Klir and Yuan's Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic

During the past thirty years we have been witnessing the process of emerging and extensive maturing of fuzzy set theory as a paradigm shift in managing complexity, uncertainty, and subjectivity. This process has been accompanied by a growing number of books focusing on the theoretical and practical aspects of fuzzy sets-a clear indication that the fundamentals of a new scientific discipline were being built. Among the recently published monographic texts, the new book by George J. Klir and Bo Yuan, Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic, is an exceptional achievement. The major focus of this book is on the fundamental issues of fuzzy set theory (part 1, chapters 1-9). These issues are introduced in the environment of some well-established disciplines, e.g. classical set theory, probability theory, Dempster-Shafer theory, information theory, etc. Such an approach provides the reader with an efficient methodology for catching the essence of the subject by making association and comparisons with classical concepts, definitions, and terms. The comprehensive coverage of the overall fuzzy machinery is further supported by a nice set of examples and work problems, and by an overview of the major practical areas of application of fuzzy sets. The problem of managing uncertainty is used as a major vehicle for representing the power and the applicability of fuzzy set theory. Since this issue has an influence on a wide variety of engineering problems, the book presents a natural bridge from the abstract theoretical concepts to numerous real world problems (part 2, chapters 10-17).