1. Introduction
Fuzzy set theory was introduced by Zadeh [
1] as a generalisation of the classical set theory, allowing working with vagueness as one of the basic features of real-world applications. Concurrently with its origins, the theory of fuzzy sets dealt not only with objects, i.e., with fuzzy sets, but also investigated the functional relations between these objects. This naturally led to research into the categorical aspects of fuzzy sets and, in general, to the exploration of fuzzy set categories. The importance of category theory in fuzzy set theory lies mainly in the possibility of comparing different types of constructions to each other, or finding common foundations of often different concepts. Nonetheless, the role of categorical tools is also to describe the different transformation processes related to structures of one type. The first definition of the fuzzy set category was introduced by Goguen [
2,
3], where the objects of this category were pairs
, with
A a crisp set and
a fuzzy set with a value domain in a complete distributive lattice
. A morphism
was defined as a map
, such that
, for arbitrary
. Another definition of the fuzzy sets category was introduced by Eytan [
4], where a fuzzy relation was used as a morphism in the fuzzy set category. If
is a complete Heyting algebra, then this new category
is isomorphic to the original Goguen category. The fuzzy set categories were often designed to be as close as possible to the classical category of sets. This led to an effort to create such categories of fuzzy sets that would be topos [
5,
6]. These constructions include the so-called Higg’s topos [
7,
8], based on the concept of the total fuzzy set, introduced by Wyler [
9] and Blanc [
10], where morphisms are again special fuzzy relations with values in the complete Heyting algebra. With the development of the fuzzy set theory and applications, the Heyting algebra was gradually abolished as an array of fuzzy set values and replaced by other complete lattice structures, such as the totally monoidal sets and various generalizations of these structures (see [
6,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15] and others). However, it was still valid that the key role of morphisms in these new categories had the mappings between underlying sets of fuzzy sets with specific properties.
Description of transformation processes between objects of one type using the category theory language ensure morphism and functors. The significance of morphisms and functors in categories is, inter alia, that morphisms and functors actually represent a change of bases process for various fuzzy objects. From the simplest objects, such as the set of all L-valued fuzzy sets defined in a X set (i.e., the base is X), to complicated objects such as fuzzy topological spaces, fuzzy groups, fuzzy ordered structures etc., which are again defined above some base. If these bases (sets, for example) are understood as objects of some basic category , then the process of creating these structures is actually the functor F from category to the category containing these new structures, e.g., to the category of fuzzy topological spaces, the category of fuzzy groups, etc. If is a morphism in this basic category (a mapping between two sets, for example), then by applying the functor F a new morphism arises between these new objects, which in fact represents the change of base X in object to a new base Y in object .
Recently, however, a number of results have emerged in the theory of fuzzy sets, which are based on the application of fuzzy relations as morphisms in suitable categories. A typical example of this use of fuzzy relations is the category of sets as objects and
-valued fuzzy relations between sets as morphisms. This category is frequently used in approximation functors. These functors then represents various approximations of fuzzy sets, defined by fuzzy relations. This approximation was for the first time defined by Goguen [
2], when he introduced the notion of the image of a fuzzy set under a fuzzy relation. Many examples using explicitly or implicitly approximation functors defined by various types of fuzzy relations can be found in rough fuzzy sets theory and many others (see, e.g., [
16,
17,
18]).
In fuzzy set theory, there are a number of constructions that normally use different type mappings as a tool to change the base of a given construction, i.e., use different types of mappings as morphisms in appropriate categories. One of the typical and widespread construction in fuzzy set theory relates to the term lattice-valued F-transform.
A number of applications have emerged based on that completely new approximation theory. These applications include in particular signal and image processing [
19,
20,
21], data analysis [
22,
23,
24], signal compression [
25,
26], and numerical solutions of differential equations [
27,
28,
29]. This new method of a transformation of fuzzy sets is based on reduction of basic space of given fuzzy sets and it has been introduced and elaborated by Perfilieva in papers [
16,
24,
25,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34]. The original form of a lattice-valued fuzzy transform is a map
, where
X is a "large" set (the original universe of fuzzy sets),
Y is a "smaller" set, and
L is an appropriate complete lattice.
