X and Y identified with their membership functions,
i.e. F (X) = {A : X → [0, 1]} and similarly, F (Y).
By the extension principle, f induces a function f
→
:
F (X) → F (Y) such that for all A ∈ F (X),
f
→
(A)(y) = sup
y= f(x)
A(x). (1)
Let R
f
be a binary relation on X × Y which corre-
sponds to the function f, i.e.
R
f
(x, y) = 1 ⇔ y = f (x).
Then it is easy to see that (1) can be equivalently rep-
resented by
f
→
(A)(y) =
_
y∈Y
(A(x) · R
f
(x, y)). (2)
Expression (2) is the relational form of the extension
principle. The meaning of expression (2) becomes
more general when A is an L-fuzzy set (see Defini-
tion 3 below), binary relation R
f
is a fuzzy relation,
and multiplication · changes to a monoidal operation
(see Section 2.2). In Section 3, we will discuss the
proposed generalization and its relationship to fuzzy
functions.
2.2 Residuated Lattice
Our basic algebra of operations is a residuated lattice.
Definition 1. A residuated lattice is an algebra
L = hL, ∨, ∧, ∗, →, 0, 1i.
with a support L and four binary operations and two
constants such that
• hL, ∨, ∧, 0, 1i is a lattice where the ordering ≤ de-
fined using operations ∨, ∧ as usual, and 0, 1 are
the least and the greatest elements, respectively;
• hL, ∗, 1i is a commutative monoid, that is, ∗ is a
commutative and associative operation with the
identity a∗1 = a;
• the operation → is a residuation operation with
respect to ∗, i.e.
a∗b ≤ c ⇐⇒ a ≤ b → c.
A residuated lattice is complete if it is complete as
a lattice.
The following is a binary operation of biresidua-
tion on L :
x ↔ y = (x → y) ∧(y → x).
The well known examples of residuated lattices
are: boolean algebra, G¨odel, Łukasiewicz and prod-
uct algebras. In the particular case L = [0, 1], multi-
plication ∗ is a left continuous t-norm.
From now on we fix a complete residuated lattice
L .
2.3 L-fuzzy Sets, Fuzzy Relations and
Fuzzy Spaces
Below, we recall definitions of principal notions in the
fuzzy set theory.
Fuzzy Sets with Crisp Equality. Let X be a non-
empty universal set, L a complete residuated lattice.
An (L-)fuzzy set A of X (fuzzy set, shortly) is a map
A : X → L that establishes a relationship between ele-
ments of X and degrees of membership to A.
Fuzzy set A is normal if there exists x
A
∈ X such
that A(x
A
) = 1. The (ordinary) set Core(A) = {x ∈
X | A(x) = 1} is a core of the normal fuzzy set A.
The (ordinary) set Supp(A) = {x ∈ X | A(x) > 0} is a
support set of fuzzy set A.
A class of L-fuzzy sets of X will be denoted
L
X
. The couple (L
X
, =) is called an ordinary fuzzy
space on X. The elements of (L
X
, =) are fuzzy sets
equipped with a crisp equality relation, i.e. for all
A, B ∈ L
X
,
A = B if and only if (∀x ∈ X)A(x) = B(x).
In (L
X
, =), we strictly distinguish between fuzzy sets
even if their membership functions differ in one point.
On (L
X
, =), we can define the structure of resid-
uated lattice using pointwise operations over fuzzy
sets. Moreover, the underlying lattice hL
X
, ∨, ∧, 0, 1i
is complete, where the bottom 0 and the top 1 are con-
stant fuzzy sets, respectively.
A class of normal L-fuzzy sets of X will be de-
noted N (X). The space (N (X), =) is a subspace of
(L
X
, =).
By identifying a point u ∈ X with a fuzzy subset
I
u
: X → L such that I
u
(u) = 1 and I
u
(x) = 0 whenever
x 6= u we may view X as a subspace of (L
X
, =) and as
a subspace of (N (X), =)
Space with Fuzzy Equivalence. Fuzzy Points. Let
X, Y be universal sets. Similarly to L-valued fuzzy
sets, we define (binary) (L-)fuzzy relations as fuzzy
sets of X ×Y. If X = Y, then a fuzzy set of X × X is
called a (binary) (L-)fuzzy relation on X.
A binary fuzzy relation E on X is called fuzzy
equivalence on X (see (Klawonn and Castro, 1995;
H¨ohle, 1998; De Baets and Mesiar, 1998))
1
if for all
x, y,z ∈ X, the following holds:
1. E(x, x) = 1, reflexivity,
2. E(x, y) = E(y, x), symmetry,
3. E(x, y) ∗ E(y, z) ≤ E(x, z), transitivity.
1
Fuzzy equivalence appears in the literature under the
names similarity or indistinguishability as well.
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