Statement and goals

Web intelligence is the area of scientific research and development that explores the roles and makes use of artificial intelligence and information technology methodologies for enabling the design and implementation of new products, services and frameworks that are empowered by the World Wide Web. In particular, Web intelligence achieves this goal through a combination of digital analytics, which examines how website visitors view and interact with a site’s pages and features, and business intelligence, which allows a corporation’s management to use data on customer purchasing patterns, demographics, and demand trends to make effective strategic decisions. As an example, search engines are one of the Internet applications that better benefit from this innovative method.

Thanks to the aforementioned combination of technologies, Web Intelligence enables the implementation of enhanced systems aimed at improving users' experience in using and manipulating web resources, and companies' activities in deploying profiled and personalised contents and services. However, the imprecise and vague nature of World Wide Web, due to the large amount of information online and the different types of interaction that users and companies can have with this information, requires a new vision of web intelligence in which the treatment of uncertainty is a key factor.

Indeed, recent literature review suggests that more and more successful developments in Web Intelligence are being integrated with fuzzy sets to enhance smart functionality such as web search systems by fuzzy matching, Internet shopping systems using fuzzy multi-agents, product recommender systems supported by fuzzy measure algorithms, e-logistics systems using fuzzy optimisation models; online customer segments using fuzzy data mining, fuzzy case-based reasoning in e-learning systems, and particularly online decision support systems supported by fuzzy set techniques. In light of the these observations, this special session is intended to form an international forum presenting innovative developments of fuzzy set applications in Web-based support systems.

The ultimate objective is to bring well-focused high quality research results in Fuzzy Web Intelligence systems with intent to identify the most promising avenues, report the main results and promote the visibility and relevance of fuzzy sets.