Доклади на Българската академия на науките

Comptes rendus de l’Académie bulgare des Sciences

Tome 71, No 6, 2018

ENGINEERING SCIENCES
Automatics and informatics

APPLICATION OF INTUITIONISTIC FUZZY SETS

ON AGENT BASED MODELLING
Shpend Ismaili, Stefka Fidanova∗

(Submitted by Academician I. Popchev on January 26, 2018)

Abstract

The complexity of social systems and interactions between its members is

difficult to be represented. In this paper we focus on conflict situations that can
happen during a protest. We apply agent based modelling. In our case there
are three types of agents: active agents; peaceful agents and police officers.
The interactions between agents and their consequences have fuzzy nature,
therefore we use intuitionistic fuzzy sets. Different events are represented with
fuzzy methods and intutionistic relations. The level of similarity between the
agents is determined in the terms of the intuitionistic fuzzy sets.
Key words: multi-agent systems, software agents, intuitionistic fuzzy
sets

1. Introduction. Social systems are very complex and difficult to be pre-

dicted due to the complex interactions inside the system and with the environment
outside the system. A social system consists of individuals who interact with each
other, evolve in an autonomous manner motivated by their beliefs, personal goals
and the circumstances of the social environment. We will model these complex
systems with autonomous software agents that interact with each other and their
environment. The agent simulates the individual in a social system [14, 15 ]. Mod-
elling and simulation is done in controlled environments and provide a platform
for empirical study of social systems. We need to focus on specific social processes.
Work presented here is partially supported by the Bulgarian National Scientific Fund under
the grants DN 02/10 “New Instruments for Knowledge Discovery from Data, and their Modeling”
and DN 12/5 “Efficient Stochastic Methods and Algorithms for Large-Scale Problems”.
DOI:10.7546/CRABS.2018.06.12

812
 This paper presents a conflict situation that occurs due to dissatisfaction
with the central government which may be due to the illegitimacy of the gov-
ernment, complaints, greed or other reasons. There are models presented with
Agents Based Modelling (ABM) that are proposed: for modelling civilian vio-
lence, confrontations between two opposing groups [11 ], rebellion [6 ] as well as
wars [8 ]. In our case three types of agents are specified: active civilians who are
part of the protesters, peaceful civilians who do not have their status defined,
and police officers guarding government institutions and trying to calm the angry
crowd. We will focus on the interactions of active agents with peaceful agents and
police agents with active and peaceful agents. In situations of protest resulting
from dissatisfaction with the central government, peaceful civilian citizens are
neutral participants in the society that is settled in the midst of troubles and dif-
ficulties. They are silent and quiet laws, but they become active if the conditions
are favourable, in order to express revolt and irritation in public. Police officers
are keeping their routine through the involvement of activists in jail and through
strategies that determine the success of management and control of violence. The
novelty of the paper is application of intuitionistic fuzzy sets and intuitionistic
relations for agent based modelling of conflict situations in case of protest. The
aim is more realistic representation of the participants of social system in our
case.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the fuzzy
sets and the agents based modelling. Section 3 describes the intuitionistic rela-
tions in agent based modelling context. In Section 4 are simulated different events
with fuzzy sets. In Section 5 is determined the similarity between the agents. In
section 6 some concluding remarks and future works are written.
2. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets. In contrast to traditional agent-based models,
the fuzzy agents also take into account the stochastic complement of human
behaviour. In this paper we try to apply strategies, selected from the iterative
dilemma of the prisoners [4 ], using Intuitionistic Fuzzy (IF) rules [2 ] for making
the decision [1 ]. In this way in simulation based on a two-player game, we can
use fuzzy strategies when analytic solutions do not exist or are very difficult to
get [12 ].
Let U be a not empty set. An intuitionistic fuzzy set A from U has the
following form:
(1) A = {hx, µA (x), νA (x)i|x ∈ U },
where the functions µA (x), νA (x) : U → [0, 1] define in a corresponding manner
the degree of membership or non-membership of an element x [2 ]. We have that
πA (x) = 1 − µA (x) − νA (x) and is called the index of uncertainty in Intuitionistic
Fuzzy Set (IFS) or hesitation of x in A. πA (x) is the degree of uncertainty of
x ∈ U of IFS A and πA (x) ∈ [0, 1] and 0 ≤ πA (x) ≤ 1 for every x ∈ U . πA (x) is
a lack of knowledge of whether it belongs to IFS A or not.

