Computational Intelligence - November 2017 - 8

Prof. Chin-Teng Lin receives the Fuzzy Systems Pioneer Award during the banquet. From right:
Hani Hagras (FUZZ-IEEE 2017 Program Chair), Francisco Herrera (FUZZ-IEEE 2017 Program
co-Chair), Chin-Teng Lin, Bernadette Bouchon-Meunier (IEEE CIS Vice-President for Conferences), Giovanni Acampora (FUZZ-IEEE 2017 General Chair) and Chin-Teng Lin's wife.

sessions. All decisions have been taken
by the Program Chairs in cooperation
with the Area and Special Session
Chairs. Papers submitted by the Program, Area, and Special Session Chairs
were handled as conflict-of-interest
papers, ensuring the anonymity of the
reviewers. All the papers were also
checked for plagiarism by using the
IEEE CrossCheck system (powered by
iThenticate APIs) and those exhibited
high levels of (self-) plagiarism were
excluded from the program.
The main streams of research appeared
to be focused on fuzzy logic control,
type-2 fuzzy logic, fuzzy decision making, fuzzy data science and fuzzy logic
for Big Data, fuzzy computer vision and
pattern recognition, fuzzy Natural Language Processing, theoretical aspects and
applications of aggregation functions
and software for soft computing. The
balance between theoretical research
and applications was well balanced in
the whole program with a strong presence from industry. Special sessions on
Fuzzy Methods and Data Mining: data
pre-processing, machine learning and their
applications and Engineering Applications of
Fuzzy Sets attracted many contributions.
These facts reflect the current interests

for theoretical and methodological solutions using fuzzy sets theory to deal
with uncertainty in different and significant application domains. It was remarkable to note that more than a quarter of
all submissions were from student authors.
Undoubtedly these figures are very encouraging demonstrating that an enthusiastic new generation of researchers is
ready to pursue further advancements in
fuzzy systems.
The organization of an international
conference of large magnitude and significance demands tremendous effort
and dedication and FUZZ-IEEE 2017
is no exception. From here, we would
like to thank the area and special session
chairs and all the conference chairs.
Their support, in various forms, has
resulted in a sound technical program.
Of course, the reviewers' timely return
of their reports was essential for the success of the conference and is greatly
appreciated. Despite the extension to
the paper submission deadline, notification of acceptance was made as planned.
This has given authors time to consider
reviewers comments and revise their
work accordingly. We would also like to
express our sincere gratitude to all the
members of the organizing committee

IEEE COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2017

for sharing with us the joy as well as the
occasional frustrations. They have shown
great enthusiasm and professionalism in
preparing the detailed arrangements for
this conference. Finally, we would also
like to extend our thanks to the authors
for submitting very high-level quality
research results and presenting them.
The conference had a number of
social activities including Opening Ceremony, IEEE CIS Joint Reception for
Students, Young Professionals and
Women in Computational Intelligence,
Welcome Reception, Coffee Breaks,
Lunches in beautiful restaurants on
Naples's waterfront, and a Banquet in a
typical Neapolitan seafood restaurant. As
a part of the banquet, Prof. Chin-Teng
Lin received the 2017 Fuzzy Systems
Pioneer Award. Moreover, an excellent
entertainment program introduced the
Neapolitan traditions and cultures to
attendees. Precisely, singers and dancers
accompanied the course of the whole
gala dinner with songs and dances of
Neapolitan cultures and traditions. During the Opening Ceremony, the Italian
Fuzzy Pioneer Awards were delivered by
Prof. Gabriella Pasi, President of EUSFLAT, to the valuable recipients: Prof.
Antonio Di Nola, Prof. Mario Fedrizzi,
Prof. Giangiacomo Gerla, Prof. Salvatore
Sessa, Prof. Settimo Termini and Prof.
Aldo Ventre.
Finally, we are confident that the
participants had a great time during
these four days and had many interesting
and fruitful discussions with our fellow
fuzzy systems researchers. Moreover, we
are sure that choosing Naples as an Italian venue to host the conference has
stimulated the networking activities also
thanks to the exceptional climate and
the wonderful scenario where all the
congressional activities were held. To
conclude, we gratefully acknowledge
that the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society had played a very active
and crucial role in the organization of
the conference.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Computational Intelligence - November 2017