A hybrid approach for building fuzzy numbers based on data and expert knowledge

Abstract: This paper presents a hybrid socio-technical methodology for constructing fuzzy numbers from numerical data while incorporating expert knowledge through an interactive Deck of Cards (DoC) process. The approach extends the existing DoC membership function construction framework by introducing a data-driven pipeline based on a convex version of fuzzy $k$-Means in which each computational step produces intermediate outputs that are translated into card-based structures for expert validation and tuning. The proposed method ensures interpretability, adaptability, and consistency between empirical evidence and expert semantics.