A New Approach to Representing and Defuzzifying a
Z-number and Z-valuation
Zhiquan Xiao
Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Automation
Wuhan Textile University
Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. China
e-mail: zhiquan_xiao@wtu.edu.cn
Abstract—The concepts of Z-number and Z-valuation were
introduced by Zadeh in 2011. Z-number is an ordered pair (A, B)
while a Z-valuation is an ordered triple (X, A, B) that indicates it
is equal to the assignment statement variable X is (A, B). In this
paper, with the consideration of thinking uncertainty, the second
component B of Z-number towards the first component A of Z-
number is regarded as the uncertain region of the fuzzy number.
Base on this understanding, the paper discussed the approach to
converting from a Z-number to a crisp number. First the fuzzy
number of A is converted to an interval-valued fuzzy set with
footprint of uncertainty (FOU). Then, by computing the centroid
of the interval-valued fuzzy set with K-M algorithm, the Z-
number is converted to a crisp number which can be used for
decision making.
Keywords—Z-number; Z-valuation; fuzzy number; interval-
valued fuzzy set; subjective probability
I. INTRODUCTION
Uncertainty is one of the most universal phenomena in the
world. People think and communicate with natural languages
which always contain lots of uncertainties. Much of the
information on which decisions are based is uncertain. There
are two basic types of uncertainty that may be present in real-
world situations: stochastic uncertainty and fuzziness or
vagueness. The former is due to a lack of information so the
future state of the system may not be known completely. This
type of uncertainty has stochastic character and has been
handled by probability theory and statistics. The latter concerns
the description of the semantic meaning of the events,
phenomena or statements themselves, and Zadeh firstly
introduced fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic theory to deal with such
kind of uncertainty [1],[2]. From then on many further
researches are carried out and some new theories are presented
to deal with the uncertainty from different perspectives and in
wider areas.
While in decision making, the issue of reliability of
information is of great importance. It is intrinsically complex –
an issue that does not lend itself to rigorous formal analysis [3].
In 2011, Zadeh introduced a new fuzzy-theoretic concept of Z-
number [3], which is an order pair of fuzzy numbers (A, B).
The first component, A, is a restriction (constraint), R(X), on
the values which a real-valued uncertain variable, X, can take.
And the second component, B, is a reliability of the first
978-1-4673-7189-6/15/$31.00©2015 IEEE
component. The Z-number relates to the issue of reliability of
information which plays an important role in planning
decision-making, formulation of algorithms and management
of information, so it should have more potential in describing
and dealing with perceptual based information or knowledge.
Sankar K. Pal [4] presented a comprehensive investigation of
the Z-number approach to Computing With Words (CWW), in
which the Z-number serves as a model of linguistic
summarization of natural language statements, a technique to
merge human-affective perspectives with CWW, and
consequently can be envisaged to play a radical role in the
domain of CWW-based system design and Natural Language
Processing (NLP). Recently, Bingyi KANG [5] etc. proposed a
method that applied the Z-numbers in solving the multi-criteria
decision making problem. To convert the Z-numbers to crisp
numbers for computations of decision making, the proposed
method requires that the two components of Z-numbers should
be triangular fuzzy numbers, due to the approach introduced by
Chou [6]. Yager [7] paid more attention to Z-valuations and
proposed the approach to manipulate and combine multiple Z-
valuations, and described the relationship between Z-numbers
and linguistic summaries. Especially, Yager presented the
representation of Z-valuations in terms of Dempster-Shafer
belief structures by means of type-2 fuzzy sets, where the
second component, B, is described as an interval of belief.
It is noted that Z-valuations can be naturally used to express
propositions in a natural language, so this makes sense of the
study of applications of Z-valuations, together with Z-numbers,
in decision making based on experts’ linguistic assessments.
This paper will discuss some personal understandings of Z-
valuations, as the concept of a Z-number may be generalized in
various ways indicated by Zadeh [3]. Based on such
understanding, the idea and approach of converting Z-
valuations and Z-numbers to crisp numbers is proposed. This
may be useful in decision making with Z-numbers under
