A geometry of approximation. Rough set theory: logic, algebra and topology of conceptual patterns. (Q624091)

This comprehensive treatise on rough sets is unique in several ways. As the authors stated in the Preface ``making a reader understand the connections between rough set theory and a wide number of mathematical and logical, if not philosophical, fields, topics, and concepts\dots'' This promise has been fully satisfied. The reader is exposed to a variety of intriguing linkages between rough sets, logic and which build an overall picture of the area. The-book is organized into 3 main parts. Part I is devoted to the notion of approximation modeled by the notion of a Galois connections and attribute (property) systems inducing perception operators being a generalization of the topological operators of interior and closure. Presented is also the logico-algebraic theory of rough sets. Part II is about the modal logic of rough sets: modalities and relations, and the propositional modal logic of rough sets. Part III is devoted to an analysis of modalities and operators from the point of view of external modalities, Diodorean modalities, and core/expansion and vicinity/contraction induced by pretopological spaces. A wealth of illustrative material delving into a variety of conceptual and application-oriented examples is definitely helpful and motivating. The updated bibliography is one of the strong features of the volume. A series of mathematical toolkits is helpful to the readers, which might require some brief summary of the main mathematical tools used in the book (orders, functions, lattices, topology, etc.). All in all, this is a book for all interested in the broadly perceived fundamentals of rough sets and its relationships with logic and philosophy.