Data science is proving to be one of the major trends of the second decade of the 21st century. Even though the term was coined by Peter Naur in the mid 1960s as ‘datalogy’, or the science of data, it is in the context of Data Analytics and especially of Big Data that data science has emerged as a new paradigm. Fuzzy and Crisp strategies are two of the most widespread approaches within the Computational Intelligence umbrella.

The Fuzzy Systems and Data Mining (FSDM) conference series has become established as a consolidated event offering contemporary research conducted by leading experts in various aspects of Artificial Intelligence. FSDM is a yearly international conference covering four main groups of topics:

• Data mining

• Fuzzy theory, algorithm and system

• Fuzzy application

• Interdisciplinary field of fuzzy logic and data mining.

This thematic conference started two years ago. FSDM 2015 took place in Shanghai (China) in December. The proceedings were published in the remarkable book series Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications (FAIA) by IOS Press. A special issue was published in the Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems (IOS Press) as a post-conference follow-up. FSDM 2016 was held in Macau (China) in December and the proceedings were published as Vol. 293 in the FAIA series. In addition, one special issue was published in the Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems and another is in preparation for Filomat.

Following the huge success of the previous editions, the third conference in the FSDM series is being held at Hualien (Taiwan), where experts, researchers, academics and industry people will introduce the latest developments in the field of Fuzzy Sets and Data Mining. Hualien City is the capital of Hualien County, and is located on the east coast of Taiwan on the Pacific Ocean. Its population exceeds 100,000. There are three Universities in Hualien and according to the figures the National Dong Hwa University is considered the most outstanding.

This book contains the papers accepted and presented at the 3rd International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Data Mining (FSDM 2017), held on 24–27 November 2017 in Hualien, Taiwan and hosted by National Dong Hwa University. All papers were carefully reviewed by programme committee members and took into consideration the breadth and depth of the research topics that fall within the scope of FSDM. Additionally, FSDM 2017 was a reference conference, and attracted two remarkable keynote speakers: Prof. Hari Mohan Srivastava from Canada, Prof. Shun-Feng Su from Taiwan. The publication of a special issue in Filomat is scheduled.

I am very happy to announce that this year FSDM has received more submissions than either the 2015 or 2016 editions. I would like to thank all the keynote speakers and authors for their effort in preparing a contribution for this leading international conference. Moreover, I am very grateful to the all those who devoted time to evaluate the papers, especially the programme committee members and reviewers. It is a great honour to continue with the publication of these proceedings in the prestigious series Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications (FAIA) by IOS Press. Our particular thanks also go to J. Breuker, N. Guarino, J.N. Kok, R. López de Mántaras, J. Liu, R. Mizoguchi, M. Musen, S.K. Pal and N. Zhong, the FAIA series editors, for once again supporting this conference.

Finally, I hope you will enjoy your stay in Hualien City and at the National Dong Hwa University. Have a magnificent experience in both places. The climate in Hualien is very mild and, according to the historical weather statistics for November, the temperature is likely to be between 19 and 25 degrees (Celsius) and the average number of rainy days for the month around 10.

October 17th 2017

Antonio J. Tallón-Ballesteros

University of Seville (Spain)