uncertain environment.
The paper is organized as follows. Section II briefly
reviews some preliminary concepts and definitions that will be
used in the following sections. Some understandings of Z-
valuations and Z-numbers are proposed in Section III. In
Section IV, a method to convert a Z-number to a crisp number
is presented. Finally conclusions are arrived in Section V.
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 II. PRELIMINARIES where μ AL ( x) and μ UA ( x) are the lower and upper limits of
The details on some basic concepts used in this research are degree of membership, respectively.
discussed as follows. More details can be found in [8], [9], [10],
[11]. III. SOME UNDERSTANDINGS OF Z-VALUATION
Definition 1. A fuzzy number A is described as any fuzzy While in describing the concept of Z-numbers, Zadeh
subset of the real line R, of which the membership function is proposed the notion, Z-valuation [3]. The ordered triple (X, A,
μ A ( x ) : R → [ 0,1] , and it has the following features: B) is referred to as a Z-valuation that is equivalent to an
assignment statement, X is (A, B). A plays the role of a fuzzy
(1) μ A ( x ) is a continuous mapping from R to the closed restriction, R(X), on the values which X can take. The
restriction can be written as
interval [0, 1];
(2) Constant on ( −∞, a ] : μ A ( x) = 0 and constant on
R( X ) : X is A → Poss ( X = u ) = μ A (u ) (4)
[ d , ∞ ) : μ A ( x) = 0 ;
where μ A is the membership function of A and u is a generic of
(3) μ A ( x ) is a convex fuzzy set㧧
X. In fact, A is possibility distribution of the uncertain variable,
(4) μ A ( x ) is the normalization of a fuzzy set, which means X, while μ A is possibility distribution function.
μ A ( x ) = 1 , for all x ∈ [b, c ] . The second component, B, is referred as certainty, or
sureness, confidence, reliability, strength of belief, probability,
where a, b, c and d are real numbers. possibility, etc. of the proposition, X is A. And X is A represents
a fuzzy event in R with the probability the event, p, expressed
Definition 2. A fuzzy number A = ( a, b, c ) , is said to be a as p = ³ μ A (u ) p X (u ) du , where px is the underlying (hidden)
R
triangular fuzzy number if its membership is given by
probability density of X. The Z-valuation ( X , A, B ) may be
viewed as a restriction on X defined by
­( x − a) (b − a) , a ≤ x ≤ b
°
μ A ( x ) = ® (c − x) (c − b), b ≤ x ≤ c (1) Pr ob ( X is A) is B (5)
° 0, otherwise
¯
Let’s consider some simple examples of Z-valuations:
Definition 3 A fuzzy set, A = ( a, b, c, d ) , is said to be a (budget deficit, close to 2 million dollars, very likely)
trapezoidal fuzzy number if its membership function is given (dog’s life span, about 15 years, usually)
by (degree of Mike’s diligence, very high, absolutely)
It is noted that many propositions in natural language can
be expressible as Z-valuations. A collection of Z-valuations is
­ ( x − a)
° (b − a) , a ≤ x ≤ b referred to Z-information [3].The perception-based component,
°° B, is always described in a natural language such as usually,
μ A ( x ) = ®1 ,b ≤ x ≤ c (2) quite(2)
sure, likely etc, so it can be viewed as the judgment of
°(x − d ) likelihood of the uncertain event X is A, a kind of subjective
° ,c ≤ x ≤ d probability. As the Ref. [13], the term, “subjective probability”
°̄ (c − d ) is used to denote any estimate of the probability of an event,
which is given by a subject, or inferred from his behavior.
Definition 4 A Z-number [3] is an ordered pair of fuzzy These estimates are not assumed to satisfy any axioms or
numbers that can be denoted as Z = ( A , B) . The first consistency requirements. In spite of this, the subjective
component, A, is a restriction on the values which a real-valued probability in Z-numbers should be treated properly to realize
uncertain variable, X, is allowed to take. The second compute with Z-numbers in the areas of decision-making, etc.
component, B, is a measure of reliability for the first An easy approach is to assign an linguistic value in the interval
component. [0, 1] as the degree of certainty, such as (absolutely sure, 1.0),
(vary likely, 0.9), (likely, 0.8), (not sure, 0.5), etc.
Definition 5 An interval-valued fuzzy set A is described
as [12] Furthermore, subjective probability itself is of uncertain
and imprecise, so we can treat it as imprecise probability.
A = {( x, μ L
A }
( x), μ UA ( x) ) (3) Instead of a precise value of the probabilistic measure Pr(A)=p
associated with an event A, a pair of lower and upper
μ AL ( x), μ UA ( x): X → [0,1] ∀x ∈ X , μ AL ( x) ≤ μ UA ( x) probabilities Pr(A)=[p1, p2] are used to include a set of
probabilities and quantify the aleatory and epistemic
uncertainties simultaneously. The range of the interval [p1, p2]