The basic structure for F-transform constructions is the space with a fuzzy partition , which is represented by an underlying set X of fuzzy sets and a system of fuzzy sets in X, which is called a fuzzy partition on X. A relationship between two spaces with s fuzzy partitions and can be described as a pair of special maps from X to Y and from to . This pair of maps represents a morphism in the ground category of F-transform. Using F-transform we can find the relation between the result of the original F-transform based on the basis and between the new F-transform when the original base changes to the basis .
In this article, we want to look at the problem of how the value of the F-transform will change if we use different types of relations instead of mappings hitherto used as morphisms between two bases, i.e., between two spaces with fuzzy partitions. This problem is related to the general trend of using relations instead of mapping in many constructions in fuzzy set theory.
To solve this problem, we introduce the relational variant of the category of F-transforms, which uses fuzzy relations as morphisms. This new category is a generalisation of the category of F-transforms, which uses mappings as morphisms. Analogically we introduce the relational variant of the category of special semimodule homomorphisms with relations as morphisms and, as the main result, we prove that these new relational categories are isomorphic. This basically proves that although the structure of F-transforms with relations as morphisms is relatively complicated, it is essentially a relatively simple algebraic structure of special semimodules.
2. Preliminaries
To maintain some self-sufficiency in this article, in this section we will repeat some basic concepts from both the theory of residuated lattices and MV-algebras, and some principal examples of semirings and semimodules that we will use in the following sections.
2.1. Residuated Lattices and -Algebras
Let the structure be defined such that
be a complete lattice,
be a commutative monoid,
⊗ is isotone in both arguments,
→ is a binary operation which is residuated with respect to ⊗, i.e.,
Then
is a called a
complete residuated lattice (see e.g., [
35]). In
we can define new operations, such as bi-residuation operation ↔, defined by
, or negation operation ¬, defined by
.
A special example of a residuated lattice is a -algebra, i.e., a structure satisfying the following axioms:
- (i)
is a commutative monoid,
- (ii)
is a commutative monoid,
- (iii)
, ,
- (iv)
, , ,
- (v)
,
- (vi)
, ,
- (vii)
,
for all .
-algebra can be transformed into a lattice structure by defining lattice operations in the following way:
In that case
is a complete residuated lattice.
An example of a
-algebra is the
Łukasiewicz algebra , where
If is a complete residuated lattice, a -fuzzy set in a crisp set X is a map . f is a non-trivial -fuzzy set, if f is not identical to the zero function.
2.2. Semirings and Semimodules
The notion of a semiring appears for the first time in [
36] and it was introduced as a generalisation of a ring, without the requirement that each element must have an additive inverse. A notion of a semimodule was then a logical continuation of this approach in the field of modules ([
37]). To be more precise, we repeat the definition of both these structures. In the paper we consider only commutative semirings.
Definition 1 ([
36])
. A semiring is an algebraic structure with the following properties:- (i)
is a commutative monoid,
- (ii)
is a commutative monoid,
- (iii)
holds for all ,
- (iv)
holds for all .
The notion of a semimodule over a semiring is taken from [
37].
Definition 2 ([
37])
. Let be a semiring. A -semimodule is a commutative monoid for which the external multiplication , denoted by , is defined and which for all and satisfies the following equations:- (o)
,
- (ii)
,
- (iii)
,
- (iv)
, .
In this paper we will use the examples of semimodules and semirings, which were published in the papers of Di Nola and Gerla [
38,
39]. These examples show that it is possible to introduce a semimodule structure on the set
of
-fuzzy sets on a set
X.
Example 1 ([
38])
. (1) Let be a residuates lattice. Then the reduct is a commutative semiring,(2) Let be a -algebra. Then the reduct is a commutative semiring.
Example 2 ([
39])
. (1) Let , be a residuated lattice and let be its semiring reduct. For all defineThen is an -semimodule.
(2) Let , be a -algebra and let be its semiring reduct. For all define Then is an -semimodule.
The semimodule theory is in many aspects similar to the theory of linear spaces. This means, among other things, that we can also introduce the concept of a linear morphism in this theory.