C. R. Acad. Bulg. Sci., 71, No 6, 2018 813

 IF sets are useful in environments with obscure and unreliable (unsafe) infor-
mation about some aspects of studying human society. Many features of a person
do not have a clear boundary or this boundary depends on the interpretation or
context, for example how long or how nice a person is, but this can be represented
by an IFS that describes the person himself and gives them a degree of member-
ship of certain characteristic. By using the IF sets, we can visibly increase the
accuracy of the model and their evolution. In fuzzy sets [18 ], the truth value,
called “truth degree”, is a real number in the interval [0, 1]. In the intuitionistic
fuzzy case (see [2 ]), one more value – “falsity degree” – is added. It is again in
the interval [0, 1]. Thus, to the proposition p, two real numbers, µ(p) and ν(p),
are assigned with the following constraint:

µ(p) + ν(p) ≤ 1.

Let S be a set of propositions and let us have the evaluation function

V : S → [0, 1] × [0, 1], in such a way that: V (T ) = h1, 0i, V (F ) = h0, 1i, where T
and F are the logical truth and falsity, respectively, and

V (p) = hµ(p), ν(p)i.

3. Intuitionistic fuzzy relations in ABM context. We will define the

IFS and IF relationships in the set U with agents, U = {Individi }i=1,N to present
different attributes, linguistic variables, and relationships between agents (their
interactions). An analysis of the evolution of attributes in human society is a
case that is important for the agent-based model. However, the abstraction of
modelling with agents in some aspects is very simplified and does not give social
science scientists the interpretation of results in the same conditions that the
survey data is expressed in real life. These facts motivate the use of the IF sets
to get models with agents closer to the real system. In this way, ABM uses the
IF sets in some aspects, such as: relationships between agents, some different
attributes that determine the properties of agents, the function of similarity, the
evolution of real conditions of agents, etc. Applying IFS ABM becomes more
realistic compared with other authors [11 ].
In the context of the theme in multi-agent systems (MAS), the interactions
between agents “active” and “peaceful” are determined, as well as “policemen”
and “peaceful”, in which in this interaction the active agent can “persuade” or
“not persuade” the peaceful agent to join the crowd (mass) as well as the inter-
actions between police and peaceful civilians, who try not to allow them to join
the crowd and keep them from violent agents.
Let Ragent : U × U → [0, 1] be IF relation in a group of agents that gives
a degree of “interaction (to convince)” between agents of different groups. This
IF “persuasion” gives one degree of interaction in the interval [0, 1] for each pair
of agents in the neighbourhood (who are able to communicate). Let Ind be an

814 S. Ismaili, S. Fidanova

agent in U . The set Agent(Ind) is defined as the set of all agents x ∈ U where
Ragent (Ind, x) is greater than 0. Every agent from a situation when “encountered
by accident” another agent from other groups (another type of agents) who are
inside their vision is interacting. Some limitations can be introduced in this way
of definition in order to adapt to the needs of the context. The relation “same
goals (disregard for the authorities, complaints . . . )” is also fuzzy with the fact
that this relationship will be “1” if there is much greater dissatisfaction and “0”
with agents close to the government and a level between 0 and 1 for others.
Thus, features that will be “peaceful”, or remain “peaceful” are modelled with
IF relationship Rkooperon : U × U → [0, 1].
Example. Let ϕ(Individi , t) be the number of the possible movements of
the agent Individi at the moment t. Let ϕu (Individi , t), ϕh (Individi , t) and
ϕi (Individi , t) be the number of the possible movements in the network at the
time t, useful, harmful and indifferent respectively, thus:

ϕu (Individi , t) + ϕh (Individi , t) + ϕi (fi , t) = ϕ(Individi , t)

PN PN PN
ϕu (Individi ,t) ϕh (Individi ,t) ϕi (Individi ,t)
µ(t) = Pi=1
N , ν(t) = Pi=1
N , π(t) = Pi=1
N .
i=1 ϕ(Individi ,t) i=1 ϕ(Individi ,t) i=1 ϕ(Individi ,t)

Let there be 8 agents of some type and the possible movements are shown in
Table 1.
Table 1
Possible movements with 8 agents

