Advances in Fuzzy Clustering and its Applications

Divided into four sections the first section, 'Fuzzy clustering-the primer', covers the essentials of fuzzy clustering including motivation, basic algorithms, computing aspects, realisations, cluster validity assessment and ensuing interpretation of the results along with several representative areas of applications.  Chapters presenting the underlying fundamentals i.e. the 'Foundations' of fuzzy clustering follow this.  The authors elaborate on the role of fuzzy sets in data analysis, discuss the principles of data organization, present fundamental algorithms and their augmentations, identify pitfalls and embark on the interpretation issues.  Different paradigms of unsupervised learning along with so-called knowledge-based clustering and data organisation are also addressed.  The third section 'Algorithms and Computational Aspects' focuses on the algorithmic and computational augmentations of fuzzy clustering and demonstrates its effectiveness in highly dimensional problems, distributed problem solving and uncertainty handling.  To conclude the book, 'Applications and Case Studies' is devoted to a series of applications in which fuzzy clustering plays a pivotal role.  The primary intent is to discuss its role in the overall design process in various tasks of prediction, classification, control and modelling.  Here it becomes highly instructive to highlight at which phase of the design clustering is of relevance, what role it plays and how the results facilitate further detailed development of models or enhance interpretation aspects.

José Valente de Oliveira received his Ph.D. (1996), M.Sc. (1992), and the “Licenciado” degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the IST, Technical University of Lisbon.  Currently he is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Algarve where he served as Deputy Dean from 2002-2003.  He was recently appointed director of the University of Algarve Informatics Lab, a research laboratory specializing in computational intelligence including fuzzy sets, fuzzy and intelligent systems, machine learning, and optimization.

Witold Pedrycz is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (CRC) 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.  He is actively pursuing research in computational intelligence, fuzzy modeling, knowledge discovery and data mining, fuzzy control including fuzzy controllers, pattern recognition, knowledge-based neural networks, relational computation, bioinformatics, and Software Engineering.  He currently serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems.