Download or read book Fuzziness and Foundations of Exact and Inexact Sciences written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The monograph is an examination of the fuzzy rational foundations of the structure of exact and inexact sciences over the epistemological space which is distinguished from the ontological space. It is thus concerned with the demarcation problem. It examines exact science and its critique of inexact science. The role of fuzzy rationality in these examinations is presented. The driving force of the discussions is the nature of the information that connects the cognitive relational structure of the epistemological space to the ontological space for knowing. The knowing action is undertaken by decision-choice agents who must process information to derive exact-inexact or true-false conclusions. The information processing is done with a paradigm and laws of thought that constitute the input-output machine. The nature of the paradigm selected depends on the nature of the information structure that is taken as input of the thought processing. Generally, the information structure received from the ontological space is defective from the simple principles of acquaintances and the limitations of cognitive agents operating in the epistemological space. How then do we arrive and claim exactness in our knowledge-production system? The general conclusion of this book is that the conditions of the fuzzy paradigm with its laws of thought and mathematics present a methodological unity of exact and inexact sciences where every zone of thought has fuzzy covering.

Download or read book The Theory of Problem Solution Dualities and Polarities written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-04-25 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is concerned with the development of the understanding of the relational structures of information, knowledge, decision–choice processes of problems and solutions in the theory and practice regarding diversity and unity principles of knowing, science, non-science, and information–knowledge systems through dualistic-polar conditions of variety existence and nonexistence. It is a continuation of the sequence of my epistemic works on the theories on fuzzy rationality, info-statics, info-dynamics, entropy, and their relational connectivity to information, language, knowing, knowledge, cognitive practices relative to variety identification–problem–solution dualities, variety transformation–problem–solution dualities, and variety certainty–uncertainty principle in all areas of knowing and human actions regarding general social transformations. It is also an economic–theoretic approach in understanding the diversity and unity of knowing and science through neuro-decision–choice actions over the space of problem–solution dualities and polarities. The problem–solution dualities are argued to connect all areas of knowing including science and non-science, social science, and non-social-science into unity with diversities under neuro-decision–choice actions to support human existence and nonexistence over the space of static–dynamic dualities. The concepts of diversity and unity are defined and explicated to connect to the tactics and strategies of decision–choice actions over the space of problem–solution dualities. The concepts of problem and solution are defined and explicated not in the space of absoluteness but rather in the space of relativity based on real cost–benefit conditions which are shown to be connected to the general parent–offspring infinite process, where every solution generates new problem(s) which then generates a search for new solutions within the space of minimum–maximum dualities in the decision–choice space under the principle of non-satiation over the space of preference–non-preference dualities with analytical tools drawn from the fuzzy paradigm of thought which connects the conditions of the principle of opposites to the conditions of neuro-decision–choice actions in the zone of variety identifications and transformations. The Monograph would be useful to all areas of Research, Learning and Teaching at Advanced Stages of Knowing and Knowledge Production.

Download or read book Social Goal Objective Formation Democracy and National Interest written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-03-29 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the development of a theory of social goal-objective formation and its relationship to national interest and social vision under a democratic decision-choice system with imperfect information structure. It provides a framework for the application of fuzzy logic and its mathematics to the analysis in resolving conflicts in individual preferences in the collective decision-choice space without violence. The book demonstrates how to use fuzzy logic and its mathematics in the study of economics, social sciences and other complex systems. It also presents the use of collaborative tools of opposites, duality, polarity, continuum in fuzzy paradigm with its logic, laws of thought and mathematics in developing a new approach to the theory of political economy in order to enhance the constructs of social decision-choice theory.

Download or read book A General Theory of Entropy written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an epistemic framework for dealing with information-knowledge and certainty-uncertainty problems within the space of quality-quantity dualities. It bridges between theoretical concepts of entropy and entropy measurements, proposing the concept and measurement of fuzzy-stochastic entropy that is applicable to all areas of knowing under human cognitive limitations over the epistemological space. The book builds on two previous monographs by the same author concerning theories of info-statics and info-dynamics, to deal with identification and transformation problems respectively. The theoretical framework is developed by using the toolboxes such as those of the principle of opposites, systems of actual-potential polarities and negative-positive dualities, under different cost-benefit time-structures. The category theory and the fuzzy paradigm of thought, under methodological constructionism-reductionism duality, are used in the fuzzy-stochastic and cost-benefit spaces to point to directions of global application in knowing, knowledge and decision-choice actions. Thus, the book is concerned with a general theory of entropy, showing how the fuzzy paradigm of thought is developed to deal with the problems of qualitative-quantitative uncertainties over the fuzzy-stochastic space, which will be applicable to conditions of soft-hard data, fact, evidence and knowledge over the spaces of problem-solution dualities, decision-choice actions in sciences, non-sciences, engineering and planning sciences to abstract acceptable information-knowledge elements.