Definition 3. Let be a semiring and and -semimodules. A mapping is a -homomorphism from to , if the following conditions hold:
- (i)
, for all ,
- (ii)
, for all .
Unlike classical modules, where the addition operation + is usually defined only for a finite number of elements, in the case of some semimodules, such as complete or -semimodules , this operation can be defined even for an infinite set of additions.
If a
-semimodule
is such that for any subset
, there exists the sum of elements
, then
is called a
complete -semimodule. A sum of elements
is denoted by
. If
and
are complete
-semimodules, then a
-homomorphism
is called
complete, if
Example 3. Let be a complete residuated lattice and let be complete -semimodules from Example 2(1). Then, is a complete -homomorphism, iff
- 1.
,
- 2.
.
where the indexes M and N determine where the given operation takes place.
Example 4. Let be a complete MV-algebra and let be complete -semimodules from Example 2(2). Then, is a complete -homomorphism, iff
- 1.
,
- 2.
.
This follows from the equality .
2.3. Elements of the Category Theory
For the convenience of the reader we repeat some basic definitions and examples which could be useful to understand main results. For more details about category theory see [
40].
Definition 4. A category consists of a class of objects and class of morphisms for every objects . A morphism from an object a to b is denoted by an arrow . Moreover, the category has to satisfy the following conditions.
- 1.
For arbitrary objects , there exists a binary operation , called a composition of morphisms.
- 2.
The composition ∘ is associative, i.e., if and , then .
- 3.
For every object there exists a morphism , such that for arbitrary and , and hold.
The basic example of a category is the category with sets as objects and mappings as morphisms, with a composition of morphisms defined as a composition of maps. Let us consider another examples of a category.
Example 5. Let be a complete residuated lattice. The category is defined by
- 1.
Objects are all -semimodules from Example 2,
- 2.
Morphisms are all -homomorphisms between -semimodules defined in Definition 4.
Analogously we can define the category with -semimodules as objects and with -homomorphisms as morphisms.
We recall the definition of two categories which are important in F-transform theory and will be used in the next part of the paper. Recall that for arbitrary sets
and a map
,
denotes the Zadeh’s extension
of
f, i.e., for
,
Analogously,
is an extension of
f defined by
for each
.
Definition 5 - 1.
Let be a complete residuated lattice. The category is defined by
- (a)
Objects are complete -semimodule homomorphism between -semimodules and , for arbitrary sets X and Y,
- (b)
A morphism from an object to the object is a pair of maps , such that and are mappings, and holds - (c)
The composition of morphisms is point-wise.
- 2.
Let be a complete MV-algebra. The category is defined by
- (a)
Objects are complete -semimodule homomorphism between -semimodules and , for arbitrary sets X and Y,
- (b)
A morphism from an object to the object is a pair of maps , such that and are mappings, and holds - (c)
The composition of morphisms is point-wise.
We can also introduce the relational variants of the categories
and
. We need the following notation. If
is an
-fuzzy relation, then the approximation maps
and
are defined by
Example 6. - 1.
Let be a complete residuated lattice. The category is defined by
- (a)
Objects are complete -semimodule homomorphism between -semimodules and , for arbitrary sets X and Y,
- (b)
A morphism from an object to the object is a pair , such that and are fuzzy relations, and in the diagram
the inequality holds. - (c)
The composition of morphisms is point-wise.
- 2.
Let be a complete MV-algebra. The category is defined by
- (a)
Objects are complete -semimodule homomorphism between -semimodules and , for arbitrary sets X and Y,
- (b)
A morphism from an object to the object is a pair , such that and are fuzzy relations, and in the following diagram
the inequality holds. - (c)
The composition of morphisms is point-wise.
Relationships between categories are mostly defined by functors.
Definition 6. Let and be categories. A functor from to is a mapping, such that it
- 1.
associates to each object x in an object in ,
- 2.
associates to each morphism in a morphism in such that the following two conditions hold:
- (a)
, for arbitrary object x in ,
- (b)
, for arbitrary .
