•"

INTRODUCTION

E v e r s i n c e Zadeh [ 3 6 ] p r o p o s e d f u z z y s e t t h e o r y in

1 9 6 5 , many m a t h e m a t i c i a n s s t u d i e d f u z z y s u b s e t s with

membership f u n c t i o n a s s u m i n g t r u t h v a l u e s i n t h e unit

interval [ o , l ] of r e a l numbers. The c o n c e p t s o f fuzzy

I d e a l of a r i n g ( L i u , Wang J i n [ 3 ^ ] i T.K. Mukharjee

and M.K-Sen [ 2 1 ] , U.K. Swamy and K . L . N . Swamy [ 2 9 ] ),•

Fuzzy s u b g r o u p o f a g r o u p ( A . R o s e n f e l d [24], Liu,

Wang J i n [ 3 4 ] , F . S i v a R a m a k r i s h n a Das [ 2 6 ] ) , Normal

f u z z y s u b g r o u p o f a g r o u p ( Wu, Wang Ming [ 3 5 ] ) » fuzzy

subspace of a v e c t o r - s p a c e ( A . K . K a t a s a r a s and D . B . L i u

[16]), f u z z y s u b s e m i g r o u p and f u z z y b i - i d e a l of a s e m i -

g r o u p (T.K. D u t t a [ 9 ] ) , fuzzy i d e a l of a l a t t i c e

( U.M. Swamy and D . Viswanadha Raju [ 3 0 ] ) and so on

w e r e i n t r o d u c e d and s t u d i e d by s e v e r a l a u t h o r s . The

centra] idea in a l l these notions i s o b s e r v e d t o be

t h a t a fuzzy s u b s e t A of a group X ( o r a r i n g o r a

v e c t o r space) i s a fuzzy subgroup ( or i d e a l or subspace)

i f and o n l y i f , f o r each a i n the u n i t i n t e r v a l [o,l] of

real numbers,

A"'^[a,l] : - | x e X / a 1 A(x)

is either empty or a subgroup ( or ideal or subspace

respectively) of X. This motivated us to introduce

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the basic generalization principle of this work.

The main theme of this thesis is to develop a

general theory of fuzzy systems by defining a fuzzy
subset A of a non empty set X, having truth values
( as suggested by Goguen [ll]) in a complete lattice
L satisfying the infinite meet distributive law, to
be a fuzzy 9*-subset of X if and only if for each
a G L, A""^[a,l] £ "^ , where 9* is a given class of
subsets of X. This is the basic idea involved in
developing a general theory of fuzzy systems which
subsumes all the above mentioned concepts and which
has a wide range of applications.

Since the ioeals of a ring ( normal subgroups of

a group, subspaces of a vector space, ideals of a
lattice) can be viewed as sub universes of some
universal algebra with underlying set X and as it is
well known ( G. Birkhoff and Co Frink [4]) that every
algebraic closed set system 2P on X is nothing but the
lattice of all sub universes oi some universal algebra
( X,^n^), it suffices to consider algebraic closed set
systems on X.

The class ^*J of all fuzzy ^ -subsets of X is

called the fuzzy 9>-system on X. We observe that

^^ is a closed ( algebraic closed ) fuzzy set system
on X if and only if 9' is a closed ( algebraic closed )

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s e t system on X. We describe a fuzzy *^-£ubset genera-
ted by a fuzzy subset of X and observe that 9" i s a
complete s u b - l a t t i c e of the complete l a t t i c e ^ ^ • Also
we give a method to construct a fuzzy ^ - subset of X
from a given family of subsets of X satisfying c e r t a i n
conditions,

Other than the usual l a t t i c e t h e o r e t i c operations

on the l a t t i c e of a l l i d e a l s of a r i n g , i t is well-known
t h a t the m u l t i p l i c a t i o n of ideals i s also a binary opera-
tion. Analogously, U.M. Swamy and K.L.N. Swamy ([29])
have introduced a m u l t i p l i c a t i v e binary operation on the
set of a l l fuzzy i d e a l s of a r i n g . This motivated us
to introduce generally a binary operation o on the fuzzy
^ - system ^ 5 corresponding to a given inclusion
i n v a r i a n t binary operation o on an algebraic closed set
system 3^ on X by defining

(A o B)(x) = \ / | ^ A(s) A A B(t) / x e S o T, S,T £ ^

(s e S t eT /
for any fuzzy ^ -subsets A and B of X and x € X.