Download or read book Fuzziness Democracy Control and Collective Decision choice System A Theory on Political Economy of Rent Seeking and Profit Harvesting written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-03-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents an analysis of the problems and solutions of the market mockery of the democratic collective decision-choice system with imperfect information structure composed of defective and deceptive structures using methods of fuzzy rationality. The book is devoted to the political economy of rent-seeking, rent-protection and rent-harvesting to enhance profits under democratic collective decision-choice systems. The toolbox used in the monograph consists of methods of fuzzy decision, approximate reasoning, negotiation games and fuzzy mathematics. The monograph further discusses the rent-seeking phenomenon in the Schumpeterian and Marxian political economies where the rent-seeking activities transform the qualitative character of the general capitalism into oligarchic socialism and making the democratic collective decision-choice system as an ideology rather than social calculus for resolving conflicts in preferences in the collective decision-choice space without violence.

Download or read book Fuzzy TOPSIS written by Mohamed El Alaoui and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2021-05-26 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the use of fuzzy logic as a logic and as an uncertainty theory in the decision-making context Discusses the development of the TOPSIS method in classical and fuzzy context Justifies the use of fuzzy logic as an uncertainty theory Provides illustrative examples for each fuzzy TOPSIS extension Includes related MATLAB codes and case studies

Download or read book The Theory of Info Dynamics Rational Foundations of Information Knowledge Dynamics written by Kofi K. Dompere and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-06 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the development of a theory of info-dynamics to support the theory of info-statics in the general theory of information. It establishes the rational foundations of information dynamics and how these foundations relate to the general socio-natural dynamics from the primary to the derived categories in the universal existence and from the potential to the actual in the ontological space. It also shows how these foundations relate to the general socio-natural dynamics from the potential to the possible to give rise to the possibility space with possibilistic thinking; from the possible to the probable to give rise to possibility space with probabilistic thinking; and from the probable to the actual to give rise to the space of knowledge with paradigms of thought in the epistemological space. The theory is developed to explain the general dynamics through various transformations in quality-quantity space in relation to the nature of information flows at each variety transformation. The theory explains the past-present-future connectivity of the evolving information structure in a manner that illuminates the transformation problem and its solution in the never-ending information production within matter-energy space under socio-natural technologies to connect the theory of info-statics, which in turn presents explanations to the transformation problem and its solution. The theoretical framework is developed with analytical tools based on the principle of opposites, systems of actual-potential polarities, negative-positive dualities under different time-structures with the use of category theory, fuzzy paradigm of thought and game theory in the fuzzy-stochastic cost-benefit space. The rational foundations are enhanced with categorial analytics. The value of the theory of info-dynamics is demonstrated in the explanatory and prescriptive structures of the transformations of varieties and categorial varieties at each point of time and over time from parent–offspring sequences. It constitutes a general explanation of dynamics of information-knowledge production through info-processes and info-processors induced by a socio-natural infinite set of technologies in the construction–destruction space.

Download or read book The Theory of Info Statics Conceptual Foundations of Information and Knowledge written by Kofi K. Dompere and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the development of a theory of info-statics as a sub-theory of the general theory of information. It describes the factors required to establish a definition of the concept of information that fixes the applicable boundaries of the phenomenon of information, its linguistic structure and scientific applications. The book establishes the definitional foundations of information and how the concepts of uncertainty, data, fact, evidence and evidential things are sequential derivatives of information as the primary category, which is a property of matter and energy. The sub-definitions are extended to include the concepts of possibility, probability, expectation, anticipation, surprise, discounting, forecasting, prediction and the nature of past-present-future information structures. It shows that the factors required to define the concept of information are those that allow differences and similarities to be established among universal objects over the ontological and epistemological spaces in terms of varieties and identities. These factors are characteristic and signal dispositions on the basis of which general definitional foundations are developed to construct the general information definition (GID). The book then demonstrates that this definition is applicable to all types of information over the ontological and epistemological spaces. It also defines the concepts of uncertainty, data, fact, evidence and knowledge based on the GID. Lastly, it uses set-theoretic analytics to enhance the definitional foundations, and shows the value of the theory of info-statics to establish varieties and categorial varieties at every point of time and thus initializes the construct of the theory of info-dynamics.

