Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Analytic Hierarchical Process With Prioritization, Consistency Checking, and Inconsistency Repairing

Analytic hierarchy process (AHP), as one of the most important methods to tackle multiple criteria decision-making problems, has achieved much success over the past several decades. Given that linguistic expressions are much closer than numerical values or single linguistic terms to a human way of thinking and cognition, this paper investigates the AHP with comparative linguistic expressions. After providing the snapshot of classical AHP and its fuzzy extensions, we propose the framework of hesitant fuzzy linguistic AHP, which shows how to yield a decision for qualitative decision-making problems with complex linguistic expressions. First, the comparative linguistic expressions over criteria or alternatives are transformed into hesitant fuzzy linguistic elements and then the hesitant fuzzy linguistic preference relations (HFLPRs) are constructed. Considering that HFLPRs may be inconsistent, we conduct consistency checking and improving processes after obtaining priorities from the HFLPRs based on a linear programming method. Regarding the consistency-improving process, we develop a new way to establish a perfectly consistent HFLPR. The procedure of the hesitant fuzzy linguistic AHP is given in stepwise. Finally, a numerical example concerning the used-car management in a lemon market is given to illustrate the ef ciency of the proposed hesitant fuzzy linguistic AHP method.This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 71771156, in part by the 2019 Sichuan Planning Project of Social Science under Grant SC18A007, in part by the 2019 Soft Science Project of Sichuan Science and Technology Department under Grant 2019JDR0141, and in part by the Project of Innovation at Sichuan University under Grant 2018hhs-43

Understanding location decisions of energy multinational enterprises within the European smart cities’ context: An integrated AHP and extended fuzzy linguistic TOPSIS method

Becoming a smart city is one of the top priorities in the urban agenda of many European cities. Among the various strategies in the transition path, local governments seek to bring innovation to their cities by encouraging multinational enterprises to deploy their green energy services and products in their municipalities. Knowing how to attract these enterprises implies that political leaders understand the multi-criteria decision problem that the energy sector enterprises face when deciding whether to expand to one city or another. To this end, the purpose of this study is to design a new manageable and controllable framework oriented to European cities’ public managers, based on the assessment of criteria and sub-criteria governing the strategic location decision made by these enterprises. A decision support framework is developed based on the AHP technique combined with an extended version of the hesitant fuzzy linguistic TOPSIS method. The main results indicate the higher relative importance of government policies, such as degree of transparency or bureaucracy level, as compared to market conditions or economic aspects of the city’s host country. These results can be great assets to current European leaders, they show the feasibility of the method and open up the possibility to replicate the proposed framework to other sectors or geographical areas.The authors acknowledge the support from the European Union “Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme” under the grant agreements No 731297. Also, this research has been partially supported by the INVITE Research Project (TIN2016-80049-C2-1-R and TIN2016-80049-C2-2-R (AEI/FEDER, UE)), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Information Technology.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Reconciliation, Restoration and Reconstruction of a Conflict Ridden Country

Conflict has sadly been a constant part of history. Winning a conflict and making a lasting peace are often not the same thing. While a peace treaty ends a conflict and often dictates terms from the winners’ perspective, it may not create a lasting peace. Short of unconditional surrender, modern conflict ends with a negotiated cessation of hostilities. Such accords may have some initial reconstruction agreements, but Reconciliation, Restoration and Reconstruction (RRR) is a long term process. This study maintains that to achieve a lasting peace: 1) The culture and beliefs of the conflict nation must be continuously considered and 2) RRR is a long term effort which will occur over years not just in the immediate wake of signing a treaty or agreement. To assure the inclusion of all stakeholders and gain the best results in dealing with this “wicked problem”, an array of Operations Research techniques can be used to support the long term planning and execution of a RRR effort. The final decisions will always be political, but the analysis provided by an OR support team will guide the decision makers to better execute consensus decisions that consider all stakeholder needs. The development of the value hierarchy framework in this dissertation is a keystone of building a rational OR supported long term plan for a successful RRR. The primary aim of the research is to propose a framework and associated set of guidelines derived from appropriate techniques of OR, Decision Analysis and Project Management (right from development of a consensus based value hierarchy to its implementation, feedback and steering corrections) that may be applied to help RRR efforts in any conflict ridden country across the globe. The framework is applicable to any conflict ridden country after incorporating changes particular to any country witnessing a prolonged conflict

Multi-Objective and Multi-Attribute Optimisation for Sustainable Development Decision Aiding

Optimization is considered as a decision-making process for getting the most out of available resources for the best attainable results. Many real-world problems are multi-objective or multi-attribute problems that naturally involve several competing objectives that need to be optimized simultaneously, while respecting some constraints or involving selection among feasible discrete alternatives. In this Reprint of the Special Issue, 19 research papers co-authored by 88 researchers from 14 different countries explore aspects of multi-objective or multi-attribute modeling and optimization in crisp or uncertain environments by suggesting multiple-attribute decision-making (MADM) and multi-objective decision-making (MODM) approaches. The papers elaborate upon the approaches of state-of-the-art case studies in selected areas of applications related to sustainable development decision aiding in engineering and management, including construction, transportation, infrastructure development, production, and organization management

Fuzzy Techniques for Decision Making 2018

Zadeh's fuzzy set theory incorporates the impreciseness of data and evaluations, by imputting the degrees by which each object belongs to a set. Its success fostered theories that codify the subjectivity, uncertainty, imprecision, or roughness of the evaluations. Their rationale is to produce new flexible methodologies in order to model a variety of concrete decision problems more realistically. This Special Issue garners contributions addressing novel tools, techniques and methodologies for decision making (inclusive of both individual and group, single- or multi-criteria decision making) in the context of these theories. It contains 38 research articles that contribute to a variety of setups that combine fuzziness, hesitancy, roughness, covering sets, and linguistic approaches. Their ranges vary from fundamental or technical to applied approaches

Modelado complejo de información lingüística en problemas de toma de decisión en grupo bajo incertidumbre

El modelado de información lingüística en problemas de Toma de Decisión en Grupo (TDG) con incertidumbre y sus Procesos de Alcance de Consenso (PAC), se ha convertido en una línea de investigación de gran importancia dentro del ámbito de la toma de decisión. La mayoría de propuestas enfocadas al modelado lingüístico, se basan en el enfoque lingüístico difuso y emplean expresiones lingüísticas cercanas a la forma de pensar de los seres humanos para modelar la incertidumbre inherente en los problemas de decisión. Sin embargo, muchas de estas propuestas presentan limitaciones en términos de interpretación y/o precisión. En esta tesis doctoral, se ha propuesto un nuevo marco metodológico para el modelado y tratamiento de incertidumbre para problemas de TDG y PAC mediante expresiones lingüísticas complejas que permite modelar las opiniones de los expertos en este tipo de problemas.The modelling of linguistic information in Group Decision Making (GDM) problems with uncertainty and its Consensus Reaching Processes (CRPs) has become a very important research line in the field of decision making. Most of the proposals focused on linguistic modelling are based on the fuzzy linguistic approach and use linguistic expressions close to the way human beings’ thinking to model the uncertainty inherent in decision problems. However, many of these proposals have limitations in terms of interpretation and/or accuracy. In this doctoral thesis, a new methodological framework has been proposed for the modelling and treatment of uncertainty for GDM and CRPs problems by means of complex linguistic expressions that allow modelling the experts’ opinions in this type of problems.Tesis Univ. Jaén. Departamento de Informática. Leída el 30 de abril de 2021

Opérationnaliser les compétences transversales en analyse bibliométrique et en visualisation des réseaux au thème de l’économie collaborative

Une analyse bibliométrique utilisant la visualisation de réseaux pour représenter le thème de l’Économie collaborative (ÉC) au sein de la recherche scientifique a été réalisée dans le cadre de ce mémoire. Pour ce faire, 729 documents ont été recensés sur deux bases de données (Scopus et Web of Science). Ces documents ont été désambiguïsés, nettoyés et standardisés pour être compilés et analysés avec BibExcel et VOSviewer. Différentes statistiques bibliométriques et analyses non évaluatives (cooccurence, cocitation, coauteur) ont pu être exécutées et visualisées afin de mieux comprendre le milieu de l’ÉC. Les résultats de cette recherche sont multiples. D’une part, l’importance des États-Unis est notoire, autant au niveau des auteurs, des organisations que des collaborations. Ensuite, différentes grappes thématiques ont pu être formées selon la variable étudiée. L’importance de la technologie, du tourisme, du développement durable, de l’aspect managérial et enfin de la théorie/conceptualisation de l’ÉC est récurrente. Plusieurs auteurs sont déterminants dans la littérature, mais les plus influents sont Russel Belk et Rachel Botsman. Le livre What’s yours is mine (Botsman et Rogers, 2010) est le document le plus cité, et ce malgré le fait qu’il soit écrit par des auteurs ne provenant pas du milieu académique. Les relations entre les publications étudiées démontrent une cohésion entre les différentes idées et thématiques véhiculées dans le domaine, et ce malgré le fait qu’il existe des problèmes définitionnels et conceptuels à propos de l’ÉC. Enfin, l’évolution chronologique des publications subit une croissance très importante depuis 2016 et témoigne d’un champ de recherche émergent : le développement durable. La somme des résultats analysés donne un nouveau regard sur l’ÉC. Elle permet pour les nouveaux chercheurs de les introduire aux caractéristiques du domaine et sert aux experts à cerner les thématiques, revues et auteurs à considérer lors de leurs propres analyses. La méthodologie et les résultats de cette recherche furent publiés dans le Journal of Cleaner Production (Ertz & Leblanc-Proulx, 2018), le Journal of Markteing Analytics (Ertz & Leblanc-Proulx, 2019a) et le livre Sage Research methods Cases (Ertz & Leblanc-Proulx, 2019b)

Multiple-Criteria Decision Making

Decision-making on real-world problems, including individual process decisions, requires an appropriate and reliable decision support system. Fuzzy set theory, rough set theory, and neutrosophic set theory, which are MCDM techniques, are useful for modeling complex decision-making problems with imprecise, ambiguous, or vague data.This Special Issue, “Multiple Criteria Decision Making”, aims to incorporate recent developments in the area of the multi-criteria decision-making field. Topics include, but are not limited to:- MCDM optimization in engineering;- Environmental sustainability in engineering processes;- Multi-criteria production and logistics process planning;- New trends in multi-criteria evaluation of sustainable processes;- Multi-criteria decision making in strategic management based on sustainable criteria

Symmetric and Asymmetric Data in Solution Models

This book is a Printed Edition of the Special Issue that covers research on symmetric and asymmetric data that occur in real-life problems. We invited authors to submit their theoretical or experimental research to present engineering and economic problem solution models that deal with symmetry or asymmetry of different data types. The Special Issue gained interest in the research community and received many submissions. After rigorous scientific evaluation by editors and reviewers, seventeen papers were accepted and published. The authors proposed different solution models, mainly covering uncertain data in multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problems as complex tools to balance the symmetry between goals, risks, and constraints to cope with the complicated problems in engineering or management. Therefore, we invite researchers interested in the topics to read the papers provided in the book