V/e consider some properties such as commutativity,

idempotency and associc.tivity among the two binary
operations o and o on y' and %^ respectively and
prove that the binary operations V and A on * ^ ^ c o r r e s -
ponding to the l a t t i c e operations V and A on "^ are

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precisely the supremum and infimum operations on the
lattice '^^ „ Also, we discuss modularity and distri-
butivity between the two lattices ^ and ^ ^ . Wu,
Wang Ming ([35], M.R. 83 e : 20034) introduced the
notions of normal fuzzy subgroups and normal quasi
subgroups of a group and mainly proved that the lattice
of all normal quasi subgroups of a group is modular,
which follows as a special case of our theorem 1.4.1.

T.K. Mukharjee and M.K. Sen ([21]) have introduced

the notion of a fuzzy prime ideal of a ring, where as
U.M. Swamy and K.L.N. Swamy ([29]) have extended the
notion in such a way that the ideals assume their values
in a complete lattice satisfying the infinite meet distri'
butive law and determined all fuzzy prime ( maximal )
ideals of a ring in terms of pairs (p,cf), where p is a
prime ( maximal ) ideal of the ring, and a is a prime
( maximal ) element of L. Incidentally, we found that,
such results do valid not only in the case of ideals of
lattices but also in the case of congruence relations of
a universal algebra, 'phis motivates to introduce the
notion of o - prime ( o-prime) members of ^ {^^ ) , where
o is an inclusion invariant binary operation on an
algebraic closed set system ^f on X such that

S o T C S D T for all S,T G^

and o is the corresponding binary operation on ^^ •

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 We determine a l l prime ( minimal p r i m e , maximal )
fuzzy ^ - s u b s e t s of X by proving t h a t t h e prime ( minimal
p r i m e , znaximal ) fuzzy 9' - s u b s e t s of X a r e p r e c i s e l y
P
the fuzzy s u b s e t s A of X, given by

p [ 1 if X G P
P 1 p if X ^ P

where p i s a prime ( minimal p r i m e , maximal ) element

of if and p i s an i r r e d u c i b l e ( minimal i r r e d u c i b l e ,
maximal ) element of L.

We i n t r o d u c e t h e h u l l - k e r n e l topology (M.H.Stone[28])
g e n e r a l l y on the s e t (} ( R ) of a l l prime elements of a
complete l a t t i c e ( R,V , A , 0, 1 ) and determine t h e h u l l -
k e r n e l topology on t h e s e t (p ( ^ ^ ) of a l l prime fuzzy
y - s u b s e t s of X by p r o v i n g t h a t i U(x,a) / x&X,ae L \
i s a b a s e for the h u l l - k e r n e l t o p o l o g y , where

U ( x . a ) s = | A J G (? C ^ ^ ) / x ^ P and a i pi

Also, we prove that the space of all prime fuzzy 'y-subsets

of X is homeomorphic with the product of the spaces of
prime elements of y and of irreducible elements of L,
both equipped with the hull-kernel topologies.

Now, we present, briefly, the main results proved in

this thesis, which has been broadly divided into five
chapters,

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 In chapter Oi we collect some important concepts
and results already known and which have been used in
the text, for ready reference.

Chapter 1 is devoted to develop a general theory of

fuzzy "^-systems. in Section 1.1, we have introduced
the notion of a fuzzy ^ -subset of X corresponding to a
given class SP of subsets of X. We prove that the class
^^ of all fuzzy ^ - subsets of X is a closed ( algebraic
closed ) fuzzy set system on X if and only if ^^ is a
closed ( algebraic closed ) set system on X. Fuzzy
^ - subset A generated by a fuzzy subset A of X is
described and we exhibit a procedure to construct a fuzzy
^ - subset of X from a class of members of '^ satisfying
certain conditions„ Section 1.2 is devoted to extend an
inclusion invariant binary operation o on an algebraic
closed set system "^ to o" on ^ ^ and we consider some
properties such as conimutativity, idempotency and associa-
tivity among o and o • In section 1.3, we prove that
the lattice operations of ^L'^ are just the operations
induced by the lattice operations of ^ and in section 1.4,
we study about modularity and distributivity of the two
lattices y and ^y' .

