The Fuzzy Systems Handbook, Second Edition: A Practitioner's Guide to Building, Using, and Maintaining Fuzzy Systems [Paperback]

Earl Cox (Author), Michael O'Hagan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0121944557 | ISBN-13: 978-0121944551 | Edition: 2

This new edition provides a comprehensive introduction to fuzzy logic, and leads the reader through the complete process of designing, constructing, implementing, verifying and maintaining a platform-independent fuzzy system model. The book has been extensively revised to bring the subject up-to-date, and features two new chapters: "Building and Using Fuzzy Cognitive Map Models" and "Building ME-OWA Models."

The multiplatform CD-ROM contains all the C++ source code from the book's examples - but its real value is the robust package of fuzzy system related tools and utilities, featuring two notable components. First: Metus Systems' basic fuzzy modeling software, which includes complete C/C++ source code for creating and executing fuzzy models, a Visual Basic shell that can be used to create fuzzy sets and generate the C/C++ include files, and code for models for pricing, project management, risk assessment, and more. Second: The ME-OWA (Minimum-Entropy, Ordered Weighted Aggregation) decision modeling software from Fuzzy Logic, Inc. This software is used to focus on a single objective function from a set of alternatives given a fuzzy ranking among various alternatives. It is not only an important technique as a stand-alone tool, but is an important methodology in parameter selection (and parameterization ordering) for genetic algorithms and various data mining techniques. It is also an important technique used to establish rule and policy level peer weights in fuzzy models.

Key Features
* Tutorial style, requiring no background in fuzzy logic
* Case studies illustrate real-world fuzzy applications
* Mathematically straightforward exposition, with emphasis on practical use
* CD-ROM features all the C++ source code from the book and a robust package of fuzzy system related tools and utilities

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for the First Edition
"When it's time to roll up your sleeves and put fuzzy logic to work, Earl Cox can show you how to put theory into practice. His excellent The Fuzzy Systems Handbook presents a complete fuzzy-modeling system (source code included) and explains how to use it."
--BYTE MAGAZINE
Praise for the First Edition
"Unlike many textbooks on fuzzy logic, this book by Earl Cox is a very impressive computer-oriented guide to the world of fuzzy sets and their applications in modeling soft and complex systems. . . . Carefully chosen figures give a rapid and deep insight into the very nature of the problems being discussed. . . . In summary, The Fuzzy Systems Handbook is a valuable source volume for system designers and all those interested in the applications of fuzzy systems."
--CONTROL ENGINEERING PRACTICE

From the Back Cover

From Reviews of the First Edition

"When it's time to roll up your sleeves and put fuzzy logic to work, Earl Cox can show you how to put theory into practice. His excellent The Fuzzy Systems Handbook presents a complete fuzzy-modeling system (source code included) and explains how to use it."

"Unlike many textbooks on fuzzy logic, this book by Earl Cox is a very impressive computer-oriented guide to the world of fuzzy sets and their applications in modeling soft and complex systems. . . . Carefully chosen figures give a rapid and deep insight into the very nature of the problems being discussed. . . . In summary, The Fuzzy Systems Handbook is a valuable source volume for system designers and all those interested in the applications of fuzzy systems." --CONTROL ENGINEERING PRACTICE

This new edition provides a comprehensive introduction to fuzzy logic, and leads the reader through the complete process of designing, constructing, implementing, verifying and maintaining a platform-independent fuzzy system model. The book has been extensively revised to bring the subject up-to-date, and features two new chapters: "Building and Using Fuzzy Cognitive Map Models" and "Building ME-OWA Models." The multiplatform CD-ROM contains all the
C++ source code from the book's examples - but its real value is the robust package of fuzzy system related tools and utilities, featuring two notable components. First: Metus Systems' basic fuzzy modeling software, which includes complete C/C++ source code for creating and executing fuzzy models, a Visual Basic shell that can be used to create fuzzy sets
and generate the C/C++ include files, and code for models for pricing, project management, risk assessment, and more. Second: The ME-OWA (Minimum-Entropy, Ordered Weighted Aggregation) decision modeling software from Fuzzy Logic, Inc. This software is used to focus on a single objective function from a set of alternatives given a fuzzy ranking among various alternatives. It is not only an important technique as a stand-alone tool, but is an important methodology inparameter selection (and parameterization ordering) for genetic algorithms and various data mining techniques. It is also an important technique used to establish rule and policy level peer weights in fuzzy models.

