Equivalent bipolar fuzzy relations (Q2269187)

Based on the notion of fuzzy relation, introduced by Zadeh, Atanassov has introduced the notion of intuitionistic fuzzy relation, which, in this paper, is called bipolar fuzzy relation. Observe that a bipolar fuzzy relation is formed by a pair \((R,R^d)\) of two fuzzy relations constrained by \(R+ R^d\leq 1\). Here, \(R(x,y)\) reflects the degree to which a pair \((x,y)\) satisfies the discussed relation, while \(R^d(x,y)\) reflects the degree of non-satisfaction. The missing value \(1-R(x,y)-R^d(x,y)\) can be seen as a lack of information. Note that bipolar fuzzy relations can be reformulated as interval-valued relations. In this paper, the authors introduce an equivalence relation on bipolar fuzzy relations acting on a given fixed universe \(X\). The paper is devoted to the study of properties of this equivalence relation. Up to the standard properties considered for (fuzzy, bipolar fuzzy) relations, the authors introduce and study ``local'' properties of bipolar fuzzy relations that are compatible with their equivalence relation on bipolar fuzzy relations.