Generalized fuzzy rough sets by conditional probability relations

In 1982, Pawlak proposed the concept of rough sets with a practical purpose of representing indiscernibility of elements or objects in the presence of information systems. Even if it is easy to analyze, the rough set theory built on a partition induced by equivalence relation may not provide a realistic view of relationships between elements in real-world applications. Here, coverings of, or nonequivalence relations on, the universe can be considered to represent a more realistic model instead of a partition in which a generalized model of rough sets was proposed. In this paper, first a weak fuzzy similarity relation is introduced as a more realistic relation in representing the relationship between two elements of data in real-world applications. Fuzzy conditional probability relation is considered as a concrete example of the weak fuzzy similarity relation. Coverings of the universe is provided by fuzzy conditional probability relations. Generalized concepts of rough approximations and rough membership functions are proposed and defined based on coverings of the universe. Such generalization is considered as a kind of fuzzy rough set. A more generalized fuzzy rough set approximation of a given fuzzy set is proposed and discussed as an alternative to provide interval-value fuzzy sets. Their properties are examined.