Recent Advances in Fuzzy Optimization Methods and Models

Dear Colleagues,

In many real-world situations, you cannot avoid the prevalence of imprecision and uncertainty. For years, the basis for capturing and handling uncertain information had been inadequate before Zadeh, who invented the paradigm of fuzzy sets and founded fuzzy set theory in 1965.

Fuzzy Optimization is a well-known optimization problem in artificial intelligence, computational intelligence, manufacturing and management, so developing general and operable fuzzy optimization methods are necessary for both theory and application.

The need for Fuzzy Optimization theory and methods are manifested in its ability to balance conflicting objectives (goals or interests) where there are many alternative courses of action available to the decision-makers while resources, time and fund are limited.

Fuzzy Optimization is increasingly used in both business and social decision-making. Fuzzy Optimization methods and tools are used for investment strategy, wealth management selection, detection and prevention, direct marketing strategies, predicting customer response, supply chain planning, distribution, routing, scheduling, traffic flow optimization, staff allocation, merchandise optimization, product mix and blending, industrial waste reduction, sustainable energy, raw material process optimization, and product simulation.

Nevertheless, the uncertain multi-objective characteristics of such problems are not yet been explored in-depth and a lot is to be achieved in this direction. Hence, different mathematical models of real-life multi-objective optimization problems can be developed on various uncertain frameworks with special emphasis on combinatorial optimization problems. Optimization of combinatory problems is basically a fundamental issue in various fields, including applied mathematics, computer science, engineering, management, and operations research. Nevertheless, combinatorial problems will have a more realistic sense if the multi-objective nature of the problem can be explored.

The Special Issue emphasises to collect some high-quality papers which develops Fuzzy Optimization models under uncertain environments. Submitted papers should not have been previously published or be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Fuzzy Optimization has long been an important area of management, engineering, and healthcare problems, but has become even more of a focus today due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We invite authors to submit original research articles that propose novel Fuzzy Optimization methods and models including some heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms for practical applications in business, management, manufacturing, logistics, supply chain management, healthcare, and other real-world problems.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Algorithms for fuzzy optimization;
• Fuzzy Multi-objective decision making;
• Fuzzy Multi-criteria decision making;
• Stochastic optimization;
• Logistics, and supply chain management;
• Network optimization;
• Real-time risk assessment and management;
• Fuzzy optimization in management and engineering;
• Optimization in sustainable engineering;
• Uncertain optimization problems;
• Risk analysis, modelling, sensitivity analysis,  efficiency analysis;
• Innovative applications of multi-criteria networking.

Dr. Muhammad Riaz
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.