Indistinguishability operators. Modelling fuzzy equalities and fuzzy equivalence relations (Q609467)

Indistinguishability operators are graded versions of equivalence relations, and hence graded versions of equality relations. They play a core role in theoretical and practical aspects of fuzzy sets and in the formalization of the idea of granularity. This well-written monograph is the first one which is devoted to this topic, and hence highly welcome. The author offers a rather comprehensive and up to date presentation of the theory of these operators. Core topics of his book, besides the basic properties of indistinguishability operators, are ways to generate them, their relationship to extensionality notions for fuzzy sets and to fuzzy functions, to distance notions for fuzzy sets, as well as, e.g., their application to approximate reasoning processes and to vague groups. Unfortunately, neither this author nor E.~Trillas, who opens the book with a ``Foreword'' and claims to have introduced indistinguishability operators, seem to be aware of the fact that a particular case of an indistinguishability operator related to the Łukasiewicz t-norm already appeared in the work of \textit{D. Klaua} in the 1960s, e.g.~in [``Über einen zweiten {A}nsatz zur mehrwertigen {M}engenlehre'', Monatsber.\ Deutsch.\ Akad.\ Wiss.\ Berlin 8, 161--177 (1966; Zbl 0154.26002)].