Clouds are a concept for uncertainty mediating between the concept of a fuzzy set and that of a probability distribution. A cloud is to a random variable more or less what an interval is to a number. We discuss the basic theoretical and numerical properties of clouds, and relate them to histograms, cumulative distribution functions, and likelihood ratios. We show how to compute nonlinear transf...

The paper starts from the standard relational view linking objects and properties in formal concept analysis, here augmented with four modal-style operators (known as sufficiency, dual sufficiency, necessity and possibility operators). Formal concept analysis is mainly based on the first operator, while the others come from qualitative data analysis and can be also related to rough set theory. ...

The indicator of groundwater contamination developed and used in agriculture is calculated from data available in the field or data estimated by an expert. The modeling of this indicator generally requires a large number of parameters whose measure is imprecise. Several information sources provide information about the same imprecise quantities which have to be combined for defining what is cal...

Efficient handling of inexact (grey) information is an important issue for the new emerging database technology. Inexact or imprecise information has been represented and manipulated by using different techniques, including fuzzy set theory, possibility theory, IVF (Interval Valued Fuzzy) Sets, Time Petri Nets, Fuzzy Clouds, etc. In this paper, different approaches dealing with uncertainty have...

In this contribution a representation of imperfect spatial information is proposed based on linguistic qualifiers within fuzzy set theory and possibility theory. By adopting a Fuzzy Object Oriented Database approach new data types for representing geographic entities characterized by either unsharp boundaries or indeterminate boundaries and relationships are defined. Finally, the evaluation mec...

Probabilistic Principal Surfaces (PPS) offer very powerful visualization and classification capabilities and overcome most of the shortcomings of other neural tools such as SOM, GTM, etc. More specifically PPS build a probability density function of a given data set of patterns lying in a D-dimensional space (with D >> 3) which can be expressed in terms of a limited number of latent variables l...

PURPOSE Better understanding of the underlying biology of primary central nervous system lymphomas (PCNSL) is critical for the development of early detection strategies, molecular markers, and new therapeutics. This study aimed to define genes associated with survival of patients with PCNSL. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Expression profiling was conducted on 32 PCNSLs. A gene classifier was developed u...

BACKGROUND Plain pneumococcal polysaccharide (PPS) booster administered during second year of life has been shown to cause hyporesponsiveness. We assessed the effects of PPS booster on splenic memory B cell responses and persistence of PPS-specific long-lived plasma cells in the bone marrow (BM). METHODS Neonatal mice were primed subcutanously (s.c.) or intranasally (i.n.) with pneumococcal c...

OBJECTIVE The Affordable Care Act mandates the Prospective Payment System (PPS)-Exempt Cancer Hospitals Quality Reporting program. These 11 hospitals (which are paid fee-for-service rather than on a DRG system) began reporting measures (2 general safety, 2 breast, 1 colon) in 2013. Given this reporting mandate, we set out to determine whether the PPS-exempt gynecologic oncology programs could i...