Cardinalities of fuzzy sets (Q1873285)

The present book is completely devoted to the problem of the development of a cardinality theory for fuzzy sets with finite support. At present there are just two quite different kinds of approaches available toward the problem what type of object such a cardinality should be: The first is that a cardinality of a fuzzy set should be some kind of standard number of classical mathematics. The second one is that the fact that one has for some objects only a gradual membershiphood in a fuzzy set \(A\) forces that the ``number of elements of \(A\) is determined also only gradually -- which, formally, is understood as meaning that the cardinality of a fuzzy set is itself a fuzzy set (of standard numbers). The author explains in detail both these different approaches, and develops the corresponding mathematical theories of cardinals for fuzzy sets. This includes the development of the basic arithmetical operations of addition, multiplication, and exponentiation for these cardinals, and the study of their arithmetical properties, as well as of the relationships between these arithmetical operations and the basic set algebraic operations for fuzzy sets. In all these fields, the author does not only offer the reader the current developments, he even extends the known results here in an essential way paving a path to a higher degree of abstraction, and hence to more flexibility for applications, e.g. in involving t-norm-based definitions of the arithmetical operations.