Fuzzy modeling and analytic hierarchy processing to quantify risk levels associated with occupational injuries. I. The development of fuzzy-linguistic risk levels

This paper presents the Part I in a two-phase research project to develop a fuzzy-linguistic expert system for quantifying and predicting the risk of occupational injury, specifically, cumulative trauma disorders of the forearm and hand. This aspect of the research focuses on the development and representation of linguistic variables to qualify risk levels. These variables are then quantified using fuzzy-set theory, thus allowing the model to evaluate qualitative and quantitative data. These linguistic risk variables may be applied to other potentially hazardous environments. The three phases of the knowledge acquisition and variable development are covered, as well as the feasibility of the linguistic variables.