Table Of ContentAdvances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 377
Jaime Gil-Aluja
Antonio Terceño-Gómez
Joan Carles Ferrer-Comalat
José M. Merigó-Lindahl
Salvador Linares-Mustarós Editors
Scientific
Methods for the
Treatment of
Uncertainty in
Social Sciences
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
Volume 377
Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: [email protected]
About this Series
The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems andComputing” contains publications on the-
ory, applications, and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent Computing.
Virtually all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information
science, ICT, economics, business, e-commerce, environment, healthcare, life science are
covered.Thelistoftopicsspansalltheareasofmodernintelligentsystemsandcomputing.
Thepublicationswithin“AdvancesinIntelligentSystemsandComputing”areprimarily
textbooksandproceedingsofimportantconferences, symposiaandcongresses.Theycover
significantrecentdevelopmentsinthefield,bothofafoundationalandapplicablecharacter.
Animportantcharacteristicfeatureoftheseriesistheshortpublicationtimeandworld-wide
distribution. Thispermitsarapid andbroaddissemination ofresearch results.
Advisory Board
Chairman
Nikhil R. Pal,Indian Statistical Institute,Kolkata, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Members
Rafael Bello,Universidad Central “Marta Abreu”deLasVillas, SantaClara, Cuba
e-mail: [email protected]
Emilio S.Corchado, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
HaniHagras, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
LászlóT. Kóczy, SzéchenyiIstván University, Győr,Hungary
e-mail: [email protected]
VladikKreinovich, University of Texasat ElPaso, ElPaso, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
Chin-Teng Lin, National ChiaoTung University,Hsinchu, Taiwan
e-mail: [email protected]
JieLu,University of Technology, Sydney,Australia
e-mail: [email protected]
Patricia Melin,Tijuana Institute of Technology,Tijuana, Mexico
e-mail: [email protected]
Nadia Nedjah,State University of RiodeJaneiro,RiodeJaneiro,Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]
Ngoc ThanhNguyen, Wroclaw University of Technology,Wroclaw,Poland
e-mail: [email protected]
JunWang, The ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong,Shatin,Hong Kong
e-mail: [email protected]
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11156
⋅
Jaime Gil-Aluja Antonio Terceño-Gómez
Joan Carles Ferrer-Comalat
José M. Merigó-Lindahl
Salvador Linares-Mustarós
Editors
fi
Scienti c Methods for the
Treatment of Uncertainty
in Social Sciences
123
Editors
JaimeGil-Aluja José M.Merigó-Lindahl
RoyalAcademy of Economic andFinancial Department ofManagement Control
Sciences(RACEF) andInformationSystems
Barcelona University of Chile
Spain Santiago
Chile
AntonioTerceño-Gómez
Faculty of Business andEconomics, SalvadorLinares-Mustarós
Departmentof Business Management Department ofBusiness Administration
Universitat Rovirai Virgili University of Girona
Reus Girona
Spain Spain
Joan Carles Ferrer-Comalat
Department ofBusiness Administration
University of Girona
Girona
Spain
ISSN 2194-5357 ISSN 2194-5365 (electronic)
Advances in Intelligent Systems andComputing
ISBN978-3-319-19703-6 ISBN978-3-319-19704-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-19704-3
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015940743
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2015
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Preface
The XVIII SIGEF Congress, entitled Scientific methods for the treatment of
uncertainty in social sciences took place in Girona, Catalonia (Spain) from 6 to 8
July 2015, and was organized by the International Association for Fuzzy-Set
Management and Economy (SIGEF) and the University of Girona, through the
DepartmentofBusinessAdministrationandtheresearchgrouponAccountingand
Mathematics for Economics and Business.
The appearance of the first applications on multivalent logics and the theory of
fuzzy sets in economics and business problems, has suggested grouping all those
people, businesses, teachers and researchers wishing to collaborate in developing
andpromoting thenewtechniquesemergingfromthese achievementsthatmodern
science puts in the hands of researchers, professionals and executives. The treat-
ment of uncertainty in the economic and business analysis is fundamental and
requires instruments compatible with the uncertain environment of economics and
business,becausemostofthetraditionalmodelshavebeenovertakenbythisreality
when trying to make decisions when the information and the data are uncertain
and/or subjective.
To achieve this goal, in 1993 was born the Association for Fuzzy-Set Man-
agementandEconomy(SIGEF),whosecreationhasdriventheresearch,studyand
treatment of all problems associated with the economy in general and business
administration in particular.
At this moment, the main objectives of SIGEF are:
(a) To promote research and development of new modelling for the treatment of
uncertainty in Economics and Business Administration.