798
captures the epistemic uncertainty component. Several tools
can be used to deal with imprecise probability, such as
Dempster-Shafer evidence theory [14], [15], the coherent lower
prevision theory [16], possibility theory [17], fuzzy probability
[18] etc.
Then B, the subjective probability, acts on the A, can be
interpreted as the likelihood of the proposition, X is A, or μ A
ranges in a interval [ μ A , μ Ai ] defined by the subjective
i
probability. Where μ A , μ Ai are the lower and upper bound of
i
μ A . Thus we established the direct connection between Z-
number’s two components, A, and B, without using Eq. (5). A
is then converted from a common type-1 fuzzy set to an
interval-valued fuzzy set, denoted as AI . It means that the
proposition, X is A, is of some degree of uncertain, and the
possibility distribution function, μ A , varies in a certain range.
We can imagine that countless imbedded type-1 fuzzy sets
within the lower bound and upper bound are the possible
underlying possibility distribution of X.
Once the interval-valued fuzzy set, AI , is obtained, we can
convert it into a crisp number in the domain of discourse of X.
Since it incorporates two components of the Z-number, the
obtained crisp number can be viewed as the defuzzifying result
of the Z-number, and then can be used in the Z-number based
decision making problem.
IV. CONVERSIONS OF Z-NUMBER
Suppose a Z-valuation ( X , A, B ) that is described as
natural language with the form: (X, about p, very likely), where
p is a real number on the domain of discourse. A collection of
related Z-valuations can be used for fuzzy decision making.
The correspondent Z-number is denoted as Z = ( A , B) . The
first component, A, is assumed to be a trapezoidal fuzzy
number with the membership function of μ A . The second
component, B, is described as the subjective probability, a
natural language such as very likely, sure etc. To convert the Z-
number to crisp number for decision making, such procedures
could be followed [19].
(1) Convert the linguistic terms into fuzzy numbers
To deal with the linguistic terms in the Z-numbers, we
convert the linguistic terms to fuzzy numbers under the frame
of fuzzy set described in section 2. Especially, the first
component of the Z-number, A, is converted to a trapezoidal
fuzzy number A = ( a, b, c, d ) . The second one, B, can be
converted to a triangular fuzzy number, a trapezoidal fuzzy
number, an interval-valued fuzzy set or even a real number in
closed interval [0, 1] which directly indicates the reliability
with a percentage. Here according to certain prior knowledge,
assign a real number β in closed interval [0, 1] to each
linguistic term of B, for example, β = 0.9 Ÿ (very sure) ,
β = 0.8 Ÿ ( sure) , β = 0.7 Ÿ (not very sure) . Then the
membership function of the triangular fuzzy number of second
component, B, can be expressed as
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­ (1 − β )( x − a) ( p − a) + β , a ≤ x ≤ p
°
μ B ( x ) = ®(1 − β )(d − x) (d − p) + β , p ≤ x ≤ d (6)
° 0, otherwise
¯
where a and d are two parameters of membership function of
the trapezoidal fuzzy number while p the real number in the
natural language of the first component A.
(2) Convert the Z-number to crisp number
The two components are represented in fuzzy numbers,
respectively. Then we incorporate both A and B to an interval-
valued fuzzy set, denoted as AI , with bounded membership
functions, upper membership function (UMF) and lower
membership function (LMF). The uncertainty about the first
component A is conveyed by the union of all the memberships
in the bounded region, which can be called the footprint of
uncertainty (FOU). Let μ A ( x) and μ B ( x) be the membership
function of A and B , respectively. And the upper
membership function and lower membership function of AI
are denoted μ A and μ A , respectively. And the they can be
expressed as
μ A = max {( μ A ( x) − Δ( x) ) , 0} (7)
μ A = min {( μ A ( x) + Δ( x) ) , 1}
where Δ ( x) is a bound that describes the uncertainty and is
denoted as
Δ ( x) = μ A ( x) ⋅ (1 − μ B ( x)) (8)
Note that AI ( x) = [ μ A , μ A ] is thus transformed into an
interval-valued fuzzy set whose membership functions are
more adequate description of evaluator’s uncertainty that
described in the Z-number.
Next we should defuzzify the interval-valued fuzzy set to
get the crisp number that represents the Z-number. Like the
defuzzification of an interval type-2 fuzzy set, the Karnik-
Mendel (KM) algorithm [20] or enhanced KM algorithm [21]
can be applied to compute the centroid of the fuzzy set AI ( x ) .
Known that the generalized controid c ( AI ) of the interval-
valued fuzzy set is a closed interval, i.e., c ( AI ) = [cl , cr ] ,
where cl and cr are respectively the minimum and maximum
of all centroids of the embedded type-1 fuzzy sets in the FOU
of AI . In fact, there are other ways to obtain the generalized
controid c( AI ) .
According to the studies of Karnik and Mendel [20], cl and
cr can be computed from LMF and UMF of AI using the
following equations
 § L N
· § L N
·
cl = ¨ ¦ xi μ A ( xi ) + ¦ xi μ A ( xi ) ¸ ¨ ¦ μ A ( xi ) + ¦ μ A ( xi ) ¸
© i =1 i = L +1 ¹ © i =1 i = L +1 ¹
§ R N
· § R N
·
cr = ¨ ¦ xi μ A ( xi ) + ¦ xi μ A ( xi ) ¸ ¨ ¦ μ A ( xi ) + ¦ μ A ( xi ) ¸ (9)
© i =1 i = R +1 ¹ © i =1 i = R +1 ¹
where L ∈ Ν is the switch point that marks the change
between μ A and μ A and R ∈ Ν is the switch point that marks
the change from μ A to μ A . N ∈ Ν is the number of discrete
points on which the x-domain of AI has been discretized.