In chapter 2, we study irreducibility on fuzzy

y -systems. Section 2.1 is devoted to introduce the
notion of a prime fuzzy ^ -subset of X and characterize

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them in terms of prime elements of ^ and L- Sections
2*2 and 2.3 deals with the characterizations of minimal
prime fuzzy ^-subsets and maximal fuzzy ^-subsets of X
respectively and in section 2e4, we prove that the distri-
butivity of ^ ^ is a necessary and sufficient condition
to express eve^y element of ^S? &s a meet of meet
irreducible elements of $.Sf . In section 2.5, we mainly
determine the hull-kernel topology on the set (P {'^^ )
of all prime fuzzy ^ -subsets of X and prove that the
space (p ( ^ y ) is homeomorphic with the product of the
spaces of prime elements of y and L.

In chapter 3, we observe that the notions of fuzzy

ideals of a ring ( fuzzy normal subgroups of a group ),
fuzzy subspaces of a vector space, fuzzy ideals of a
lattice ( cylindric algebra ), fuzzy sub-universes of a
universal algebra and fuzzy equivalences ( congruences )
of a universal algebra fits in the frame work of our
general theory of algebraic fuzzy systems developed in
chapters 1 and 2 very comfortably. In section "^d,
we exhibit the fuzzy ideals of a ring as fuzzy ^-subsets
and, thereby applying the general theory, characterize
them and obtain the majn results of U.Mo Swamy and
K.L.N. Swamy ([29]). Also, we have discussed about the
fuzzy normal subgroups of a group. In section 3*2, we
obtain the fuzzy subspaces of a vector space, originally

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 8

introduced by A.K. Katasaras and D.B. Liu ([l6]) as

fuzzy y^-subsets and characterize theme in Section 3»3»
we introduce and characterize fuzzy ideals of a lattice
and extend the Stone »s prime ideal theorem of distribu-
tive lattices to fuzzy ideals. In section 3«^, we
formally study about irreducible ideals of a cylindric
algebra. Then, we introduce and characterize fuzzy
ideals of a cylindric algebra, in section 3.5, we
introduce the notion of a fuzzy sub-universe of a uni-
versal algebra and characterize them whereas in sections
3.6 and 3-7, we obtain the fuzzy equivalences and fuzzy
congruences of an universal algebra as fuzzy ^-subsets
and characterize them.

For any class ^ of subsets of X, we write ^ . to

denote the class y'u{0} . Note that "^ is a closed
( algebraic closed ) set system on X if and only if ^ ^
is a closed ( algebraic closed ) set system on X. We
have characterized the fuzzy (^ ) ^^ - subsets, in various
situations. For ready reference, we have tabulated these
observations at the end of chapter 3.

It is well-known that the ideals of a ring ( normal

subgroups of a group, subspaces of a vector space ) are
in one-to-one correspondence with the congruence relations
on the ring ( group, vector space respectively ). But
in the case of distributive lattices, even though there

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is a correspondence between ideals and congruence relations,
it is not one-to-one, T.P. Speed ([2?]) introduced the
notion of an ideal congruence on a distributive lattice D
corresponding to an ideal. Also it is well-known that
the class of all ideal congruences of D is not a closed
set system on D x D, so that we can not apply the general
theory of fuzzy systems to the ideal congruences of D.
However, in chapter 4, we extend the well-known corres-
pondence ( not necessarily one-to-one ) between ideals
and congruence relations on D to a correspondence between
fuzzy ideals and fuzzy congruences of D. Section 4.1
is devoted to introduce a fuzzy congruence 9^ correspond-
ing to a fuzzy ideal A of D and give a counter example
to show that

©7 [a,l] ?^ C -] for some a t L

^ A -"[a,!]

where c -i is the congruence relation on D induced

by the ideal A~ [a,l] of D. In section 4.2, we

introduce fuzzy ideals induced by fuzzy congruences of D
and in section 4.3, we have established the permutability
of fuzzy ideal congruences of Do

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