 if μ F ( x ) α , α ⩽ μ F ( x ) ⩽ β and μ F ( x ) > β respectively. A general three-element system, { n , m , p } , 0 ⩽ n m p ≤ 1 , has been proposed in the literature. However, the main issue is to determine appropriate n ≠ 0 , m ≠ 0.5 and p ≠ 1 . A recent advancement has determined m ( 0 m 1 ) . However, n = 0 and p = 1 are still imposed by the model. This restriction on the values of n and p lacks general adaptation for different types of membership distribution. In this paper, a novel way of determining appropriate values of n , m , and p is given without the aforesaid restriction. We consider an alternative { n , m , p } formula for computing the optimum pair ( α , β ) in cost-sensitive three-way approximation context. We use synthetic fuzzy sets and some datasets from UCI Machine Learning repository to demonstrate the suitability of the { n , m , p } system in minimizing approximation error and producing well-guided approximation regions.

DNA three-way junctions (3WJs) consist of a Y-shaped hydrophobic branch point connecting three double-stranded stems and are viewed as druggable targets for cancer treatment. They are also important building blocks for the construction of DNA nanostructures and serve as recognition elements for DNA aptasensors for a wide variety of diagnostic applications. However, visible fluorescent light-up probes for specific staining of DNA 3WJs are currently lacking. Herein, we report that a merocyanine containing the

This exploratory study investigates the acoustic correlates of the Korean three-way laryngeal stop distinction in Gyeongsang long-term (LT) transplants who were born in the Gyeongsang region but moved to Seoul to pursue higher education. Acoustic data were collected from eight LT transplants, five short-term (ST) transplants, and 11 Seoul speakers to examine whether exposure to Seoul Korean (SK) affects Gyeongsang speakers’ cue-weighting in distinguishing stops in production. LT transplants produced stimuli in both Gyeongsang and Seoul dialects. A cue-weighting model based on the acoustic data reveals that voice onset time (VOT) is less important to distinguish lenis from aspirated stops for Seoul speakers and for LT transplants’ SK, as compared to ST transplants and LT transplants’ Gyeongsang Korean (GK). In addition, fundamental frequency (F0) is more important for the lenis–aspirated distinction for Seoul speakers and LT transplants’ SK, as compared to ST and LT transplants’ GK, showing that LT transplants rely less on VOT and more on F0 to distinguish lenis from aspirated stops compared to ST transplants. LT transplants’ SK reveals that they rely more on VOT and less on F0 compared to SK speakers. The cue-weighting model of the LT transplants provide empirical evidence that a series of sound changes in GK is due to inter-dialect contact.

Three-way catalytic converters are widely used to regulate emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles. Although significant effort over the past 40 years has resulted in the discovery of several metal additives that improve the thermal stability of three-way catalysts (TWCs), their effects on the actual catalytic process have not been studied systematically. The present work examines the roles of the typical basic metal additives La, Ba, and Sr in Pd-based TWC systems, using various spectroscopic and kinetic studies . Metallic Pd 0 species on Sr/Al2O3 and Ba/Al2O3 supports were found to be more electron-rich than those on pristine Al2O3, whereas those on La/Al2O3 were more electron-deficient. Consequently, Pd/La/Al2O3 showed a lessened CO poisoning effect during NO reduction reactions. Evaluations were performed using powdered catalysts as well as monolithic honeycomb catalysts under conditions simulating actual use. Pd/La/Al2O3 was observed to promote the catalytic reduction of NO most efficiently, while Pd/Ba/Al2O3 exhibited the highest activity for the oxidations of CO and C3H6. The present data suggest that the optimal metal additive for a Pd-based TWC will be determined by the specific application. The selection of such metals should take into account not only the stability but also the promotional effect during the exhaust purification process.

As a typical methodology to deal with uncertain issues, the three-way decision (3WD) has been developed rapidly in nearly ten years, both in theories and applications. Three-way classification is one of the important research fields of 3WD, which utilizes the idea of 3WD to solve classification problems. In this paper, we focus on investigating the effectiveness of three-way classification through two evaluation indicators: the classification quality ( Precision , Recall , Accuracy and F 1 ) and the decision cost. The comparisons between two-way classification and three-way classification are concretely analyzed, some mathematical properties , judging conditions and decision criteria of these two classification methods are also discussed in detail. Finally, the experimental results on eight UCI data sets validate the mathematical analysis, which reveal the effectiveness of three-way classification.

