Innovations in Soft Data Analysis.

The amount of data is growing at an exponential rate. We are faced with a challenge to analyze, process and extract useful information from the vast amount of data. Traditional data analysis techniques have contributed immensely in the area of data analysis but we believe that the soft data analysis techniques, based on soft computing techniques, can be complementary and can process complicated data sets. This paper provides an introduction to the soft data analysis paradigms. It summarizes the successful and possible applications of the soft computing analysis paradigms. The merits and demerits of these paradigms are included. A number of resources available are listed and the future vision is discussed. This paper also provides a brief summary of the papers included in the session on "Innovation in Soft Data Analysis". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]