In Memoriam


Adam Mrózek

Adam Mrózek

1948 - 1999

Adam Mrózek was born on February the 3rd, 1948, in the village of Pewel Mała, located some 10km to the east from Żywiec in the southern part of Poland. He received his MSc, PhD (cum laude) and DSc degrees from the Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, in 1970, 1974 and 1989 respectively. From 1970 A. Mrózek worked at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics, Polish Academy of Sciences, and from 1992 at the Institute of Informatics, SUT. He died on 26th August 1999. He was a gifted lecturer and teacher, the supervisor or reviewer of several PhD theses, and an irreplaceable initiator and co-ordinator of intelligent computer system applications in various domains of life (the centre for the visually impaired in Laski being the example).

Research interests of Professor Mrózek focused on such development of computer systems and software which enables to employ them in a variety of human activities, from control of technological processes, through decision support, to assistance in creative works.

The leading direction of his research was formed as a result of long-standing, frequently negative, experiences connected with attempts at synthesis and implementation of control algorithms for complex technological objects by means of mathematical models, in real time. Since technological processes are controlled by operators - experts, Professor Mrózek undertook works on using the knowledge and experience of operators for synthesis of control algorithms. Characteristic features of systems to be designed were softness, incompleteness and uncertainty of information.

In the initial phase of operator knowledge modelling research, A. Mrózek exploited fuzzy sets theory (proposed by Professor L.A. Zadeh) but found definitions of membership functions problematic, then considered the approach of decision tables, which had the significant disadvantage of the lack of formal methods of their verification.

1980s brought the personal encounter with Professor Zdzisław Pawlak, the founder of rough sets theory, elements of which quickly turned out to be effective in analysis and minimisation of tables that describe an operator - expert behaviour. This meeting with Professor Pawlak had the prevailing influence on the scientific research of A. Mrózek that followed.

In the last years of Professor Mrózek life exploitation of rough sets theory contributed to introduction of so-called rough controller idea, extension of application areas to economic processes and medical diagnostic. A. Mrózek worked also on application of Markow normal algorithms and deterministic systems for synthesis of Finite States Machines, the purpose of which was to simulate behaviour of a man solving some class of problems, and specialised tasks of pattern recognition.

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