TY - BOOK ID - 1608233 TI - Fuzzy set theory : applications in the social science. AU - Smithson, Michael AU - Verkuilen, Jay PY - 2006 VL - 147 SN - 076192986X 9780761929864 1412984300 1441628169 1452212414 PB - Thousand Oaks Sage DB - UniCat KW - Mathematical logic KW - MATHEMATICS KW - Set Theory KW - Social sciences KW - Fuzzy sets KW - Social Sciences - General KW - Social Sciences KW - Mathematics KW - Fuzzy sets. KW - Mathematics. KW - #SBIB:303H10 KW - kwantitatieve methoden KW - maatschappijwetenschappen, methoden KW - operations research KW - Methoden en technieken: algemene handboeken en reeksen KW - Sciences sociales KW - Ensembles flous KW - Mathématiques KW - Sets, Fuzzy KW - Fuzzy mathematics KW - Set theory KW - Social sciences - Mathematics UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:1608233 AB - This book introduces fuzzy set theory to social science researchers. Fuzzy sets are categories with blurred boundaries. With classical sets, objects are either in the set or not, but objects can belong partially to more than one fuzzy set at a time. Many concepts in the social sciences have this characteristic, and fuzzy set theory provides methods for systematically dealing with them. A primary reason for not going beyond programmatic statements and rather unsophisticated uses of fuzzy set theory has been the lack of practical methods for combining fuzzy set concepts with statistical methods. This monograph takes that topic as its major focus, and provides explicit guides for researchers who would like to harness fuzzy set concepts while being able to make statistical inferences and test their models. Real examples and data-sets from several disciplines illustrate the techniques and applications, demonstrating how a combination of fuzzy sets and statistics enable researchers to analyze their data in new ways. ER -