The fuzzy set of a concept is defined by a distribution function of the degree of belief(DOB)in a qualitative parameter(the concept), over a range of variation in a quantitative or less-qualitative parameter (the scale). The concept may be determined by different scaling parameters and each parameter on its own is not necessarily unique. So the form of a fuzzy set depends almost entirely on the scale selected. In the emvironmental field, regulators, health authorities, epidemiologists ,politicians, environmental-ists, engineers, and the general public often define a concept, auch as contamination, in different ways. The only term which is more or less unequivocally understood by all interested groups is the final"risk"-often associated with dollar value. Proper definition and scaling of fuzzy sets can provide a common language through which experts fron defferent disci-plines can communicate throrgh the entire Process of risk assessment. Uncertainty in the inprt information propagates(but is neither magnified nor dampened) in afuzzy way, so that the output remains fuzzy and can then be teanslated into either quantitative risk values or qualitative linguis-tic expressions. In this paper, we examine a real risk assessment case scenario using fuzzy arithmetic.
展开▼
