Granular Computing - Analysis and Design of Intelligent Systems

Information granules, as encountered in natural language, are implicit in nature. To make them fully operational so they can be effectively used to analyze and design intelligent systems, information granules need to be made explicit. An emerging discipline, granular computing focuses on formalizing information granules and unifying them to create a coherent methodological and developmental environment for intelligent system design and analysis. Granular Computing: Analysis and Design of Intelligent Systems presents the unified principles of granular computing along with its comprehensive algorithmic framework and design practices. Introduces the concepts of information granules, information granularity, and granular computingPresents the key formalisms of information granulesBuilds on the concepts of information granules with discussion of higher-order and higher-type information granulesDiscusses the operational concept of information granulation and degranulation by highlighting the essence of this tandem and its quantification in terms of the associated reconstruction errorExamines the principle of justifiable granularityStresses the need to look at information granularity as an important design asset that helps construct more realistic models of real-world systems or facilitate collaborative pursuits of system modelingHighlights the concepts, architectures, and design algorithms of granular modelsExplores application domains where granular computing and granular models play a visible role, including pattern recognition, time series, and decision makingWritten by an internationally renowned authority in the field, this innovative book introduces readers to granular computing as a new paradigm for the analysis and synthesis of intelligent systems. It is a valuable resource for those engaged in research and practical developments in computer, electrical, industrial, manufacturing, and biomedical engineering. Building from fundamentals, the book is also suitable for readers from nontechnical disciplines where information granules assume a visible position.Table of ContentInformation Granularity, Information Granules, and Granular Computing. Key Formalisms for Representation of Information Granules and Processing Mechanisms. Information Granules of Higher Type and Higher Order, and Hybrid Information Granules. Representation of Information Granules. The Design of Information Granules. Optimal Allocation of Information Granularity: Building Granular Mappings. Granular Description of Data and Pattern Classification. Granular Models: Architectures and Development. Granular Time Series. From Models to Granular Models. Collaborative and Linguistic Models of Decision Making. Index.Review Quote"Dr. Pedrycz is an internationally acclaimed authority in the granular computing area. ... I particularly appreciate his elegant writing style. This book is the first comprehensive treatise of the granular computing techniques and their application to the design of intelligent systems. ... As an application-oriented practitioner in computational intelligence systems, I think that this book will be a welcome and strongly needed addition to this field. I cannot think of any other expert worldwide more qualified than Prof. Pedycz to write such a book."—Emil M. Petriu, University of Ottawa, Canada"This volume covers most of the interesting and important topics in granular computing. The contents may be well understood by senior or master course students in the field of computer science ... also a good textbook for engineers who are involved in developing so-called intelligent systems."—Kaoru Hirota, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan"Dr. Pedrycz’s latest magnum opus ... breaks new ground in many directions. [It] takes an important step toward achievement of human-level machine intelligence—a principal goal of artificial intelligence (AI) since its inception. ... [This is] a remarkably well put together and reader-friendly collection of concepts and techniques, which constitute granular computing. ... [The book] combines extraordinary breadth with extraordinary depth. It contains a wealth of new ideas, and unfolds a vast panorama of concepts, methods, and applications. ... Dr. Pedrycz’s development and description of these concepts, techniques, and their applications is a truly remarkable achievement. ... must reading for all who are concerned with the design and application of intelligent systems."—From the Foreword by Lotfi A. Zadeh, University of California, Berkeley, USABiographical NoteWitold Pedrycz, Ph.D., is Professor and Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Computational Intelligence in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He is also with the Systems Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland and King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. In 2009, Dr. Pedrycz was elected a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA), International Society of Management Engineers, Engineers Canada, and The Engineering Institute of Canada. He is editor-in-chief of Information Sciences and editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A. He currently serves as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems and a number of other international journals. In 2007, he received the prestigious Norbert Wiener award from the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. Dr. Pedrycz is a recipient of the IEEE Canada Computer Engineering Medal. In 2009, he received a Cajastur Prize for Soft Computing from the European Centre for Soft Computing for "pioneering and multifaceted contributions to granular computing." In 2013 he received a prestigious Killam Prize.