In the next example we show that the Zadeh’s extension principle can be interpreted as a functor between the categories and .
Example 7. Let be a complete residuated lattice. The functor is defined by
- 1.
For arbitrary , . Elements of are called -fuzzy sets in X.
- 2.
For a morphism in , is defined by , for arbitrary .
3. Categories of Spaces with Fuzzy Partitions
An important role in F-transform theory have the so-called spaces with fuzzy partitions [
31], which play the role of the bases for the F-transform, just as sets in the category
play in many standard constructions. In this section we introduce two categories of spaces with fuzzy partitions, one with morphisms defined by maps and other with morphisms defined by fuzzy relations.
Definition 7. Let be a complete lattice. Let X be a set and let be a set of -fuzzy sets in a set X. The index Y set of is denoted by . A pair is called a space with a fuzzy partition.
We define two categories of spaces with fuzzy partitions, which seem to be the basic categories for F-transform constructions. We start with the category, where morphisms are defined by mappings.
Definition 8. Let be a lattice. The category is defined by
- 1.
Fuzzy partitions as objects,
- 2.
Morphisms such that
is a map,
is a map such that
- 3.
The composition of morphisms in is defined by .
Another category of spaces with fuzzy partition has the same objects as the category , but the morphisms are defined by fuzzy relations. For the sake of simplicity, we will assume in the rest of the paper that is a complete residuated lattice, unless otherwise stated.
Definition 9. The category of fuzzy partitions with fuzzy relational morphisms is defined by
- 1.
Ob(RSpaceFP)=Ob(SpaceFP),
- 2.
is a morphism, if
- (a)
is a -fuzzy relation,
- (b)
is a -fuzzy relation,
- (c)
For all ,hold.
- 3.
A composition of morphisms and is a morphism , where ∘ is a standard composition of -fuzzy relations.
As it can be expected, the category is a generalisation of the category . In fact, the following proposition holds.
Proposition 1. There exists an embedding functor .
Proof. Let the inclusion functor
be defined as the identity map on objects of the category
and for any morphism
,
, where
F and
G are graphs of mappings
f and
g, respectively. For arbitrary
we have
If
, then the left part of Equation (
1) equals to
and the inequality in Equation (
2) also holds. Hence,
is a morphism in
and
J is an embedding functor. The other equality can be proven analogously. □
On the other hand the category represents a generalisation of the category , as it is proven in the next proposition.
Proposition 2. The exists an embedding functor .
Proof. Let the functor I be defined by
, where is the characteristic function of a set in a set X,
If is a morphism in , then .
Since , is a morphism in . □
Although the categories and , which are necessary for the F-transform theory, are defined by spaces with fuzzy partitions, in fact, we do not need this term, i.e., spaces with fuzzy partitions, to define these two categories. We can prove that these categories are isomorphic to categories, where the notion of a space with a fuzzy partition does not appear.
Definition 10. Let be the category of fuzzy relation with maps as morphisms, defined by
- 1.
Objects , where are sets and is an -fuzzy relation.
- 2.
Morphisms are pair of maps , where and are maps, such that , for all ,
- 3.
The composition of morphisms is defined by .
The relationship between the categories
and
we firstly proved in [
41].
Proposition 3 ([
41])
. The category is isomorphic to the category . Let us now consider the “relational” variant of the category .
Definition 11. The category of fuzzy relations with fuzzy relational morphisms is defined by
- 1.
Objects of are the same as in the category ,
- 2.
is a morphism, if
- (a)
is a fuzzy relation,
- (b)
is a fuzzy relation,
- (c)
and hold, where ∘ is a standard composition of fuzzy relations.
- 3.
A composition of morphisms and is a morphism .
In the next proposition we prove that also the categories and are isomorphic.
Proposition 4. The category is isomorphic to the category .
Proof. Let be a morphism in the category . The functor is defined by
, where and is defined by .
.
We have
and for arbitrary
we have
Therefore, is a morphism in and H is a functor. Conversely, let be a morphism in the category , . Let be a functor defined by
, where is defined by .
.