Possible ϕ=4 ϕ=6 ϕ=3 ϕ=4 ϕ=8 ϕ=8 ϕ=8 ϕ=5

Useful ϕu = 1 ϕu = 2 ϕu = 1 ϕu = 2 ϕu = 1 ϕu = 3 ϕu = 1 ϕu = 3
Harmful ϕh = 2 ϕh = 3 ϕh = 1 ϕh = 1 ϕh = 6 ϕh = 3 ϕh = 3 ϕh = 1
Indifferent ϕi = 1 ϕi = 1 ϕ1 = 1 ϕi = 1 ϕi = 1 ϕi = 2 ϕi = 4 ϕi = 1

From Table 1 µ(t) = 0.304, ν(t) = 0.435 and π(t) = 0.261. Hence µ(t) +
ν(t) + π(t) = 1 and the pair (µ(t), ν(t)) is an intuitionistic fuzzy estimation of the
network, where the agents are in the moment t.
4. Simulating events with fuzzy sets. Social systems are complex adap-
tive systems, then we will try to simulate an event that is under development,
at the moment we look at it. Once a decision has been taken (for example, be-
coming active or remaining peaceful), then such a decision can be defined as a
classic relation: after a peaceful agent’s decision will go into “active” or remain
“peaceful”. We suggest to apply this classic relationship Rf qinje : U × U → {0, 1}
to use approximate reasoning and IF relations. Surely, if we know the relation
Rf qinje , and we also know a classical set U, which is defined as:

1, ∃ ind2 | Rf qinje (ind, ind2) = 1
(2) Active(ind) = ,
0, otherwise

C. R. Acad. Bulg. Sci., 71, No 6, 2018 815

 peacef ul(ind) = N OT ′ active′ (ind)AN D N OT ′ police′ (ind).
The attributes that will be presented here as variables that decide whether an
agent will make a decision about his status in the crowd (if there is displeasure
to the central government, whether the central government has no legitimacy,
the duration of the protest, and if the chances are to be arrested then, the risk
is low), all expressed by the parameters G-Appeals, L-legitimacy, GR-greed, Tf-
factor time, RA-risk, as defined above in the model. One has been chosen to be
“more compact”, since such compactness is defined as the combination of what is
the result of the harmfulness of the above-mentioned attributes and the likelihood
of being misleading (according to the deficiencies of the variables it is established
whether these are peaceful, active or policeman). Even this is a simplification
of actual events and later it will use some “coincidence” in this process. This
important information on how the interaction between the two agents can be
done can be taken as a conclusion from the IF relation that will be defined as
Rcompatible : U ×U → [0, 1], which can be obtained using the IF Ordered Weighted
Averaging (IFOWA) aggregation operator [17 ], and operations in the classical sets:

“active” : U → [0, 1]; “peacef ull” : U → [0, 1]; “police” : U → [0, 1]

and an IF rule for the conclusion, where the premise is conjuction from the classi-
cal sets. Concerning the conclusion, we will use the IFOWA [17 ], which represents
the aggregation of multi-criteria procedures. By specifying the ordered weights
w (whose sum will always result in 1) it is possible to change the shape of the
aggregation.
We can formally determine the IF relation Rcompatible : U × U → [0, 1], using
the IF relation Rsimilarity : U × U → [0, 1] and Ragent : U × U → [0, 1] as in the
following relations:

Rcompatible (Ind, Ind2) = IF OW A(Ragent (Ind, Ind2), Rsimilarity (Ind, Ind2)) =

= w1 ∗ Ragent (Ind, Ind2) ⊕ w2 ∗ Rsimilarity (Ind, Ind2)

for all Ind, Ind2 ∈ U where w1 + w2 = 1.
After calculating the IF relation Rcompatible , IF relation Rinteraction : U ×U →
[0, 1] can be calculated using the set of “peaceful” U , as below:

Rinteraction (Ind, Ind2) = active(Ind) AN D peacef ul(Ind2)

AN D Rcompatible (Ind, Ind2)

For police agents we will have:

Rinteraction (Ind, Ind2) = police(Ind) AN D peacef ul(Ind2)

AN D Rcompatible (Ind, Ind2)

