Combining Fuzzy Imprecision with Probabilistic Uncertainty in Decision Making

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Mario Fedrizzi
Springer Science & Business Media, Dec 6, 2012 - Business & Economics - 399 pages
In the literature of decision analysis it is traditional to rely on the tools provided by probability theory to deal with problems in which uncertainty plays a substantive role. In recent years, however, it has become increasingly clear that uncertainty is a mul tifaceted concept in which some of the important facets do not lend themselves to analysis by probability-based methods. One such facet is that of fuzzy imprecision, which is associated with the use of fuzzy predicates exemplified by small, large, fast, near, likely, etc. To be more specific, consider a proposition such as "It is very unlikely that the price of oil will decline sharply in the near future," in which the italicized words play the role of fuzzy predicates. The question is: How can one express the mean ing of this proposition through the use of probability-based methods? If this cannot be done effectively in a probabilistic framework, then how can one employ the information provided by the proposition in question to bear on a decision relating to an investment in a company engaged in exploration and marketing of oil? As another example, consider a collection of rules of the form "If X is Ai then Y is B,," j = 1, . . . , n, in which X and Yare real-valued variables and Ai and Bi are fuzzy numbers exemplified by small, large, not very small, close to 5, etc.
 

Contents

Uncertainty aversion and separated effects in decision making
10
Essentials of decision making under generalized uncertainty
26
Decision evaluation methods under uncertainty and imprecision
48
BASIC THEORETICAL ISSUES
66
Theory and applications of fuzzy statistics
89
Confidence intervals for the parameters of a linguistic
113
On the combination of vague evidence of the probabilistic
135
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