Once obtain the close interval [cl , cr ] , we define the crisp

number cmid ( AI ) = ( cl + cr ) 2 as the approximate centroid of
AI for simplicity. This means that the Z-number is converted
to a crisp number.
A numerical example is shown below.
Consider a Z-valuation expressed as natural language:
(budget deficit, close to 20 million dollars, likely). The
corresponding Z-number is (close to 20 million dollars, sure).
Fig. 2. The specially defined fuzzy set of the second component B
By defuzzifying the interval-valued fuzzy set AI with
enhanced KM algorithm, the final result is obtained, 21.58.
Then Z-number, (close to 20 million dollars, sure), is converted
to a crisp number, 21.58 million dollars. And then we can draw
the conclusion on Z-valuation: the budget deficit is about 21.58
million dollars.

Suppose that the domain of the discourse X=[5, 40], and we

assign a subjective probability (β = 0.8) to the certainty “sure”
according to certain prior knowledge.
Then the trapezoidal fuzzy number of the first component
A, is described as A = ( 5, 18, 22, 40 ) , while the specially
defined fuzzy set of the second component B, is established
according to Eq.(6), with the membership function μ B ( x) . The
two fuzzy sets are shown as Fig. 1 and Fig. 2.

Fig. 3. The obtained interval-valued fuzzy set

Fig. 1. The trapezoidal fuzzy number of the first component A
Then the trapezoidal fuzzy number of the first component
A is converted to an interval-valued fuzzy set AI shown in Fig.
3. Figure 2 shows that from the evaluator’s view the certainty
of the fact − budget deficit is close to 20 million dollars − is
about 0.8 (likely) in subjective probability. However, it can be
regarded that the certainty is not unevenly distributed across
the domain of the discourse [5, 40], and only the core
value,“20” , has the certainty of 1.0 while the others has the
certainty of greater than or equal to 0.8 and less than 1.0. This
can be interpreted as: the more far away of the core value the
less the certainty, but all the certainties have the bottom line of
0.8. And Fig. 3 shows the obtained interval-valued fuzzy set
which displays the uneven uncertain regions.
V. CONCLUSIONS
We first recalled the concepts of Z-numbers, Z-valuations
introduced by Zadeh. Since the concept of a Z-number may be
generalized in various ways indicated by Zadeh, some personal
understandings of Z-valuations and Z-numbers are provided in
this paper. Based on the understandings, the idea and approach
of converting Z-numbers to crisp numbers is proposed.
Considering the second component B as a subjective
probability, an interval-valued fuzzy set is established based on
the fuzzy set of the first component A. Then by computing the
centroid of the interval-valued fuzzy set with K-M algorithm,
the Z-number is converted to a crisp number. The conversion
result will be useful in fuzzy decision making, risk assessment
with Z-numbers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank the support from the State
Key Laboratory of Management and Control for Complex
System, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academic of Science
(CASIA).

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