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Fuzzy Optimization and Decision Making, 1, 5 – 9, 2002 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in The Netherlands.
Message from the Editors We are very happy to launch this new journal on Fuzzy Optimization and Decision Making with the Kluwer Academic Publishers. During the past two years, considerable support for the new journal has been gained through an international dialogue involving many well established scholars in the fields of optimization, decision science, and fuzzy set theory. It is well recognized that optimization and other decision support technologies have been playing an important role in improving almost every aspect of human society. Intensive study over the past several decades has resulted in significant progress in both the theory and applications of optimization and decision science. This is evidenced by the existence of numerous professional journals, books and corporate documents in the field. The new challenge that we face in the information-rich environment of today is how to handle those very complicated, large size problems (such as global supply chain analysis and management, web-based on-line optimal control, and data mining for intelligence extraction). The information-rich environment is usually full of inheritant noise, vagueness, uncertainty as well as conflicts and contradictions. The compounding effects of the numerous uncertainties arising in the large size problems can easily make their solutions extremely time-consuming, if not intractable. Optimization and decision making problems are traditionally handled by either the deterministic or probabilistic approaches. The former provides an approximate solution, completely ignoring uncertainty, while the latter assumes that any uncertainly can be represented as a probability distribution. In fact, of course, both approaches only partially capture reality. Uncertainty (such as stock price, commodity cost, and natural resource availabilities) indeed exists but not in the form of known probability distributions. They key objective of launching a new journal on Fuzzy Optimization and Decision Making is to promote the research and development of fuzzy technology and softcomputing methodologies such that the complicated optimization and decision making problems involving uncertainty can be better handled. The existing literature clearly supports the notion of using the fuzzy set theory and soft-computing techniques to further expand human capability in making optimal decisions involving non-probabilistic uncertainty. However, no professional journal, either on the optimization side or on the fuzzy set theory side, is published specifically to encourage the potential integration of the rigorous optimization theory and the widely-applicable fuzzy technology. This new journal will respond directly to this challenge. It is intended that the new journal play the leading role in fostering new research fronts on the theory and practice of fuzzy optimization and decision making for the global community. 1.
Journal Surveys
After initial discussions with Gary Folven of Kluwer Academic Publishers, a preliminary proposal and associated survey for the new journal was sent to approximately 180
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MESSAGE FROM THE EDITORS
scholars around the world in the Summer of 1999. The distribution list included those who have published in the area in the past five years. There was a response rate of approximately 50% for the initial survey. The reaction of this international body was extremely positive and encouraging. Four general observations can be made based on the responses: 1. There is a need for a new journal devoted to the theory and practice of integrating fuzzy technology into optimization and decision making to better solve those engineering, mathematical, and managerial problems involving non-probabilistic uncertainty. 2. The great majority believes that the proposed new journal will be very valuable (8 points or above on a 10-point scale) to the field. 3. Resources and commitment to launch such a journal do exist. Over 90% respondents expressed the willingness to contribute their work to the new journal and participate in the refereeing process. 4. A potential market is there for the new journal. Over 95% respondents would recommend that their libraries subscribe to this new journal. A follow-up survey, conducted in the Summer of 2000, of prominent scholars in the related fields further confirmed that this new journal would be of significant value to the greater fuzzy community.
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Aims and Scopes
The journal will consider all aspects of employing fuzzy technologies to seek optimal solutions and to assist in making the best possible decisions. It will provide a global forum for advancing the state-of-the-art theory and practice of fuzzy optimization and decision making in the presence of uncertainty. Any theoretical, empirical, and experimental work related to fuzzy modeling and associated mathematics, solution methods, and systems is welcome. The goal is to help foster the understanding, development, and practice of fuzzy technologies for solving economic, engineering, management, and societal problems. The journal will provide an international forum for authors and readers in the fields of business, economics, engineering, mathematics, management science, operations research, and systems. An editorial board consisting of both academicians and practitioners has been assembled to encourage the submission of both theoretical and applied research. The editorial board will actively seek submission of significant contributions from countries around the world. The journal will consider papers for publication in the following areas: Modeling: Papers formulating problems involving uncertainty as a mathematical model in the context of fuzzy optimization and decision making. Often these papers will address the suitability, validity and advantages of using fuzzy technologies to treat real-life problems.