Download or read book An Intellectual Biography of Africa written by Francis Kwarteng and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2022-07-13 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa is the birthplace of humanity and civilization. And yet people generally don’t want to accept the scientific impression of Africa as the birthplace of human civilization. The skeptics include Africans themselves, a direct result of the colonial educational systems still in place across Africa, and even those Africans who acquire Western education, particularly in the humanities, have been trapped in the symptomatology of epistemic peonage. These colonial educational systems have overstayed their welcome and should be dismantled. This is where African agency comes in. Agential autonomy deserves an authoritative voice in shaping the curricular direction of Africa. Agential autonomy implicitly sanctions an Afrocentric approach to curriculum development, pedagogy, historiography, literary theory, indigenous language development, and knowledge construction. Science, technology, engineering, mathematics?information and communications technology (STEM-ICT) and research and development (R&D) both exercise foundational leverage in the scientific and cultural discourse of the kind of African Renaissance Cheikh Anta Diop envisaged. “Mr. Francis Kwarteng has written a book that looks at some of the major distortions of African history and Africa’s major contributions to human civilization. In this context, Mr. Kwarteng joins a long list of thinkers who roundly reject the foundational Eurocentric epistemology of Africa in favor of an Afrocentric paradigm of Africa’s material, spiritual, scientific, and epistemic assertion. Mr. Kwarteng places S.T.E.M. and a revision of the humanities at the center of the African Renaissance and critiques Eurocentric fantasies about Africa and its Diaspora following the critical examples of Cheikh Anta Diop, Ama Mazama, Molefi Kete Asante, Abdul Karim Bangura, Theophile Obenga, Maulana Karenga, Mubabingo Bilolo, Kwame Nkrumah, Ivan Van Sertima, W.E.B. Du Bois, and several others. Readers of this book will be challenged to look at Africa through a critical lens.” Ama Mazama, editor/author of Africa in the 21st Century: Toward a New Future “There are countless books about the evolution of European intellectual thought but scarcely any that captures the pioneering contributions of Africans since the beginning of recorded knowledge in Kmet, a.k.a. Ancient Egypt. Well, that long drought has ended with the publication of Kwarteng's An Intellectual Biography of Africa: A Philosophical Anatomy of Advancing Africa the Diopian Way. Prepare to be educated.” Milton Allimadi, author of Manufacturing Hate: How Africa Was Demonized in the Media

Download or read book The Theory of the Knowledge Square The Fuzzy Rational Foundations of the Knowledge Production Systems written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-08-28 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The monograph is about a meta-theory of knowledge-production process and the logical pathway that connects the epistemic possibility to the epistemic reality. It examines the general conditions of paradigms for information processing and isolates the classical and fuzzy paradigms for comparative analysis. The sets of conditions that give rise to them are defined, stated and analyzed to abstract the corresponding sets of laws of thought. The fuzzy paradigm with its corresponding logic and mathematics is related to inexact symbolism for the defective information structure where the results of the knowledge production must satisfy the epistemic conditionality, composed of fuzzy conditionality and fuzzy-stochastic conditionality under the principle of logical duality with continuum. The classical paradigm with its corresponding logic and mathematics is related to exact symbolism for exact information structure where the vagueness component of the defectiveness is assumed away, and where the results of the knowledge production must satisfy no epistemic conditionality or at the maximum only the stochastic conditionality under the principle of logical dualism with excluded middle. It is argued that the epistemic path that links ontological space to the epistemological space is information. The ontological space is taken as the primary category of reality while the epistemological space is shone to be a derivative. Such information is universally defective and together with assumptions imposed guides the development of paradigms with their laws of thought, logic of reasoning, mathematics and computational techniques. The relational structure is seen in terms of logical trinity with a given example as matter-information-energy transformational trinity which is supported by the time trinity of past-present-future relationality. The book is written for professionals, researchers and students working in philosophy of science, decision-choice theories, economies, sciences, computer science, engineering, cognitive psychology and researchers working on, or interested in fuzzy paradigm, fuzzy logic, fuzzy decisions, and phenomena of vagueness and ambiguities, fuzzy mathematics, fuzzy-stochastic processes and theory of knowledge. It is further aimed at research institutions and libraries. The subject matter belongs to extensive research and development taking place on fuzzy phenomena and the debate between the fuzzy paradigm and the classical paradigm relative to informatics, synergetic science and complexity theory. The book will have a global appeal and across disciplines. Its strength, besides the contents, is the special effort that is undertaken to make it relevant and accessible to different areas of sciences and knowledge production.

