Investigating a relevance of fuzzy mappings

The study introduces a concept of relevance of fuzzy mappings regarded as fundamental constructs of granular computing and rule-based systems, in particular. The notion of relevance of the fuzzy mappings is instrumental in the quantification of the quality of such mappings prior to their detailed construction. For the purposes of such quantification, we introduce shadowed sets and discuss as an algorithmic framework to be instrumental in expressing and quantifying the property of relevance of the fuzzy mappings. It is revealed that shadowed sets provide an interesting three-valued quantification of this property (such as acceptable mapping, marginal mapping, and a lack of mapping). The paper includes a number of detailed calculations concerning two commonly exploited classes of triangular and Gaussian fuzzy sets. Numerical studies are discussed as well.