Features:

• Tutorial style, requiring no background in fuzzy logic
  
• Case studies illustrate real-world fuzzy applications
  
• Mathematically straightforward exposition, with emphasis on practical use
  
• CD-ROM features all the C++ source code from the book and a robust package of fuzzy system related tools and utilities

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 716 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 2 edition (October 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0121944557
• ISBN-13: 978-0121944551
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,788,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Book is Ok, but software is almost useless, April 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Fuzzy Systems Handbook, Second Edition: A Practitioner's Guide to Building, Using, and Maintaining Fuzzy Systems (Paperback)

If you bought this book for the software, you wasted your money. Contrary to the text in a book there are no examples for VB5. And this is why - they wouldn't work. 32-bit DLL was compiled without external reference to the main subroutine and another 2 dozens of key functions are missing. 16-bit DLL works, but who wants it? Some 16-bit version files are missing from 32-bit version directories and since according to the author this files are not upward compatible , you will have to be an experienced C++ programmer to fix it up. You will also have to have VC 4.0 to recompile the DLL. As for the tech support, I wrote the E-mail, got the response that if there is a bug it will be fixed right away and never heard from E. Cox again. I ended up spending lot of time fixing and recompiling 32-bit DLL, just to find out later that it is completely useless with Visual Basic. It makes extensive use of the pointers (which is OK for C++), so you will have to store them every time you call this DLL from VB. In my opinion it should never been advertised as VB compatible software. If you want this software for C++, be aware that only version that works is 16-bit DOS version and you may have trouble converting examples to something useful. The book itself is OK, but kind of hard to read if you are the beginner.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Entry level Fuzzy Systems text, messy code, October 23, 2000

By 

G. Powell (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fuzzy Systems Handbook, Second Edition: A Practitioner's Guide to Building, Using, and Maintaining Fuzzy Systems (Paperback)

I'm pretty comfortable with C++, so I found fixing the couple of bugs in the shipped code to be not a problem. (Quit your whining its nearly free code.) I can't vouch for the Hisss VB interface, but then I'd drive a cab before I coded with VB. There is one serious bug but its from a typo. Email me and I'll send you the patch.

On to the good part. This is the first good Fuzzy Logic book I found. I've read several others before I got to this one and each one left me more confused than the rest. Earl finnally explained what its all about and what sort of problems this technique solves. There is a bit of "Fuzzy Logic is better than Neural Nets" but no real concrete examples to prove it. I ignored that and used his examples to learn how to do this and his code in some game AI. It worked well.

Also in case you don't know the thing that Fuzzy logic does well is smooth out transistions, ie it keeps things from oscillating between two single states. It's also good for when you have multiple inputs all of which contribute to deciding whether a threshold has been reached. You set weights to the inputs contribution and analyize the result, meets the threshold or not. You can also adjust the threshold depending on the state of the object. Coupled with a Finite State machine and you've got a basic game AI.

I have also taken some time (about a week) and cleaned the code up. It wasn't too difficult and I now have an OOP interface to it which made things a lot easier to understand. Earl obviously has a for sale system using the original code. He must have cut a chunk out and put it on the disk. I also have about a dozen emails from him, and I've sent him the updates. He's a busy guy, bug him to put the fixed code on his site. Maybe he'll get around to it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars good general introduction - code useless, May 15, 2001

By 

Joseph Calev (Bellevue, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fuzzy Systems Handbook, Second Edition: A Practitioner's Guide to Building, Using, and Maintaining Fuzzy Systems (Paperback)

I am about halfway through the book and in general it's a decent guide to fuzzy logic. Earl explains the concepts well and provides decent real work examples. The code, as everyone else here has already said, is basically worthless. The book would be far more valuable if he just removed the code entirely from it and focused more on fuzzy logic. Another complaint: reading the first 50 pages made me feel as if I were reading a religious text, not a fuzzy systems book. Earl spends a great deal of time convincing the reader that Fuzzy Logic easily beats out other competing expert systems such as Bayes logic and neural networks. He dismisses those who do not agree with him as "uneducated" and spends time hurling personal insults at them rather than focusing on the benefits of fuzzy logic. I almost put the book down and returned it when reading the first 2 chapters. Altogether this is a decent introduction to fuzzy logic if you disregard the useless code and pedantics of the author.