816 S. Ismaili, S. Fidanova

 5. Determine the similarity between agents. To calculate fuzzy rela-
tions Rcompatible used to see the status of agents, we have used the IF relationship
Rsimilarity : U × U → [0, 1]. In MAS, the similarity is modelled and implemented
through an algorithm that collects more data which compare the clearly defined
attributes of agents. While defining IFS over these variables (attributes) and
fuzzing the operator of similarity in their base, we will be able to have much
greater accuracy in determining the similarity between individuals. In addition,
with these fuzzy sets we will be able to draw a conclusion based on them. First
IFS is determined based on the variables defined by each agent. Although, if
there are some variables that can not be fuzzed, more of them will be defined in
the IFS. Now, with the formation of an IFS with attributes that characterize the
particular agent, with them we can determine the IF similarity that generalizes
the classical relation of equivalence. Thus, using it, we define the similarity as
T-indistinguishability (as in [16 ]) which generalizes the classical relation of equiv-
alence. This we can define from the negation of distance T ∗ . A mathematical
explanation is given in [16 ], without entering into details, the distance between
the attributes of the agents makes a comparison of how “far (different) are these
attributes” so that, the negation of this gives us how they are similar.
If we mark with α the attributes of the agent i, and mark with A the set
with these attributes, then Rsimilarity will be calculated as:

Rsimilarity (Ind, Ind2) = IF OW A(∀αi ∈ {Ind, N (d(αi (Ind), αi (Ind2))})

After specifying how the ordered weights w (whose sum is always 1), it is possible
to change the form of aggregation. Through these weights it is possible to control
the importance of each attribute in the global similarity. Let us focus on direct
interaction between agents. As mentioned earlier in this complex adaptive system,
there are several attributes that affect one another. The attributes, such as gender
or age, that characterize the participants in the crowd, in which they can not be
influenced by other attributes, but some, like ideology, economic status, status in
society, are influenced by political trends or other attributes. This local influence
on a person with the definition of “fuzzy concepts” can not be easily established.
Let A be an IFS in U that expresses attributes (characteristic) of a man. Let
A
∆ be the variation (changes) of the attributes A of the corresponding agent Ind
with its environment ∆A : U → [0, 1], which determines the impact of character-
istic A from the average of each agent Ind and can be defined as the aggregation
of all influences. This influence is determined by the “proximity” of the agent
“Ind”, the distance d between the selected attributes is expressed by:

∆A (Ind) = IF OW Ai=1,...,N (Rsimilarity (Ind, Indi ) AN D d(X(Ind) − X(Indi )))

Let Rsimilarity (Ind, Ind2) : U × U → [0, 1] be IF in a set of individuals

who give them a degree of “similarity”. This IF relation is determined by the

C. R. Acad. Bulg. Sci., 71, No 6, 2018 817

aggregation (OWA) classical relation “fqinje” with the fuzzy relations Ragent and
Rpolice .
Rsimilarity (Ind, Ind2) =

= IF OW A(Rf qinje (Ind, Ind2), Ragent (Ind, Ind2), Rpolice (Ind, Ind2)) =

= w1 ∗ Rcouple (Ind, Ind2) ⊕ w2 ∗ Ragent (Ind, Ind2) ⊕ w3 ∗ Rpolice (Ind, Ind2)

and the evolution of one attribute is determined by each individual as well

A(Ind) = OW A(A(Ind), ∆A (Ind)).

Another important aspect of agents is their condition. The agent’s condition

is defined by his position in society and determines his behaviour. Therefore,
an agent in a “peaceful” state who is an accomplice in power can not influence,
while an agent with no suitable position will be more likely to join the crowd.
But where are the boundaries between the states? In IF systems this will depend
on attributes: greed, legitimacy, and risk to be closed. Since there is not such a
strict limit here, it is necessary to apply the IF sets.
6. Conclusion. In this paper intuitionistic fuzzy sets in agent based mod-
elling are applied. We have focused on conflict situations during a protest. In
complex social systems some of the variables are not strongly determined and
can have level of uncertainty. The difference from other authors is application
of IFS. IFS gives a possibility to represent social systems in more realistic way.
Therefore different events and level of interactions are simulated using IF sets
and IF relations.

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Faculty of Natural and
Mathematical Sciences
State University of Tetovo
Tetovo, Macedonia
e-mail: shpend.ismaili@unite.edu.mk,
∗
Institute of Information and
Communication Technologies
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Acad. G. Bonchev St, Bl. 25A
1113 Sofia, Bulgaria
e-mail: stefka@parallel.bas.bg

C. R. Acad. Bulg. Sci., 71, No 6, 2018 819