T5: Uncertainty and Information

Description

The tutorial is intended as a gentle introduction to the area of “generalized information theory” (GIT) and a comprehensive overview of principal results that emerged from GIT. As in classical information theory, uncertainty is the primary concept and information is defined in terms of uncertainty reduction.

The tutorial will be presented in two parts of approximately the same duration. The first part will focus on the overall characterization of GIT. After a brief overview of classical information theory, a general framework for formalizing uncertainty and the associated uncertainty-based information of any conceivable type will be sketched. The various theories of imprecise probabilities that have already been developed within this framework will be surveyed and some important unifying principles applying to these theories will be introduced. The second part will be devoted to the issues of measuring uncertainty and information in the various theories and to the methodological principles based on these measuring capabilities. The tutorial will conclude by a discussion of some open problems in the area of GIT. Although the treatment of uncertainty and information in GIT is mathematical, required mathematical prerequisites are rather modest: participants are only required to be familiar with basic ideas of classical sets and fuzzy sets, elementary probability theory, and fundamental of the calculus. Otherwise, the tutorial will be completely self-contained.

About the presenter

George J. Klir is currently a Distinguished Professor of Systems Science at Binghamton University (SUNY). He has been with SUNY since 1969. His earlier work was in the areas of systems modeling and simulation, logic design, computer architecture, and discrete mathematics. His current research interests include the areas of intelligent systems, generalized information theory, fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic, theory of generalized measures, and soft computing. He is the author of over three hundred articles and 16 books. He has also edited 10 books and has been Editor of the International Journal of General Systems since 1974 and the International Book Series on Systems Science and Systems Engineering since 1985. He was President of SGSR (1981-82), IFSR (1980-84), NAFIPS (1988-1991), and IFSA (1993-1995). He is a Fellow of IEEE and IFSA, and has received numerous awards and honors, including 5 honorary doctoral degrees, the Gold Medal of Bernard Bolzano, Lotfi A. Zadeh Best Paper Award, the Kaufmann's Gold Medal, SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research and IFSA Award for Outstanding Achievement. His biography is included in many biographical sources, including Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World, American Men and Women of Science, Outstanding Educators of America, Contemporary Authors, etc. His research has been supported for more than 20 years by grants from NSF, ONR, Air Force, NASA, NATO, Sandia Laboratories, and some industries.