Preference modelling and applications. Selected papers from EUROFUSE 2001, Granada In many real decision situations the available preference information is often vague, imprecise or uncertain. Among the appropriate tools to overcome these di culties is fuzzy logic. The resulting preference models extend the reliability and exibility of classical decision models.
This special issue encompasses 12 papers devoted to recent developments in the ÿeld of preference modelling and its application in decision making. The papers have been carefully selected from presentations at the EUROFUSE Workshop on Preference Modelling and Applications (EUROFUSE 2001) that was held in Granada, Spain, April 25-27, 2001. These 12 original contributions have been thoroughly refereed, then revised and expanded to meet the high standards of Fuzzy Sets and Systems.
A ÿrst group of ÿve papers is focused on the study of aggregation operators in preference modelling. Weighted triangular-norm-based aggregation operators are presented by T. Calvo and R. Mesiar. The use of the Choquet integral for the aggregation of interval scales in multicriteria decision making is studied by Ch. Labreuche and M. Grabisch. In the paper by J. Martà n, G. Mayor and J. Torrens, a study of locally internal monotonic operations is presented. The aggregation in multiple attribute decision making with generalized mixture operators using weighting functions to penalize poorly satisÿed attributes and to reward well-satisÿed attributes is discussed by R.A.M. Pereira and R.A. Ribeiro. Induced aggregations operators are analyzed by R.R. Yager.
A second group of two papers is focused on the study of the properties of reciprocal fuzzy preference relations. Conditions under which the reciprocity property is maintained when aggregating fuzzy preference relations using OWA operators are presented by F. Chiclana, F. Herrera, E. Herrera-Viedma and L. Martà nez. General transitivity conditions for reciprocal fuzzy preference relations are deÿned in the paper by Z. Switalski.
The remaining papers are devoted to diverse applications of preference modelling in decision making. O. Hryniewicz studies the problem of fuzzy optimization when the user preferences are described by exible constraints. The proposed fuzzy optimization procedure is applied for solving a practical problem of choosing a user-preferred inspection interval. A new concept of similaritybased fuzzy orderings which integrates perfectly into the theory of fuzzy relations is presented by U. Bodenhofer. A paper by J. Gonzà alez-Pachà on, D. Gà omez, J. Montero and J. Yà añez describes the so-called soft dimension theory in multicriteria decision analysis, which allows the deÿnition of di erent classes of orders for basic criteria. A new speciÿcation of possibility and necessity measures deÿned by the use of modiÿer functions is proposed by M. Inuiguchi, S. Greco, R. Slowinski and T. Tanino.