Deal with information and uncertainty properly and efficiently using tools emerging from generalized information theory
Uncertainty and Information: Foundations of Generalized Information Theory contains comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of results that have emerged from a research program begun by the author in the early 1990s under the name "generalized information theory" (GIT). This ongoing research program aims to develop a formal mathematical treatment of the interrelated concepts of uncertainty and information in all their varieties. In GIT, as in classical information theory, uncertainty (predictive, retrodictive, diagnostic, prescriptive, and the like) is viewed as a manifestation of information deficiency, while information is viewed as anything capable of reducing the uncertainty. A broad conceptual framework for GIT is obtained by expanding the formalized language of classical set theory to include more expressive formalized languages based on fuzzy sets of various types, and by expanding classical theory of additive measures to include more expressive non-additive measures of various types.
This landmark book examines each of several theories for dealing with particular types of uncertainty at the following four levels:
* Mathematical formalization of the conceived type of uncertainty
* Calculus for manipulating this particular type of uncertainty
* Justifiable ways of measuring the amount of uncertainty in any situation formalizable in the theory
* Methodological aspects of the theory
With extensive use of examples and illustrations to clarify complex material and demonstrate practical applications, generous historical and bibliographical notes, end-of-chapter exercises to test readers' newfound knowledge, glossaries, and an Instructor's Manual, this is an excellent graduate-level textbook, as well as an outstanding reference for researchers and practitioners who deal with the various problems involving uncertainty and information.An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available from the Wiley editorial department.

For four decades, information theory has been viewed almost exclusively as a theory based upon the Shannon measure of uncertainty and information, usually referred to as Shannon entropy. Since the publication of Shannon's seminal paper in 1948, the theory has grown extremely rapidly and has been applied with varied success in almost all areas of human endeavor. At this time, the Shannon information theory is a well established and developed body of knowledge. Among its most significant recent contributions have been the use of the complementary principles of minimum and maximum entropy in dealing with a variety of fundamental systems problems such as predic tive systems modelling, pattern recognition, image reconstruction, and the like. Since its inception in 1948, the Shannon theory has been viewed as a restricted information theory. It has often been argued that the theory is capable of dealing only with syntactic aspects of information, but not with its semantic and pragmatic aspects. This restriction was considered a v~rtue by some experts and a vice by others. More recently, however, various arguments have been made that the theory can be appropriately modified to account for semantic aspects of in formation as well. Some of the most convincing arguments in this regard are in cluded in Fred Dretske's Know/edge & Flow of Information (The M.LT. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1981) and in this book by Guy lumarie.