Then, analogously to the previous case, it can be shown that is a functor and it is the inverse functor to H. Therefore, both categories are isomorphic. □
4. Categories of F-Transforms
As we mentioned in the Introduction, fuzzy transforms (F-transforms) represent new methods, which are successfully used in various applications. We recall two basic variants of F-transform [
31].
Definition 12. Let be a space with a fuzzy partition, .
- 1.
A function is called the upper F-transform defined by a space with a fuzzy partition, if - 2.
A function is called the lower F-transform defined by a space with a fuzzy partition, if
where are operations from a residuated lattice .
The basic building structures for F-transforms are spaces with fuzzy partitions. These spaces are then analogies of sets as the basic building elements of both classical and many fuzzy structures. There is therefore a natural question of how the F-transforms defined in one base space, i.e., space with a fuzzy partition, will change when that base space also changes. The change of one basic space to another then actually represents the morphism between these spaces, which are represented by the categories or . The question is, therefore, whether this change of base spaces also corresponds to the change of F-transforms.
We begin with definitions of two variants of categories of lower and upper F-transforms. The first variant are categories with maps as morphisms and the other variant represent categories with fuzzy relations as morphisms.
Definition 13. The category of upper F-transforms is defined by
- 1.
Objects are upper F-transform maps , for arbitrary space with a fuzzy partition ,
- 2.
A morphism from to is a pair o maps , such that and are maps, such that - 3.
Composition of morphisms is a component-wise composition of maps.
Definition 14. The relational variant of the category of upper F-transforms is the category , defined by
- 1.
Objects of are the same as for the category ,
- 2.
A morphism from to is a pair of -fuzzy relations such that , , such that - 3.
Composition of morphisms is a component-wise composition of -fuzzy relations.
Analogously we can define two variants of the lower F-transform categories:
Definition 15. The category of lower F-transforms is defined by
- 1.
Objects are lower F-transform maps , for arbitrary space with a fuzzy partition ,
- 2.
A morphism from to is a pair o maps , such that and are maps, such that - 3.
Composition of morphisms is a component-wise composition of maps.
Definition 16. The relational variant of the category of lower F-transforms is the category , defined by
- 1.
Objects of are the same as for the category ,
- 2.
A morphism from to is a pair of -fuzzy relations such that , , such that - 3.
Composition of morphisms is a component-wise composition of -fuzzy relations.
In the next proposition we show that changes of bases in categories and causes changes of corresponding F-transforms.
Proof. Let be a morphism in . The functor is defined by
,
.
In fact, we need only to prove that
is a morphism in
. Let
and
be arbitrary elements. Since
is a morphism in
, we obtain
and
is a morphism in
. Hence,
is a functor.
The functor is defined analogously, i.e., for a morphism , we set and . It can be proven analogously as in the previous case that is also a morphism in , i.e., that holds.
The functor is defined by
,
.
Hence, we need only to prove that
is a morphism in
. Let
. Then we have
Hence, is a morphism and is a functor.
The functor
is defined analogously, i.e., for a morphism
in
, we set
and
. We show that
is a morphism in the category
. In fact, let
. We have
Therefore, is a morphism and is a functor. □
As we mentioned in the introductory part, the F-transform can be equivalently defined without using the concept of spaces with fuzzy partitions. This can be achieved by showing that both variants of categories
and both variants of categories
are isomorphic to categories of completely different objects. The first result of this type was proven in our paper [
41].
Theorem 1 - 1.
Let be a complete residuated lattice. Then the categories and are isomorphic.
- 2.
Let be a complete MV-algebra. Then the categories and are also isomorphic.
As the main result of the paper we prove that analogical results hold also for relational variant and of the categories of F-transforms.
Theorem 2. - 1.
Let be a complete residuated lattice. Then the categories and are identical.
- 2.
Let be a complete MV-algebra. Then the categories and are identical.
Proof. 1. We prove firstly, that both categories have the same objects. Let
be an object of the category
. It is well known (see, e.g., [
31]) that
is a
-homomorphism of semimodules, i.e., it is an object of
. It follows that
On the other hand, let
,
. We set
According to [
42], any
can be expressed in the form
where
is the characteristic map of a subset
in
X. Then, for arbitrary
, we have
Therefore, and we both categories have identical objects.
