Measure of similarity between interval-valued fuzzy numbers for fuzzy recommendation process based on quadratic-mean operator

Interval-valued fuzzy numbers are very useful for representing a decision-maker's evaluations of parameters or variables associated with real-world problems. This study presents a new similarity measure that is based on the quadratic-mean operator to solve problems that involve the measurement of similarity between interval-valued fuzzy numbers. Some properties of the proposed similarity measure have been demonstrated, and 15 sets of interval-valued fuzzy numbers are adopted to compare the proposed method with existing similarity measures. The results of the comparison indicate that the proposed similarity measure is better than existing methods. Finally, the proposed similarity measure is used to deal with fuzzy recommendation process. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.