Soft Computing, Introduction to

As science progresses, scholars and researchers continue to develop models of various phenomena and problems. These models havebecome more and more formal, notably mathematical, and hence have relied more and more on computing.

The initial period has been characterized by computing meant as well-defined algorithmic procedures implemented by using computingarchitectures, tools and techniques based on traditional binary (yes – no or 0 – 1) logic. This logic has also been a basis forall kinds of approaches within the field of artificial intelligence, a field of science and technology that has been vividly developed since themid-1900s and aimed at devising machines capable of performing human-specific tasks that require intelligence. Symbolic computation has become a mainparadigm within artificial intelligence, and the role of numerical computing has been neglected to a large extent.

As promises of artificial research gurus that machines will be able to perform virtually all sophisticated...