Event

CTSM Seminar - Generalized Theory of Uncertaincy

Friday, February 9, 2007
12:00 a.m.
CEE Conference Room (1179 Glenn L. Martin Hall)
Dr. Bilal Ayyub
301.405.1956
ba@umd.edu
http://ctsm.umd.edu/main/default.htm

Lotfi A. Zadeh

Professor & Director, University of California Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing

Uncertainty is an attribute of information. A thesis which is accepted without question is that information is statistical in nature. Concomitantly, existing theories of uncertainty are based on probability theory. The generalized theory of uncertainty (GTU) departs from existing theories. First, the thesis that information is statistical in nature is replaced by a much more general thesis that information is a generalized constraint, with statistical uncertainty being a special, albeit important case. Equating information to a generalized constraint is the fundamental thesis of GTU.

Second, in GTU everything is or is allowed to be graduated, that is, be a matter of degree or, equivalently, fuzzy. Concomitantly, all variables are, or are allowed to be granular, with a granule being a clump of values drawn together by indistinguishability, similarity, proximity or functionality.

And third, one of the principal objectives of GTU is achievement of NL-capability, that is, the capability to operate on information described in natural language. NL-capability has high importance because much of human knowledge, including knowledge about probabilities, is described in natural language.

LOTFI A. ZADEH is a Professor in the Graduate School, Computer Science Division, Department of EECS, University of California, Berkeley. In addition, he is serving as the Director of BISC (Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing). His earlier work was concerned in the main with systems analysis, decision analysis and information systems. His current research is focused on fuzzy logic, computing with words and soft computing. Soft computing is a coalition of fuzzy logic, neurocomputing, evolutionary computing, probabilistic computing and parts of machine learning.

Lotfi Zadeh has received numerous awards, including the IEEE Medal of Honor. He is a recipient of twenty-six honorary doctorates, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In addition, he is a foreign member of the Russian, Polish, Finnish, Bulgarian and Korean Academies of Science.

Hosted by Professor Bilal M. Ayyub

Audience: Public