The QL&SC 2012 is a major symposium for scientists, and practitioners all around the world to present their latest researches, results, ideas, developments and applications in such areas as quantitative logic, many-valued logic, fuzzy logic, quantification of software, artificial intelligence, fuzzy sets and systems and soft computing.This invaluable book provides a broad introduction to the fuzzy reasoning and soft computing. It is certain one should not go too far in approximation and optimization, and a certain degree must be kept in mind. This is the essential idea of quantitative logic and soft computing.The explanations in the book are complete to provide the necessary background material needed to go further into the subject and explore the research literature. It is suitable reading for graduate students. It provides a platform for mutual exchanges from top experts and scholars around the world in this field.

This book is the proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Quantitative Logic and Soft Computing (QLSC2016) held 14-17, October, 2016 in Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, China. It includes 61 papers, of which 5 are plenary talks( 3 abstracts and 2 full length talks). QLSC2016 was the fourth in a series of conferences on Quantitative Logic and Soft Computing. This conference was a major symposium for scientists, engineers and practitioners to present their updated results, ideas, developments and applications in all areas of quantitative logic and soft computing. The book aims to strengthen relations between industry research laboratories and universities in fields such as quantitative logic and soft computing worldwide as follows: (1) Quantitative Logic and Uncertainty Logic; (2) Automata and Quantification of Software; (3) Fuzzy Connectives and Fuzzy Reasoning; (4) Fuzzy Logical Algebras; (5) Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing; (6) Fuzzy Sets Theory and Applications.

While recruiting college graduates, the author was surprised to find that many candidates who were working toward their master's degrees in computer science were unable to demonstrate the desired programming skills, though they all indicated in their resumes that they are proficient in C/C++ and objected oriented programming. It appears to the author that there is a gap between academic training and real world computing. As a veteran software developer with an interdisciplinary education background in engineering and applied mathematics, the author was determined to write a book for those who want to pursue a career in developing computational software for engineering and scientific applications. Readers will learn not only a disciplined way to implement numerical methods but also the software development process as a whole. In reading this book and completing all of the hands-on programming exercises, readers will gain an assured confidence and the sound programming skills needed to work in a software house or to develop their own computational software. Numerical methods in this book include evaluation of polynomial and series, root-finding, linear and nonlinear systems, inverse of a matrix, eigenvalues and eigenvector, integration, and least squares approximation. These methods are grouped and presented based on their implementation styles rather than their relevance. This book is organized as follows: Chapter 1 is a fast-paced brief introduction to C/C++ programming under Microsoft Visual Studio to familiarize readers with basic C/C++ syntax and debugging tools. Chapter 2 discusses floating-point notation, comparison, and arithmetic. Rudimentary understanding of floating-point is a pre-requisite for programmers. Failure to understand it is often the source of problems in numerical programming. Chapter 3 continues the study of advanced C/C++ programming such as default arguments, data structure and class, double pointers, dynamic memory allocations, and STL containers. Algorithm efficiency analysis and big O notation will also be discussed. This chapter is designed to help readers to gain the required C/C++ proficiency in implementing numerical methods. Chapter 4 is devoted to give readers an insight on how a computational software library may actually be developed in a software house. Readers will learn how to create and use a dynamic-link library, how to design flexible test drivers, and how to write scripts to improve productivity, to execute test suites automatically, and to compare the test results with the predicted outcomes. Chapter 5 deals with recursive algorithm. Because of its problem-solving power and simplicity in implementation, recursion in numerical methods will be discussed in this chapter with emphasizes on performance and memory usage. Chapter 6 discusses linear systems. Topics include solution to system of linear equations, matrix manipulation, inverse of a matrix, eigenvalue and eigenvector. Chapter 7 and 8 explore how to use function pointers, generic data pointer, and inheritance with polymorphism to design extensible and reusable code - an important topic in software engineering. Chapter 9 discusses the least square approximation method whose applications can be found in many fields such as computer-aided design, metrology, image processing, etc. Chapter 10 aims to develop a simple windows-based application for data visualization and manipulation. Through this miniature application, readers will get a glimpse of how sophisticated CAD/CAM systems are developed. Chapter 11 discusses how classical numerical methods can be parallelized to take the advantage of multi-thread programming. Common problems associated with parallel computing such as data race conditions, workload balance, synchronization, and parallel slowdown are discussed in detail. Appendix A is a brief introduction to Perl programming. Appendix B contains answers to all seven pre-interview questions given in the preface.