Abstract
Parameter reduction is a very important technique in many fields, including pattern recognition. Many reduction techniques have been reported for fuzzy soft sets to solve decision-making problems. However, there is almost no attention to the parameter reduction of bipolar fuzzy soft sets, which take advantage of the fact that membership and non-membership degrees play a symmetric role. This methodology is of great importance in many decision-making situations. In this paper, we provide a novel theoretical approach to solve decision-making problems based on bipolar fuzzy soft sets and study four types of parameter reductions of such sets. Parameter reduction algorithms are developed and illustrated through examples. The experimental results prove that our proposed parameter reduction techniques delete the irrelevant parameters while keeping definite decision-making choices unchanged. Moreover, the reduction algorithms are compared regarding the degree of ease of computing reduction, applicability, exact degree of reduction, applied situation, and multi-use of parameter reduction. Finally, a real application is developed to describe the validity of our proposed reduction algorithms.