Information granules are fundamental conceptual entities facilitating perception of complex phenomena and contributing to the enhancement of human centricity in intelligent systems. The formal frameworks of information granules and information granulation comprise fuzzy sets, interval analysis, probability, rough sets, and shadowed sets, to name only a few representatives. Among current developments of Granular Computing, interesting options concern information granules of higher order and of higher type. The higher order information granularity is concerned with an effective formation of information granules over the space being originally constructed by information granules of lower order. This construct is directly associated with the concept of hierarchy of systems composed of successive processing layers characterized by the increasing levels of abstraction. This idea of layered, hierarchical realization of models of complex systems has gained a significant level of visibility in fuzzy modeling with the well-established concept of hierarchical fuzzy models where one strives to achieve a sound tradeoff between accuracy and a level of detail captured by the model and its level of interpretability. Higher type information granules emerge when the information granules themselves cannot be fully characterized in a purely numerical fashion but instead it becomes convenient to exploit their realization in the form of other types of information granules such as type-2 fuzzy sets, interval-valued fuzzy sets, or probabilistic fuzzy sets. Higher order and higher type of information granules constitute the focus of the studies on Granular Computing presented in this study. The book elaborates on sound methodologies of Granular Computing, algorithmic pursuits and an array of diverse applications and case studies in environmental studies, option price forecasting, and power engineering.

The book provides a timely coverage of the paradigm of knowledge distillation—an efficient way of model compression. Knowledge distillation is positioned in a general setting of transfer learning, which effectively learns a lightweight student model from a large teacher model. The book covers a variety of training schemes, teacher–student architectures, and distillation algorithms. The book covers a wealth of topics including recent developments in vision and language learning, relational architectures, multi-task learning, and representative applications to image processing, computer vision, edge intelligence, and autonomous systems. The book is of relevance to a broad audience including researchers and practitioners active in the area of machine learning and pursuing fundamental and applied research in the area of advanced learning paradigms.

Welcome to the 12th International Conference on Rough Sets, Fuzzy Sets, Data Mining and Granular Computing (RSFDGrC 2009), held at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, India, during December 15-18, 2009. RSFDGrC is a series of conferences spanning over the last 15 years. It investigates the me- ing points among the four major areas outlined in its title. This year, it was co-organized with the Third International Conference on Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence (PReMI 2009), which provided additional means for multi-facetedinteractionofboth scientists andpractitioners.Itwasalsothe core component of this year's Rough Set Year in India project. However, it remained a fully international event aimed at building bridges between countries. The ?rst sectin contains the invited papers and a short report on the abo- mentioned project. Let us note that all the RSFDGrC 2009 plenary speakers, Ivo Düntsch, Zbigniew Suraj, Zhongzhi Shi, Sergei Kuznetsov, Qiang Shen, and Yukio Ohsawa, contributed with the full-length articles in the proceedings. The remaining six sections contain 56 regular papers that were selected out of 130 submissions, each peer-reviewed by three PC members. We thank the authors for their high-quality papers submitted to this volume and regret that many deserving papers could not be accepted because of our urge to maintain strict standards. It is worth mentioning that there was quite a good number of papers on the foundations of rough sets and fuzzy sets, many of them authored byIndianresearchers.ThefuzzysettheoryhasbeenpopularinIndiaforalonger time. Now, we can see the rising interest in the rough set theory.

Information granules, as encountered in natural language, are implicit in nature. To make them fully operational so they can be effectively used to analyze and design intelligent systems, information granules need to be made explicit. An emerging discipline, granular computing focuses on formalizing information granules and unifying them to create a coherent methodological and developmental environment for intelligent system design and analysis. Granular Computing: Analysis and Design of Intelligent Systems presents the unified principles of granular computing along with its comprehensive algorithmic framework and design practices. Introduces the concepts of information granules, information granularity, and granular computing Presents the key formalisms of information granules Builds on the concepts of information granules with discussion of higher-order and higher-type information granules Discusses the operational concept of information granulation and degranulation by highlighting the essence of this tandem and its quantification in terms of the associated reconstruction error Examines the principle of justifiable granularity Stresses the need to look at information granularity as an important design asset that helps construct more realistic models of real-world systems or facilitate collaborative pursuits of system modeling Highlights the concepts, architectures, and design algorithms of granular models Explores application domains where granular computing and granular models play a visible role, including pattern recognition, time series, and decision making Written by an internationally renowned authority in the field, this innovative book introduces readers to granular computing as a new paradigm for the analysis and synthesis of intelligent systems. It is a valuable resource for those engaged in research and practical developments in computer, electrical, industrial, manufacturing, and biomedical engineering. Building from fundamentals, the book is also suitable for readers from nontechnical disciplines where information granules assume a visible position.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Rough Sets, Fuzzy Sets, Data Mining, and Granular Computing, RSFDGrC 2003, held in Chongqing, China in May 2003. The 39 revised full papers and 75 revised short papers presented together with 2 invited keynote papers and 11 invited plenary papers were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 245 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on rough sets foundations and methods; fuzzy sets and systems; granular computing; neural networks and evolutionary computing; data mining, machine learning, and pattern recognition; logics and reasoning; multi-agent systems; and Web intelligence and intelligent systems.