The mission planning for multisatellite is a complex optimization problem, which is sensitive to time delay caused by communication and decision. Different modes are suitable for different situations. Therefore, we design the workflows of three modes: the independence mode, the MAS mode, and the ground-based mode. And then, a real-time mode selection method based on the three-way decision is proposed to choose the best mode onboard. The experiments proved the effectiveness and advantage of our proposed method.

Purpose This paper aims to present a compact, broadband substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) three-way power divider with improved isolation based on six-port SIW coupler. Design/methodology/approach The power coupling among the three output ports occurs due to short openings in the narrow walls of the central SIW channel. Performance improvement in the isolation and return loss among ports is achieved using matching posts placed at the input and output ends of the coupling region. This enhances the coupling between TE10 and TE30 modes. The input matching ports enhance the return loss, whereas the isolation is alleviated by both the input and output matching posts. The bandwidth enhancement is achieved by optimizing the outer SIW channel widths. Findings The measured fractional bandwidth of 27.3% with over 15 dB of isolation and return loss is achieved. The coupling length is 1.55 λg at the centre frequency. The power divider achieves better than 15 dB isolation between non-adjacent output ports. The measured reflection and isolation coefficients are in close agreement with simulated results over 8.2 to 10.8 GHz. Practical implications Isolation between the adjacent and non-adjacent ports is an important parameter as the reflections from these ports will interfere with signals from other ports reducing the fractional bandwidth of the power divider and affecting the overall performance of the transmitters and receivers. Originality/value The authors present the enhancement of isolation between the output non-adjacent ports by optimizing the SIW channel width and matching post in the coupling region to reduce the reflected signals from non-adjacent ports entering into other ports. To the author’s knowledge, this is the only SIW three-way power divider paper showing non-adjacent port isolation among six-port couplers based three-way power dividers.

Nonnegative matrix factorization is comprehensively used in recommendation systems. In an effort to reduce the recommended cost of newly added samples, incremental nonnegative matrix factorization and its variants have been extensively studied in recommendation systems. However, the recommendation performance is incapable of particular applications in terms of data sparsity and sample diversity. In this paper, we propose a new incremental recommend algorithm by improving incremental nonnegative matrix factorization based on three-way decision, called Three-way Decision Recommendations Based on Incremental Non-negative Matrix Factorization (3WD-INMF), in which the concept of positive, negative, and boundary regions are employed to update the new coming samples’ features. Finally, experiments on six public data sets demonstrate the error induced by 3WD-INMF is decreasing as the addition of new samples and deliver state-of-the-art performance compared with existing recommendation algorithms. The results indicate our method is more reasonable and efficient by leveraging the idea of three-way decision to perform the recommendation decision process.

Based on the granular computing and three-way decisions theory, the sequential three-way decisions (S3WD) model implements the idea of progressive computing. However, almost S3WD models are established based on labeled information system, and there is still a lack of S3WD model for processing unlabeled information system (UIS). In this paper, to solve the issue of given accepted number for UIS, a data-driven sequential three-way decisions (DDS3WD) model is proposed. Firstly, from the perspective of similarity computed by TOPSIS, a general three-way decisions model for UIS based on decision risk is presented and its shortcomings are analyzed. Then, a concept of optimal density difference is defined to establish the DDS3WD model for UIS by updating attributes. Finally, the related experiments show that DDS3WD is feasible and effective for dealing with UIS under the condition of given accepted number of objects.

