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

Collected Papers (on Neutrosophic Theory and Applications), Volume VI

This sixth volume of Collected Papers includes 74 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2015-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 121 co-authors from 19 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel Nasser H. Zaied, Abduallah Gamal, Amir Abdullah, Firoz Ahmad, Nadeem Ahmad, Ahmad Yusuf Adhami, Ahmed Aboelfetouh, Ahmed Mostafa Khalil, Shariful Alam, W. Alharbi, Ali Hassan, Mumtaz Ali, Amira S. Ashour, Asmaa Atef, Assia Bakali, Ayoub Bahnasse, A. A. Azzam, Willem K.M. Brauers, Bui Cong Cuong, Fausto Cavallaro, Ahmet Çevik, Robby I. Chandra, Kalaivani Chandran, Victor Chang, Chang Su Kim, Jyotir Moy Chatterjee, Victor Christianto, Chunxin Bo, Mihaela Colhon, Shyamal Dalapati, Arindam Dey, Dunqian Cao, Fahad Alsharari, Faruk Karaaslan, Aleksandra Fedajev, Daniela Gîfu, Hina Gulzar, Haitham A. El-Ghareeb, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Hewayda El-Ghawalby, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, F. Nirmala Irudayam, Branislav Ivanov, S. Jafari, Jeong Gon Lee, Milena Jevtić, Sudan Jha, Junhui Kim, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Songül Karabatak, Abdullah Kargın, M. Karthika, Ieva Meidute-Kavaliauskiene, Madad Khan, Majid Khan, Manju Khari, Kifayat Ullah, K. Kishore, Kul Hur, Santanu Kumar Patro, Prem Kumar Singh, Raghvendra Kumar, Tapan Kumar Roy, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luu Quoc Dat, T. Madhumathi, Tahir Mahmood, Mladjan Maksimovic, Gunasekaran Manogaran, Nivetha Martin, M. Kasi Mayan, Mai Mohamed, Mohamed Talea, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Raja Muhammad Hashim, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saeed, Rana Muhammad Zulqarnain, Nada A. Nabeeh, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Xenia Negrea, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Jagan M. Obbineni, Angelo de Oliveira, M. Parimala, Gabrijela Popovic, Ishaani Priyadarshini, Yaser Saber, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, A. A. Salama, M. Saleh, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Dönüș Șengür, Shio Gai Quek, Songtao Shao, Dragiša Stanujkić, Surapati Pramanik, Swathi Sundari Sundaramoorthy, Mirela Teodorescu, Selçuk Topal, Muhammed Turhan, Alptekin Ulutaș, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Dan Valeriu Voinea, Volkan Duran, Navneet Yadav, Yanhui Guo, Naveed Yaqoob, Yongquan Zhou, Young Bae Jun, Xiaohong Zhang, Xiao Long Xin, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas

Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas

This reprint is related to land-use change and non-urban and urban relationships at all spatiotemporal scales and also focuses on land-use planning and regulatory strategies for a sustainable future. Spatiotemporal dynamics, socioeconomic implication, water supply problems and deforestation land degradation (e.g., increase of imperviousness surfaces) produced by urban expansion and their resource requirements are of particular interest. The Guest Editors expect that this reprint will contribute to sustainable development in non-urban and urban areas

Rationalizing Chinese hegemony

Doctor of PhilosophySecurity Studies Interdepartmental ProgramDavid GraffThis dissertation examines the Chinese style of imperialism in the early 21st century through China’s self-justifying rationalization and strategic thought. It develops a theory called Cultural Subjectivism to explore the PRC’s preferred world order. Specifically, it analyzes the characteristics of Chinese subjectivity and how Beijing shapes the roles of the self and others through the othering and altercating processes in order to justify the country’s overseas expansion. The international order that Beijing espouses reflects a realistic assessment of world politics. This realpolitik, however, is denied in the narratives for public consumption. Several idealistic principles that China claims are guiding its foreign policy (and devoid of strategic calculations) create a false impression that Beijing is an altruistic actor occupying the moral high ground. Anchoring Chinese behavior to the inherent benevolence of the PRC underpins an unfalsifiable self-justifying logic that, regardless of shifts in policies, Beijing’s behavior is always defensive, peaceful, non-expansionist and non-hegemonic. In accord with Beijing’s assessments of the post-Cold War peace, its narratives have grown more inclusive in that the opposing roles (the othering) between the self and others becomes less salient while the role congruence (the altercasting) that indicates shared interests gets more prevalent. This is tailored to meet China’s strategic needs of the attainment of material strength and international status in the era of post-Cold War globalization through engagement with countries around the world. Paralleling the increasing usage of inclusive rhetoric to rationalize Beijing’s overseas expansion is the growing discursive assertiveness of a China-espoused world order in which Chinese institutions and Chinese culture are said, due to their innate benevolence compared to hegemonic capitalism, to bring the world peace and prosperity. After all, the inclusive narratives and the role (re)construction spin around the concept of Chinese socialism, an embodiment of the PRC’s self-centeredness, and how it is good for both domestic development and international community. Beijing’s role construction operates within a quasi-world-like “Asia Pacific” that includes the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Eurasian continent. Within this expansive geographical scope, China adopts the grand strategy of “winning without fighting” which consists of the strategies of “cooperation” and limited provocations. The purpose is to amass resources through the land to cope with the challenges from the sea. As the strategic logic of winning without fighting dictates, the PRC intends to achieve its political goals during peacetime while, through disarming enemies and strengthening itself in its overseas expansion, preparing for a possible future war if non-war solutions prove impossible for obtaining its goals. Accordingly, “active defense” needs to be understood as a strategic guideline that directs the generation of resources and abilities for both non-war and war solutions. From a Chinese perspective, regardless of the means adopted, China’s behavior is always defensive and for the sake of peace wherever the activities occur. This unfalsifiable rationalization that relies on the benevolent nature of the self, rather than an admission of realistic calculations, to explain its own behavior functions on a global level and characterizes active defense. From the perspective of discursive rationalization, China exhibits the height of imperialism. Compared to Japan and the US, Beijing shows an unprecedented degree and scale in claiming itself moral in that it is altruistic and inclusive, while firmly believing in its own claims. It is the gulf between complicated realities and the extent of the PRC’s willingness to systematically deny such or cover up what happens on the ground and a lower degree of transparency in its strategic calculations for self-interests that make Chinese imperialism different from others