4-8/07/201 - Summer School on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (Volos)

This five-day Summer School deals with the principles, assumptions, models, learning algorithms, convergence issues, strengths, limitations, applications of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) and new software tools for them. Fuzzy cognitive maps are fuzzy feedback dynamical systems for modeling causal knowledge. They were introduced by Bart Kosko in 1986 as an extension of cognitive maps. Cognitive maps are a set of nodes linked by directed and signed edges. The nodes represent concepts relevant to a given domain. The causal links between these concepts are represented by the edges which are oriented to show the direction of the influence and are signed to show a promoting or inhibitory effect.FCMs have emerged as tools for representing and studying the behavior of systems and people.

By combining the main aspects of fuzzy logic, neural networks, expert systems, semantic networks, they have gained considerable research interest and are widely used to analyze causal complex systems. From an Artificial Intelligence perspective, FCMs are dynamic networks with learning capabilities, where in more and more data is available to model the problem, the system becomes better at adapting itself and reaching a solution. They gained momentum due to their dynamic characteristics and learning capabilities. These capabilities make them essential for modeling, analysis and decision making tasks as they improve the performance of these tasks.

This summer school is dedicated to providing participants with deep insights on fundamentals, modeling methodologies, learning algorithms, optimization and convergence issues for fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs), supplemented with hands on real case studies using the software tool of FCM Wizard. A diverse number of applications of FCMs in applied sciences and engineering will be investigated.

The FCM software tool, called FCM WIZARD, will be fully presented in practice and the computer experiments will be based on it. A full version of FCM WIZARD will be given to the participants for investigating their problems.

Some experienced researchers in FCMs will participate and give lectures in specific application domains, like Engineering and Control, Environmental Modeling, Management, Business Intelligence etc.

Participants will bring their own problems from different applications domains, and through the conducted experiments and software we will try to solve them providing valuable results, which in next will be invited to be published in a Special Issue organized by the Main Organizers.

This summer school will take place between 4-8 /07/2016 in Domotel Hotel Xenia Volos.

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