The basic idea of the three-way decisions (3WD) is ‘thinking in threes.’ The TAO (trisecting-acting-outcome) model of 3WD includes three components, trisect a whole into three reasonable regions, devise a corresponding strategy on the trisection, and measure the effectiveness of the outcome. By reviewing existing studies, we found that only a few papers touch upon the third component, i.e., measure the effect. This paper’s principal aim is to present an effectiveness measure framework consisting of three parts: a specific TAO model - Change-based TAO model, interval sets, and utility functions with unique characteristics. Specifically, the change-based TAO model provides a method to measure effectiveness based on the difference before and after applying a strategy or an action. First, we use interval sets to represent these changes when a strategy or an action is applied. These changes correspond to three different intervals. Second, we use the utility measurement method to figure out three change intervals. Namely, different utility measures correspond to the different intervals, concave utility metric, direct utility metric, and convex utility metric, respectively. Third, it aggregates the toll utility through the joint of the three utilities mentioned above. The weights among these three are adjusted by a dual expected utility function that conveys the decision-makers’ preferences. We give an example and experiment highlighting the validity and practicability of the utility measure method in the change-based TAO model of three-way decisions.

Three-way concept analysis is a mathematical model of the combination of formal concept analysis and three-way decision, and knowledge discovery plays a significant impact on formal fuzzy contexts since such datasets are frequently encountered in real life. In this paper, a novel type of one-sided fuzzy three-way concept lattices is presented in a given formal fuzzy context with its complement, in which a ternary classification is available. In such case, we comprehensively explore the connections between the proposed models and classical fuzzy concept lattices among elements, sets, and orders. Furthermore, approaches to granular matrix-based reductions are investigated, by which granular consistent sets, and granular reducts via discernibility Boolean matrices are tectonically put forward. At last, the demonstrated results are performed by several experiments which enrich the research of three-way concept analysis.

Semiconcept, a new data processing model, enriches the development of formal concept analysis. However, the classical semiconcept is supported by two-way decisions. In the study of classical semiconcept theory, how to express the information of jointly not possessed is also essential in making decisions. Therefore, this paper tries to combine the classical semiconcept theory with three-way decisions to present three-way semiconcepts, and carry on the further study. Firstly, we define new operators and give some properties of them. Two kinds of three-way semiconcepts —OE-semiconcept and AE-semiconcept, are presented. And the corresponding structures are searched out from the perspective of lattice theory. Furthermore, we analyze the relationship among three-way concepts, three-way semiconcepts and classical semiconcepts. On this basis, the algorithms to build OE-semiconcept and AE-semiconcept are presented. At the meanwhile, we take some examples to examine and explain the obtained results.

The Current practice of air-fuel ratio control relies on empirical models and traditional PID controllers, which require extensive calibration to maintain the post-catalyst air-fuel ratio close to stoichiometry. In contrast, this work utilizes a physics-based Three-Way Catalyst (TWC) model to develop a model predictive control (MPC) strategy for air-fuel ratio control based on internal TWC oxygen storage dynamics. In this paper, parameters of the physics-based temperature and oxygen storage models of the TWC are identified using vehicle test data for a catalyst aged to 150,000 miles. A linearized oxygen storage model is then developed from the identified nonlinear model, which is shown via simulation to follow the nonlinear model with minimal error during nominal operation. This motivates the development of a Linear MPC (LMPC) framework using the linearized TWC oxygen storage model, reducing the requisite computational effort relative to a nonlinear MPC strategy. In this work, the LMPC utilizing a linearized physics-based TWC model is proven suitable for tracking a desired oxygen storage level by controlling the commanded engine air-fuel ratio, which is also a novel contribution. The offline simulation results show successful tracking performance of the developed LMPC framework.

This paper derives limited and full information estimators for structural parameters of a simultaneous equations model with three-way error components for balanced panels. The model consists in a finite number of equations that incorporates three dimensions: area, individual and time. Monte Carlo experiments illustrate the gain in efficiency by performing their estimators rather than the existing procedures for simultaneous one-way and simultaneous two-way error components.

The goal of the present study was to explore Primary Education students’ views on their involvement in a three pedagogical models’ hybridization (Health-Based Physical Education, Cooperative Learni...

Triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs) can not only provide the range of fuzzy points, but contain the three most representative fuzzy points, which play an essential role in describing fuzzy information. Combining with conflict situations, the agents' caution in the decision-making process can be well depicted by TFNs. However, little effort has been paid to conflict analysis on triangular fuzzy information systems (TFISs). In this paper, we study three-way conflict analysis based on TFISs. First, we propose the concept of TFISs and then establish a TFIS for conflict analysis. Further, relative area ΔS is defined to describe concrete attitudes of agents about issues. Second, since the importance of the same issue may vary for agents, we attach fuzzy weights to issues according to triangular fuzzy symmetric judgment matrices (TFSJMs) of agents. Third, we determine the total attitude of each agent to all issues. Then we illustrate how to compute thresholds α and β using the theory of triangular fuzzy decision-theoretic rough sets. Finally, a tri-partition of agents is obtained based on the thresholds.

Three-way decision model (3WDM) with decision-theoretical rough sets (DTRSs) always addresses precise cost parameters and precise attribute values in uncertain problem solving. However, intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs), as extensions of fuzzy sets, are described by dual parameters, namely the membership and nonmembership degrees. Therefore, under intuitionistic fuzzy environments, the 3WDM confronted great challenges when intuitionistic fuzzy number (IFN) cost parameters and IFN attribute values arise together. In this paper, by considering the impacts of both the IFN cost parameters and the IFN attribute values, new 3WDMs with IFNs are constructed from the membership degree and nonmembership degree perspectives, respectively. Then optimistic and pessimistic 3WDMs with IFNs are, respectively, established based on different risk preferences for more accurate decisions. Subsequently, by introducing a sequential strategy, the presented models are applied to address attribute increments in practical problems. Finally, we present a numerical example and some experiments to validate the efficiency of sequential 3WDMs.

As a new extended model of fuzzy sets, hesitant fuzzy set theory is a useful tool to process uncertain information in decision making problems. The traditional hesitant fuzzy multi-attribute decision making (MADM) can only choose an optimal strategy, which is not suitable for all of the complex scenarios. Typically, in practical application, decision making problems may be more complicated involving three options of acceptance, non-commitment and rejection decisions. Three-way decisions, which divide universe into three disjoint regions by a pair of thresholds, are more efficient to deal with these problems. Therefore, how to utilize three-way decision theory to process hesitant fuzzy information is an essential issue to be studied. In this paper, from the perspective of hesitant fuzzy distance, a hesitant fuzzy three-way decision model is proposed. First, because hesitant fuzzy element (HFE) is a set of several possible membership degrees, it cannot be compared with thresholds directly. Hence, this paper converts it into the comparison between the distance and the thresholds. Then, to calculate thresholds more reasonably, shadowed set theory is introduced to avoid the subjectivity of threshold acquisition. Furthermore, sequential strategy is adopted to solve the multi-attribute decision making problems. Finally, an example of medical diagnosis and simulation experiments are given to prove the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed hesitant fuzzy three-way decision model.

An information system as a database that represents relationships between objects and attributes is an important mathematical model in the field of artificial intelligence. Hybrid data means boolean, categorical, real-valued, set-valued data and missing data in this paper. A hybrid information system is an information system where its attribute is hybrid data. This paper proposes a three-way decision method based on hybrid data. First, the distance between two objects based on the conditional attribute set in a given hybrid information system is developed and Gaussian kernel based on this distance is acquired. Then, the fuzzy Tcos-equivalence relation, induced by this information system, is obtained by using Gaussian kernel. Next, the decision-theoretic rough set model in this hybrid information system is presented. Moreover, a three-way decision method is given by means of this decision-theoretic rough set model and inclusion degree between two fuzzy sets. Finally, an example is employed to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method, which may provide an effective method for hybrid data analysis in real applications.

The main aim of this paper is to propose a logarithmic minimum test for the three-way contingency table. The second aim is to compare the quality of independence tests by using their power. Each te...

In decision making processes, an expert with hesitant attitudes may experience difficulties when evaluating alternatives via a single assessment value. By allowing the membership degree of an element to a set represented by several possible values, hesitant fuzzy sets (HFSs) are usually needed to address this situation. Thus, it is meaningful to put forward a kind of multi-attribute decision making (MADM) method in the hesitant fuzzy (HF) environment. In addition, three-way decision (3WD) is a decision making method by introducing the idea of non-commitments, and it can effectively reduce decision risks. In this paper, the 3WD method-based MADM with HF information is proposed. According to the information table, the membership function of an objective HFS is given. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by solving an infectious disease diagnosis problem. Finally, we give a comparative analysis between the proposed method and the existing HF MADM methods. Further, three experimental results show that the proposed method is reasonable and effective.

