Bootstrap techniques and fuzzy random variables:: Synergy in hypothesis testing with fuzzy data

In previous studies we have stated that the well-known bootstrap techniques are a valuable tool in testing statistical hypotheses about the means of fuzzy random variables, when these variables are supposed to take on a finite number of different values and these values being fuzzy subsets of the one-dimensional Euclidean space. In this paper we show that the one-sample method of testing about the mean of a fuzzy random variable can be extended to general ones (more precisely, to those whose range is not necessarily finite and whose values are fuzzy subsets of finite-dimensional Euclidean space). This extension is immediately developed by combining some tools in the literature, namely, bootstrap techniques on Banach spaces, a metric between fuzzy sets based on the support function, and an embedding of the space of fuzzy random variables into a Banach space which is based on the support function. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.