Let be a morphism in the category , . It follows that . Let and . From the previous construction of and it follows that and it follows that is also a morphism in . Therefore, both categories are identical.
2. Let
be a complete MV-algebra. We prove that for arbitrary
,
holds. In fact, let
. Then we have
Now, let
,
. We set
for arbitrary
. Let
. According to the equality in Equation (
3), for each
we obtain
Hence, , and .
On the other hand, it is well known that arbitrary
is a complete
-homomorphism of
-semimodules
(see e.g., [
31]) and it follows that
. Therefore, both categories have the same objects.
Let be a morphism in the category , . It follows that . Let and . From the previous construction of and it follows that and it follows that is also a morphism in . Therefore, both categories are identical. □
Example 8. For calculation both variants of F-transforms in semimodules or we can use a matrix operations in these spaces. Let be sets (in practical applications both are finite sets) and let be matrices with elements from . We use a matrix calculation defined by Then any matrix of a type can be identified with some F-transform , defined by Hence, the F-transform of a function can be identified with the matrix product , where is a matrix of a type representing values of a function f. Using this matrix calculation we can also easily calculate the F-transform, which will result from the modification of the original F-transform after the application of a morphism from the category . In fact, it is clear that any morphism from an F-transform to an F-transform defined in a set Y and index set V of a fuzzy partition can be represented by a pair of matrices , where and , where . Let be the matrix represented F-transform . In that case, the matrix representing the F-transform which is the result of the application of the morphism to the F-transform represented by the matrix can be calculated by the matrix operations Hence, represents some F-transform in a set U, where . If the relation R is reflexive, we can show that is a morphisms from to that new F-transform in the category . In fact, for arbitrary , we have This result suggests that by using matrix notation with matrix multiplication using operations from -semimodule , we can easily create new F-transforms using fuzzy relations, which will be homomorphic images of the original F-transforms under the morphisms .
It is clear that analogical results we can obtain using the category and matrix multiplication using operation from the -semimodule.
5. Conclusions and Prospective Results
Theory of F-transforms has appeared in recent years as one of the basic tools for many applications, including applications in the field of signal and image processing. The whole theory of lattice-valued F-transforms is crucially based on a new type of basic space, called space with a fuzzy partitions, which represents a generalisation of the standard sets on which the fuzzy set theory is based. In order to explore different relationships between individual spaces with fuzzy partitions, or relationships between F-transforms, in addition to these objects, different types of morphisms between these objects are also introduced. The result are various categories of spaces with fuzzy partition and F-transforms.
Recently, the use of fuzzy relations as a basis for morphisms between different fuzzy structures has been increasing significantly. The consequence of these processes is that instead of categories where morphisms are classical mappings, categories are introduced where morphisms between objects are different types of fuzzy relations.
This is how we modified the F-transform categories in this article. Two variants of the F-transform categories (upper and lower F-transforms) were introduced, where morphisms between F-transforms are defined as special fuzzy relations. Although F-transforms are defined using spaces with fuzzy partitions, it is shown that these relational versions of F-transform categories are identical to the relational variants of the two categories of semimodule homomorphisms where these fuzzy partitions do not occur. This makes it possible, for example, to simplify some operations relating to F-transforms, as exemplified in Example 9, such as the actual calculation of F-transforms, or to determine the F-transform image in case of applying relational morphism to this F-transform.
It should be noted that this paper represents only the first step in the use of fuzzy relations in F-transform theory. The next natural step should be to define F-transform not for fuzzy sets, but as a mapping transforming fuzzy relations instead of fuzzy sets, i.e., as mapping , where should be a partition in . The reason is quite natural, many large data information is obtained as a fuzzy relation and not as a classical function. Then, for example, reducing these data structures would be a typical example of using F-transforms, where fuzzy relations are used instead of fuzzy sets. In this direction we prepared some results and we suppose that in a final version of the next paper, we combine both new approaches, i.e., fuzzy relations as morphisms between F-transforms and F-transform defined for fuzzy relation instead for fuzzy sets only.