Path optimization using fuzzy distance approach

The main objective of this paper is to optimize the Web-surfing, i.e., to find the optimal path set leading to a target page in a specific Web site with links to other domains. The frequency of accessing various links (access rate), and the time taken to retrieve target pages (retrieval rate) are considered as decisive factors. The access and the retrieval rate are affected by many factors like availability of channels, server capability, the accessing time etc., and are changing periodically. The expected access rate and the required retrieval rate are expressed as fuzzy sets. All paths are identified between the source and destination pages. Users' opinions are collected on each path that leads to target page according to their experience while surfing with regard to access rate and retrieval rate, and a fuzzy opinion matrix is formulated. From the overall fuzzy opinion on each link in a path, a fuzzy Hurwicz opinion set is derived using an optimism-pessimism index. The fuzzy distance between this opinion set and the actual requirement set is estimated. The path that yields minimum fuzzy distance is considered as the optimal path from the source to the destination.