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Theoretical Developments: Papers establishing mathematical theory on fundamental issues. Often these papers will address the existence and properties of fuzzy optimal solutions or fuzzy optimal decisions. Algorithmic Developments: Papers presenting solution methods and/or studying their computational complexity. Often these papers will propose new algorithms to solve fuzzy optimization and decision making problems in an effective and efficient manner. Systems Development and Applications: Papers describing the development of a software/hardware system and documenting the benefits achieved in some practical application. Often these papers will deal with innovative system implementations and applications for which no previous solutions exist or for which significant improvement is achieved over previous solutions. Manuscripts submitted to the journal may cover several areas. The editorial board will seek a good balance of papers from different areas to be published in each issue. The journal will also published invited ‘‘state-of-the-art’’ surveys on specific topics and sub-areas. The research and practice of fuzzy optimization and decision making for special interest groups and special geographic locations will be accommodated by publishing special issues with guest editors.
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Editorial Board Structure
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the success of the journal. A Managing Editor works closely with the Editor-in-Chief to manage related daily operations. The Editorin-Chief is also supported by Regional Editors representing America, Asia Pacific, and Europe, Advisory Editors, and a board of Associate Editors. Papers may be submitted to either one of the Regional Editors or directly to the Managing Editor. The Managing Editor will use an electronic bulletin board to post and monitor the status of each submission. Regional Editors are appointed by the Editor-in-Chief with a term of 5 years to promote paper submission in their regions and to select appropriate Associate Editors for reviewing each paper received. The current regions are America, Asia Pacific, and Europe. Advisory Editors are appointed by the Editor-in-Chief and serve at his discretion without any fixed term. Their responsibility is to help the Editor-in-Chief set editorial policy, adjudicate disagreements between authors and referees, select new Associate Editors, and generally promote the journal. Associate Editors are appointed according to their expertise by the Editor-in-Chief, with the input from Advisory and Regional Editors, for a term of 5 years. Associate Editors are responsible for soliciting at least two referee reports for each submission and making publication recommendations to either the Regional Editor or Editor-in-Chief who passes them the submission. The editorial board will operate with the goal of providing a quick initial decision within four months of the receipt of a manuscript. Each submission will be assigned a number by
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the Managing Editor. The up-to-date review status of each submission, identified by the assigned manuscript number, will be available on a web-page. Authors will be strongly encouraged to submit an electronic copy of their initial manuscripts using Kluwer’s style-format. For authors who have difficulty with electronic submission, four hardcopies should be mailed to the Managing Editor. Direct submission to Kluwer, in their style-format, of the final version of accepted papers will be required. Further updates can be found at the web-site ‘‘http://www.ie.ncsu.edu/fangroup/fuzzy.dir/FODM.html’’.
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In This Inaugural Issue
The new journal is blessed with Professor Lotfi Zadeh’s preface, followed by five articles. The first article (On the Evaluation of Uncertain Courses of Action) is authored by Ronald R. Yager. In this paper, the fuzzy measure is introduced as a general way of representing the information available about uncertainty and various ways of providing a scalar valuation function for alternative courses of action are presented. In the second article (Toward Fuzzy Optimization without Mathematical Ambiguity), Baoding Liu tries to avoid mathematical ambiguity in fuzzy programming models by classifying fuzzy optimization problems into three broad classes: expected value model, chance-constrained programming, and dependent-chance programming. A hybrid intelligent algorithm for solving general fuzzy programming models is also reported. Next is an article of Masahiro Inuiguchi and Tetsuzo Tanino (Possibilistic Linear Programming with Fuzzy If-Then Rule Coefficients). They propose a scenario decomposition approach for the treatment of interactive fuzzy numbers which are expressed by fuzzy if-then rules. Linear programming and bisection methods are used for finding solutions. In the fourth paper (A Graded Quadrivalent Logic for Ordinal Preference Modelling: Loyola-like Approach), Philippe Fortemps and Roman Slowinski extend a quadrivalent logic of Belnap to graded truth values in order to handle graded relevance of positive and negative arguments provided in preferential information concerning ranking of a finite number of alternatives. The graded arguments are presented on an ordinal scale and their aggregation leads to a preference model in form of four graded outranking relations. The fifth article (Solving Fuzzy Variational Inequalities) is authored by Shu-Cherng Fang and Cheng-Feng Hu. The authors study both the variational inequality problem over a fuzzy domain and variational inequalities for a fuzzy mapping over a fuzzy domain. It is shown that such problems can be reduced to bilevel programming problems and solved by a well-designed penalty function algorithm.
Acknowledgements To launch a new a new journal is an impossible task without the support from a very large number of colleagues from across the world. We would like to take this opportunity to thank those who participated in the surveys, who provided us with critiques, who encouraged to go forward, and who agreed to serve in the editorial board. We are also deeply indebted to
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Gary Folven of Kluwer Academic Publishers for his vision, enthusiasm, patience, and support throughout this enterprise.
Shu-Cherng Fang, Editor-in-Chief Henry L. W. Nuttle, Managing Editor June, 2001
