Review study on fuzzy cognitive maps and their applications during the last decade

Abstract

This survey work tries to review the most recent applications and trends on fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs) at the last ten years. FCMs are inference networks, using cyclic directed graphs, for knowledge representation and reasoning. In the past decade, FCMs have gained considerable research interest and are widely used to analyze causal systems such as system control, decision making, management, risk analysis, text categorization, prediction etc. Some example application domains, such as engineering, social and political sciences, business, information technology, medicine and environment, where the FCMs emerged a considerable degree of applicability were selected Their dynamic characteristics and learning methodologies make them essential for modeling, analysis, prediction and decision making tasks as they improve the performance of these systems. A survey on FCM studies concentrated on FCM applications on diverse scientific fields is elaborated during the last decade. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.