"This book investigages granular computing (GrC), which emerged as one of the fastest growing information processing paradigms in computational intelligence and human-centric systems"--Provided by publisher.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Rough Sets, Fuzzy Sets, Data Mining, and Granular Computing, RSFDGrC 2007, held in Toronto, Canada in May 2007 in conjunction with the Second International Conference on Rough Sets and Knowledge Technology, RSKT 2007, both as part of the Joint Rough Set Symposium, JRS 2007.

Although the notion is a relatively recent one, the notions and principles of Granular Computing (GrC) have appeared in a different guise in many related fields including granularity in Artificial Intelligence, interval computing, cluster analysis, quotient space theory and many others. Recent years have witnessed a renewed and expanding interest in the topic as it begins to play a key role in bioinformatics, e-commerce, machine learning, security, data mining and wireless mobile computing when it comes to the issues of effectiveness, robustness and uncertainty. The Handbook of Granular Computing offers a comprehensive reference source for the granular computing community, edited by and with contributions from leading experts in the field. Includes chapters covering the foundations of granular computing, interval analysis and fuzzy set theory; hybrid methods and models of granular computing; and applications and case studies. Divided into 5 sections: Preliminaries, Fundamentals, Methodology and Algorithms, Development of Hybrid Models and Applications and Case Studies. Presents the flow of ideas in a systematic, well-organized manner, starting with the concepts and motivation and proceeding to detailed design that materializes in specific algorithms, applications and case studies. Provides the reader with a self-contained reference that includes all pre-requisite knowledge, augmented with step-by-step explanations of more advanced concepts. The Handbook of Granular Computing represents a significant and valuable contribution to the literature and will appeal to a broad audience including researchers, students and practitioners in the fields of Computational Intelligence, pattern recognition, fuzzy sets and neural networks, system modelling, operations research and bioinformatics.

After 20 years of pursuing rough set theory and its applications a look on its present state and further prospects is badly needed. The monograph Rough Set Theory and Granular Computing edited by Masahiro Inuiguchi, Shoji Hirano and Shusaku Tsumoto meets this demand. It presents the newest developments in this area and gives fair picture of the state of the art in this domain. Firstly, in the keynote papers by Zdzislaw Pawlak, Andrzej Skowron and Sankar K. Pal the relationship of rough sets with other important methods of data analysis -Bayes theorem, neuro computing and pattern recognitio- is thoroughly examined. Next, several interesting generalizations of the the ory and new directions of research are presented. Furthermore application of rough sets in data mining, in particular, rule induction methods based on rough set theory is presented and discussed. Further important issue dis cussed in the monograph is rough set based data analysis, including study of decisions making in conflict situations. Last but not least, some recent engi neering applications of rough set theory are given. They include a proposal of rough set processor architecture organization for fast implementation of ba sic rough set operations and discussion of results concerning advanced image processing for unmanned aerial vehicle. Thus the monograph beside presenting wide spectrum of ongoing research in this area also points out new emerging areas of study and applications, which makes it a valuable source of information to all interested in this do main.

The first edition of the Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science (ECSS, 2009) presented a comprehensive overview of granular computing (GrC) broadly divided into several categories: Granular computing from rough set theory, Granular Computing in Database Theory, Granular Computing in Social Networks, Granular Computing and Fuzzy Set Theory, Grid/Cloud Computing, as well as general issues in granular computing. In 2011, the formal theory of GrC was established, providing an adequate infrastructure to support revolutionary new approaches to computer/data science, including the challenges presented by so-called big data. For this volume of ECSS, Second Edition, many entries have been updated to capture these new developments, together with new chapters on such topics as data clustering, outliers in data mining, qualitative fuzzy sets, and information flow analysis for security applications. Granulations can be seen as a natural and ancient methodology deeply rooted in the human mind. Many daily "things" are routinely granulated into sub "things": The topography of earth is granulated into hills, plateaus, etc., space and time are granulated into infinitesimal granules, and a circle is granulated into polygons of infinitesimal sides. Such granules led to the invention of calculus, topology and non-standard analysis. Formalization of general granulation was difficult but, as shown in this volume, great progress has been made in combing discrete and continuous mathematics under one roof for a broad range of applications in data science.