Participation in the SMPS 2026 international conference
From 15 to 18 September 2026, the IRAFM team participated in the international conference SMPS 2026 – Soft Methods in Probability and Statistics, held at the University of Salento in the picturesque Italian city of Lecce.
SMPS is a biennial conference with a tradition dating back to 2002. It provides an important platform for bringing together experts from various scientific fields, particularly fuzzy modelling, soft computing, probability, and statistics. A distinctive feature of the conference is its emphasis on connecting these disciplines and developing new methods for dealing with different forms of uncertainty, vagueness, and imprecision. Examples include statistical methods designed for the analysis of imprecisely measured data represented by intervals or other generalized data structures.
The conference therefore offers not only an opportunity to learn about recent research results and emerging directions, but above all a forum for exchanging ideas across different scientific communities. Bringing these communities together can lead to new approaches that extend the traditional frameworks of probability, statistics, and uncertainty modelling. Given its scientific focus and strong emphasis on interdisciplinary connections, SMPS is particularly important for IRAFM, providing a valuable opportunity to present research results, engage in scientific discussions, and strengthen international collaboration.
The programme also included a special session entitled “Novel Approaches to Data Processing under Uncertainty and Vagueness”, co-organized by Michal Holčapek and Martina Daňková from IRAFM together with Przemysław Grzegorzewski from the Warsaw University of Technology. The session focused on novel approaches to data processing under uncertainty and vagueness and provided a forum for presenting and discussing recent developments in this area.
IRAFM researchers presented new results of their research on the visualization of association rules using Hasse diagrams, statistical inference for the fuzzy transform, data-driven approaches, and inference mechanisms in fuzzy-probabilistic systems. The presented results attracted considerable interest from the participants and stimulated lively scientific discussions, generating a number of interesting questions, suggestions, and ideas for further research.
Another highly valuable aspect of the conference was the opportunity for face-to-face meetings and discussions with many colleagues, including Susanne Saminger-Platz (aggregation methods and fuzzy logic), María Ángeles Gil (statistics of fuzzy and imprecise data), Fabrizio Durante (copulas and dependence modelling), Przemysław Grzegorzewski (mathematical statistics and fuzzy sets), Olgierd Hryniewicz (statistics, reliability, and fuzzy methods), Olivier Strauss (robust statistics and uncertainty modelling), and Christophe Marsala (fuzzy machine learning and explainable artificial intelligence).
And finally, some excellent news for both IRAFM and Ostrava: we are greatly honoured that the next SMPS conference, SMPS 2028, will take place in Ostrava and will be organized by IRAFM.
We look forward to welcoming the international SMPS community to Ostrava in two years’ time and continuing the long-standing tradition of this conference.
Updated: 29. 09. 2026