Download or read book Epistemic Foundations of Fuzziness written by K. K. Dompere and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-03-13 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph is a treatment on optimal fuzzy rationality as an enveloping of decision-choice rationalities where limited information, vagueness, ambiguities and inexactness are essential characteristics of our knowledge structure and reasoning processes. The volume is devoted to a unified system of epistemic models and theories of decision-choice behavior under total uncertainties composed of fuzzy and stochastic types. The unified epistemic analysis of decision-choice models and theories begins with the question of how best to integrate vagueness, ambiguities, limited information, subjectivity and approximation into the decision-choice process. The answer to the question leads to the shifting of the classical paradigm of reasoning to fuzzy paradigm. This is followed by discussions and establishment of the epistemic foundations of fuzzy mathematics where the nature and role of information and knowledge are explicated and represented. The epistemic foundation allows total uncertainties that constrain decision-choice activities, knowledge enterprise, logic and mathematical structures as our cognitive instruments to be discussed in reference to the phenomena of fuzzification, defuzzification and fuzzy logic. The discussions on these phenomena lead us to analyze and present models and theories on decision-choice rationality and the needed mathematics for problem formulation, reasoning and computations. The epistemic structures of two number systems made up of classical numbers and fuzzy numbers are discussed in relation to their differences, similarities and relative relevance to decision-choice rationality. The properties of the two number systems lead to the epistemic analysis of two mathematical systems that allow the partition of the mathematical space in support of decision-choice space of knowledge and non-knowledge production into four cognitively separate but interdependent cohorts whose properties are analyzed by the methods and techniques of category theory. The four cohorts are identified as non-fuzzy and non-stochastic, non-fuzzy and stochastic both of which belong to the classical paradigm and classical mathematical space; and fuzzy and non-stochastic, and fuzzy and stochastic cohorts both of which belong to the fuzzy paradigm and fuzzy mathematical space. The differences in the epistemic foundations of the two mathematical systems are discussed. The discussion leads to the establishment of the need for fuzzy mathematics and computing as a new system of reasoning in both exact and inexact sciences. The mathematical structures of the cohorts are imposed on the decision-choice process to allow a grouping of decision-choice models and theories. The corresponding classes of decision-choice theories have the same characteristics as the logico-mathematical cohorts relative to the assumed information-knowledge structures. The four groupings of models and theories on decision-choice activities are then classified as: 1) non-fuzzy and non-stochastic class with exact and full information-knowledge structure (no uncertainty), 2) non-fuzzy and stochastic class with exact and limited information-knowledge structure (stochastic uncertainty), 3) fuzzy and non-stochastic class with full and fuzzy information-knowledge structure (fuzzy uncertainty) and 4) Fuzzy and stochastic class with fuzzy and limited information-knowledge structure (fuzzy and stochastic uncertainties). All these different classes of decision choice problems have their corresponding rationalities which are fully discussed to present a unified logical system of theories on decision-choice process. The volume is concluded with epistemic discussions on the nature of contradictions and paradoxes viewed as logical decision-choice problems in the classical paradigm, and how these contradictions and paradoxes may be resolved through fuzzy paradigm and the methods and techniques of optimal fuzzy decision-choice rationality. The logical problem of sorites paradox with its resolution is given as an example. Interested audience includes those working in the areas of economies, decision-choice theories, philosophy of sciences, epistemology, mathematics, computer science, engineering, cognitive psychology, fuzzy mathematics and mathematics of fuzzy-stochastic processes.

Download or read book Fuzziness and Approximate Reasoning written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We do not perceive the present as it is and in totality, nor do we infer the future from the present with any high degree of dependability, nor yet do we accurately know the consequences of our own actions. In addition, there is a fourth source of error to be taken into account, for we do not execute actions in the precise form in which they are imaged and willed. Frank H. Knight [R4.34, p. 202] The “degree” of certainty of confidence felt in the conclusion after it is reached cannot be ignored, for it is of the greatest practical signi- cance. The action which follows upon an opinion depends as much upon the amount of confidence in that opinion as it does upon fav- ableness of the opinion itself. The ultimate logic, or psychology, of these deliberations is obscure, a part of the scientifically unfathomable mystery of life and mind. Frank H. Knight [R4.34, p. 226-227] With some inaccuracy, description of uncertain consequences can be classified into two categories, those which use exclusively the language of probability distributions and those which call for some other principle, either to replace or supplement.

