Computer Science Colloquium

Soft Computing (SC) is a consortium of methodologies which are aimed at exploiting the tolerance for "fuzziness" (imprecision, uncertainty and partial truth) to achieve tractability, robustness and low computational-cost solutions. Methodologies in SC include fuzzy logic, computing with words, neurocomputing, etc. In this talk, we wish to show how a simple SC methodology using fuzzy-timing Petri nets yields quickly the useful information on system performances such as: (1) how long it would take to complete a project or job, (2) what are possibilities to finish a project or job before a given deadline, and (3) what are possibilities to satisfy time-related requirements. The computations involved in the above fuzzy-timing Petri nets are mostly additions and comparisons of real numbers and do not require solving any equations. Therefore, they can be done very fast and this SC performance evaluation method is suitable for large-scale time-critical systems. This talk is presented with many simple examples and the audience needs no prior knowledge on fuzzy logic and Petri nets.

Dr. Tadao Murata, an IEEE Fellow, is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has received the first Carl Adam Petri Distinguished Technical Achievement Award in his field of research on Petri Nets. He is the recipient of the 1991 IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Award for most outstanding survey/review/tutorial paper published in all IEEE journals and transactions. Dr. Murata has served on the U.S. National Academy of Science/Computer Science and Technology Board.