Maize hybrids can increase production, bridge the yield gap, and boost up domestic production in Nepal. Three-way cross hybrid introduces an alternative to produce low cost hybrid seed for resource poor farmers. A study was performed to identify promising yellow and white maize hybrids developed by International Centre for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT), Mexico in Rampur, Nepal. Nineteen three-way cross white maize hybrids with two checks and seventeen yellow maize hybrids with one check were tested in field experiments on 2017 and 2018. Treatments were replicated twice in α-lattice design with each experimental plot of 9.6-m2 (4-m × 2.4-m). AF17A-426-13/14, AF17A-426-1/2, AF17A-426-28/39, and AF17A-426-15/16 were the three-way cross white hybrids produced grain yield of more than 9000 kg ha-1. Similarly, AF17A-473-20/29 and AF17A-473-18/27 yielded about 9000 kg ha-1 among the three-way cross yellow maize hybrids. These hybrids have commercial potentials to increase maize yield in Nepal if the provided parents are successful in the seed production.

To investigate if the detergent sclerosant sodium tetradecyl sulfate (STS) is deactivated by the lipid-based contrast agent ethiodised oil. 3% STS was mixed with ethiodised oil and room air in a 2:1:4 ratio in two luer lock syringes and a three way connector and agitated to make foam (the Tessari technique) to replicate the clinical use of the products. The assay of STS in the mixture was assessed using the British Pharmacopoeia method. Briefly this is a manual titration method where the solution of STS is mixed with an indicator solution and titrated with hyamine solution of known concentration; the concentration of the STS can then be calculated with the titration results. To further mimic the clinical environment with the presence of blood, the effect of adding increasing amounts of albumin to the STS-ethiodised oil mixture was assessed. The assay of STS in the solution after mixing with ethiodised oil was 3% indicating that the ethiodised oil did not deactivate the STS. The addition of albumin to the STS-contrast mixture resulted in near linear neutralisation of the STS with increasing concentrations in the same quantities as with STS alone. The mixture of the lipid-based contrast agent ethiodised oil with the detergent sclerosant STS did not affect the availability of the sclerosant. The continued use of STS-ethiodised oil in the management of vascular malformations can be supported.

Three-way decisions, as a better way than two-way decisions, has played an important role in many fields. As an extension of formal concept, rough semiconcept constitutes a new approach for data analysis. By now, three-way concept, which combines three-way decisions with formal concept, has been an efficient tool for knowledge representation problems. Hence, we want to further apply three-way decisions to rough semiconcept. In this work, we introduce three-way rough semiconcept by an example, which combines rough semiconcept with the assistant of three-way decisions. After that, we attain the structure of all three-way rough semiconcepts from an algebraic perspective. Furthermore, we give two kinds of approximation operators, which can characterize three-way rough semiconcepts. Finally, we present algorithms for searching three-way rough semiconcepts. An example is to demonstrate the correct and effective of algorithms in this paper.

The notion of fuzzy concept is proposed to deal with object-attribute data with L-values (where L is a truth-value structure). One disadvantage of fuzzy concept is that a fuzzy context contains a considerable number of fuzzy concepts. This makes it very time-consuming to generate a fuzzy concept lattice, and it is very difficult to find important concepts. In addition, the fuzzy concept shows great strictness when applying to crisp sets. To overcome these problems, we propose several new kinds of variable-precision concepts within L-contexts in this paper. First, we present two kinds of variable-precision two-way (VP2W) concepts: α-positive concept and β-negative concept. The family of each kind of VP2W concept forms a complete lattice. Next, considering both the positive and negative parts, we investigate two kinds of variable-precision three-way (VP3W) concepts: ( α , β ) -object-induced three-way concept and ( α , β ) -attribute-induced three-way concept. The family of each kind of VP3W concept forms a complete lattice. Then, we study the relationships between VP2W concepts and VP3W concepts. The results show that VP3W concept lattices can be directly generated by VP2W concept lattices. Finally, the experiments are preformed to verify the effectiveness of our model.