Modelling and Reasoning with Vague Concepts

This volume introduces a formal representation framework for modelling and reasoning, that allows us to quantify the uncertainty inherent in the use of vague descriptions to convey information between intelligent agents. This can then be applied across a range of applications areas in automated reasoning and learning. The utility of the framework is demonstrated by applying it to problems in data analysis where the aim is to infer effective and informative models expressed as logical rules and relations involving vague concept descriptions. The author also introduces a number of learning algorithms within the framework that can be used for both classification and prediction (regression) problems. It is shown how models of this kind can be fused with qualitative background knowledge such as that provided by domain experts. The proposed algorithms will be compared with existing learning methods on a range of benchmark databases such as those from the UCI repository.