Level sets and the extension principle for interval valued fuzzy sets and its application to uncertainty measures

We describe the representation of a fuzzy subset in terms of its crisp level sets. We then generalize these level sets to the case of interval valued fuzzy sets and provide for a representation of an interval valued fuzzy set in terms of crisp level sets. We note that in this representation while the level sets are crisp the memberships are still intervals. Once having this representation we turn to its role in the extension principle and particularly to the extension of measures of uncertainty of interval valued fuzzy sets. Two types of extension of uncertainty measures are investigated. The first, based on the level set representation, leads to extensions whose values for the measure of uncertainty are themselves fuzzy sets. The second, based on the use of integrals, results in extensions whose value for the uncertainty of an interval valued fuzzy sets is an interval. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.