Message from Editors

In recent years there has been a remarkable increase in research activity connected with fuzzy thinking in Iran and its neighboring countries, and these countries have hosted several international conferences in many fields related to fuzzy sets and systems. We have been encouraged to launch this new journal by friends around the world, some of whom have been kind enough to respond to our appeal for invited papers. We would like to express our immense gratitude to all of them as well as to the members of the editorial board and all our colleagues who have agreed to act as referees for the journal. As always, Professor Lotfi Zadeh has been a beacon of light and we owe him very special thanks. This issue of the journal is dedicated to the late Professor V. Tahani of the Isfahan University of Technology, both a friend and much esteemed colleague who, after a protracted fight with cancer, passed away in September 2000, much too young.