Download or read book Soft Computing in Humanities and Social Sciences written by Rudolf Seising and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-11-05 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of Soft Computing in Humanities and Social Sciences is at a turning point. The strong distinction between “science” and “humanities” has been criticized from many fronts and, at the same time, an increasing cooperation between the so-called “hard sciences” and “soft sciences” is taking place in a wide range of scientific projects dealing with very complex and interdisciplinary topics. In the last fifteen years the area of Soft Computing has also experienced a gradual rapprochement to disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and also in the field of Medicine, Biology and even the Arts, a phenomenon that did not occur much in the previous years. The collection of this book presents a generous sampling of the new and burgeoning field of Soft Computing in Humanities and Social Sciences, bringing together a wide array of authors and subject matters from different disciplines. Some of the contributors of the book belong to the scientific and technical areas of Soft Computing while others come from various fields in the humanities and social sciences such as Philosophy, History, Sociology or Economics. Rudolf Seising received a Ph.D. degree in philosophy of science and a postdoctoral lecture qualification (PD) in history of science from the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. He is an Adjoint Researcher at the European Centre for Soft Computing in Mieres (Asturias), Spain. Veronica Sanz earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University Complutense of Madrid (Spain). At the moment she is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Science, Technology and Society Center in the University of California at Berkeley. Veronica Sanz earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University Complutense of Madrid (Spain). At the moment she is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Science, Technology and Society Center in the University of California at Berkeley.

Download or read book Epistemic Foundations of Fuzziness written by Kofi Kissi Dompere and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-08-29 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is necessary to practice methodological doubt, like Descartes, in - der to loosen the hold of mental habits; and it is necessary to cultivate logical imagination, in order to have a number of hypotheses at c- mand, and not to be the slave of the one which common sense has r- dered easy to imagine. These two processes, of doubting the familiar and imagining the unfamiliar, are corrective, and form the chief part of the mental training required for a philosopher. Bertrand Russell At every stage and in all circumstances knowledge is incomplete and provisional, conditioned and limited by the historical circumstances under which it was acquired, including the means and methods used for gaining it and the historically conditioned assumptions and categories used in the formulation of ideas and conclusions. Maurice Cornforth This monograph is the second in the series of meta-theoretic analysis of fuzzy paradigm and its contribution and possible contribution to formal reasoning in order to free the knowledge production process from the ridge frame of the classical paradigm that makes its application to soft and inexact sciences d- ficult or irrelevant. The work in the previous monograph was strictly devoted to problems of theory of knowledge and critique of classical, bounded and other rationalities in decision-choice processes regarding the principles of verification, falsification or corroboration in knowledge production. This monograph deals mostly with epistemic decision-choice models and theories and how they are related to both the classical and fuzzy paradigms.

Download or read book Dealing with Complexity written by Robert L. Flood and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contents 11. 2. 2. Four Main Areas of Dispute 247 11. 2. 3. Summary . . . 248 11. 3. Making Sense of the Issues . . 248 11. 3. 1. Introduction . . . . 248 11. 3. 2. The Scientific Approach 248 11. 3. 3. Science and Matters of Society . 249 11. 3. 4. Summary . 251 11. 4. Tying It All Together . . . . 251 11. 4. 1. Introduction . . . . 251 11. 4. 2. A Unifying Framework 251 11. 4. 3. Critical Systems Thinking 253 11. 4. 4. Summary 254 11. 5. Conclusion 254 Questions . . . 255 REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Chapter One SYSTEMS Origin and Evolution, Terms and Concepts 1. 1. INTRODUCTION We start this book with Theme A (see Figure P. I in the Preface), which aims to develop an essential and fundamental understanding of systems science. So, what is systems science? When asked to explain what systems science is all about, many systems scientists are confronted with a rather daunting task. The discipline tends to be presented and understood in a fragmented way and very few people hold an overview understanding of the subject matter, while also having sufficient in-depth competence in many and broad-ranging subject areas where the ideas are used. Indeed, it was precisely this difficulty that identified the need for a comprehensive well-documented account such as is presented here in Dealing with Complexity.

Download or read book The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics written by Kurt Dopfer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-05-23 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely recognised that mainstream economics has failed to translate micro consistently into macro economics and to provide endogenous explanations for the continual changes in the economic system. Since the early 1980s, a growing number of economists have been trying to provide answers to these two key questions by applying an evolutionary approach. This new departure has yielded a rich literature with enormous variety, but the unifying principles connecting the various ideas and views presented are, as yet, not apparent. This 2005 volume brings together fifteen original articles from scholars - each of whom has made a significant contribution to the field - in their common effort to reconstruct economics as an evolutionary science. Using meso economics as an analytical entity to bridge micro and macro economics as well as static and dynamic realms, a unified economic theory emerges.

Download or read book Foundations of Soft Case Based Reasoning written by Sankar K. Pal and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2004-07-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a self-contained description of this important aspect of information processing and decision support technology. Presents basic definitions, principles, applications, and a detailed bibliography. Covers a range of real-world examples including control, data mining, and pattern recognition.