(b) To promote training of postgraduates by organizing courses, workshops and
conferences.
v
vi Preface
(c) To promote the interest of society in the use of new techniques for the
treatment of uncertainty in the different areas of Economics and Social
Sciences.
(d) To disseminate research, developments and innovations of its members,
teachers, researches and businesses.
To achieve these objectives, among other activities, SIGEF publishes the
scientific journal Fuzzy Economic Review and regularly organizes International
Conferences. In this way, this XVIII International SIGEF Congress, entitled Sci-
entific methods for the treatment of uncertainty in social sciences, means to
introducethesenewtechniquesinsocialsciencefields,anditcontinuesandextends
theSeriesofInternationalConferencesorganizedbySIGEF.PreviousConferences
were held in Reus, Spain (1994), Santiago de Compostela, Spain (1995), Buenos
Aires, Argentina (1996), Santiago de Cuba, Cuba (1997), Lausanne, Switzerland
(1998), Morelia, México (1999), Chania, Greece (2000), Napoli, Italy (2001),
Mérida, Venezuela (2002), León, Spain (2003), Reggio Calabria-Messina, Italy
(2004), Bahía Blanca, Argentina (2005), Hammamet, Tunisia (2006), Poiana
Brasov, Romania (2007), Lugo, Spain (2009), Morelia, México (2010) and Reus,
Spain(2012).Thisinternationalcongressaimstostimulatescientificexchanges,to
promote international cooperation between the academic community and compa-
nies, and disseminate results of theoretical and applied research.
This book includes a selection of papers received by the Scientific Committee,
coveringthemaintopicsdiscussedattheCongress.Webelieveitisagoodexample
oftheexcellentworkoftheassociatesandthesignificantprogressaboutthislineof
research in recent times.
The book is organized according to seven thematic groups, although these
groups do not offer a disjoint classification: Decision Making, Expert Systems and
Forgotten Effects Theory, Forecasting Models, Fuzzy Logic and Fuzzy Sets,
Modelling and Simulation Techniques, Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms
and Optimization and Control.
Finally, we would like to address our warmest thanks to all the authors and
reviewers, participants at the conference, organizations and institutional sponsors
for their help and support and for creating a pleasant connection point for the
collaborative efforts and exchange of ideas and information among persons from
varied disciplines.
Girona Jaime Gil-Aluja
July 2015 Antonio Terceño-Gómez
Joan Carles Ferrer-Comalat
José M. Merigó-Lindahl
Salvador Linares-Mustarós
Honorary Committee
Special thanks to the members of the Honorary Committee for their support in the
organization of SIGEF 2015.
Lotfi A. Zadeh, Researcher and professor emeritus of computer science at the
University of California, Berkeley
Sergi Bonet Marull, Chancellor at the University of Girona, Spain
MariaCarmeSaurinaCanals,DeanintheFacultyofBusinessandEconomicsatthe
University of Girona, Spain
Josep Viñas Xifra, Chief in the Department of Business Administration at the
University of Girona, Spain
Joan Bonet Amat, Researcher and former professor at the University of Girona,
Spain
vii
fi
Scienti c Committee
ThankstoallthemembersoftheScientificCommitteefortheirkindsupportinthe
organization of SIGEF 2015 Girona.
Jaime Gil-Aluja (President)
Antonio Terceño-Gómez (Vice-President)
Joan Carles Ferrer-Comalat (Vice-President)
Xavier Bertran Roure (Vice-President)
M. Glòria Barberá-Mariné
Lisana Belén Martínez
José Manuel Brotons
Christer Carlsson
Sergio-Gerardo de-los-Cobos-Silva
Dolors Corominas Coll
María-Ángeles Fernández-Izquierdo
Emma Fernández Loureiro
Vasile Georgescu
Anna M. Gil-Lafuente
Federico González-Santoyo
M. Belén Guercio
Madan M. Gupta
Emmanuel Haven
Kaoru Hirota
Luca Iandoli
Mariano Jiménez
Janusz Kacprzyk
George Klir
Viktor V. Krasnoproshin
Luisa L. Lazzari
Vicente Liern
Salvador Linares-Mustarós
Tomás Lorenzana
Florica Luban
ix
x ScientificCommittee
José M. Merigó
Francesco Carlo Morabito
M. Àngels Farreras Noguer
Witold Pedrycz
Jaime Tinto Arandes
Enric Trillas
I. Burhan Turksen
José Luis Verdegay Galdeano
Hernán P. Vigier
Ronald R. Yager
Hans J. Zimmermann
Giuseppe Zollo
Constantin Zopounidis
