ON THE USE OF INTERVAL MATHEMATICS IN FUZZY EXPERT-SYSTEMS

Fuzzy expert systems attempt to model the cognitive processes of human experts. They currently accomplish this by capturing knowledge in the form of linguistic propositions. Real-world problems dictate the need to include mathematical knowledge as well. Pattern matching is a crit ical part of the inference procedure in expert systems. Matches are ma de between data clauses, premise clauses, and conclusion clauses, form ing an inference chain. Preprocessing the clauses may generate interva ls of real numbers which are compared in the fuzzy matching algorithm, These same intervals may be used in arithmetic expressions. The purpo se of this article is to devise a method for incorporating arithmetic expressions into inference process of Fuzzy Expert Systems. Interval a rithmetic is used to evaluate these expressions. Logical relations bet ween intervals are analyzed using probability theory. (C) 1994 John Wi ley & Sons, Inc.