Design of Fuzzy Databases to Avoid Update Anomalies

Abstract

Many real-world applications require regular maintenance and frequent updates of various databases used in information processing, decision making and problem solving. With fuzzy relational databases as described in Chapter 6, imprecision in attribute values as well as closeness in domain elements can be represented, stored, accessed, and modified. This is of great significance to all managerial levels of applications. For instance, at the strategic level, top executives may often have to face uncertain environments and work with imprecise assessments of competitive advantages, risks, and long-term perspectives. At the management level, middlelevel managers may often be concerned with customer relations, marketing targets, production planning, and projects management, which usually involve estimates, heuristics, partial knowledge and incomplete information at various degrees. At the operational level, the performance of production and process control may heavily rely on the measurement of machinery, the availability of control data, and more importantly, the experiences and skills of human operators, who often need to cope with complex situations involving uncertainty and imprecision.