Distributed Linguistic Representations in Decision Making: Taxonomy, Key Elements and Applications, and Challenges in Data Science and Explainable Artificial Intelligence

Distributed linguistic representations are powerful tools for modelling the uncertainty and complexity of preference information in linguistic decision making. To provide a comprehensive perspective on the development of distributed linguistic representations in decision making, we present the taxonomy of existing distributed linguistic representations. Then, we review the key elements and applications of distributed linguistic information processing in decision making, including the distance measurement, aggregation methods, distributed linguistic preference relations, and distributed linguistic multiple attribute decision making models. Next, we provide a discussion on ongoing challenges and future research directions from the perspective of data science and explainable artificial intelligence.National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) 71971039 71421001,71910107002,71771037,71874023 71871149Sichuan University sksyl201705 2018hhs-5

Flexible information retrieval: some research trends

In this paper some research trends in the field of Information Retrieval are presented. The focus is on the definition of flexible systems, i.e. systems that can represent and manage the vagueness and uncertainty which is characteristic of the process of information searching and retrieval. In this paper the application of soft computing techniques is considered, in particular fuzzy set theory

The Allocation of Business Model Components under Presence of Uncertainties by the Branch-and-Bound Method

As the only constant in business is change, business transformation is essential for adopting new perspectives and business trends. One of the keys to performing successful business transformation is to be fully aware of the current components of the business model. This research aims to allocate the business model components (BMCs) to defined business model components groups (BMCGs) by developing a new approach that integrates fuzzy sets and heuristic algorithms. The allocation results enable a comprehensive analysis of business model frameworks and give a good connection to research in the domain of strategic management and business process modeling. For allocation, the decision-makers (DMs) are employing the linguistic terms modeled by the fuzzy sets theory. The considered problem is stated as an integer programming model where the optimal solution is given by a B&B algorithm. The model is tested on a sample of forty experts from four different economic sectors

Negotiating Tradition - The pragmatics of international deliberations on Cultural Property

Communicative interactions in international negotiations on cultural property not only provide information about the emergence and proliferation of arguments, rhetorics, and registers, but also permit valuable insights into actors’ positions, strategies and alliances. They significantly influence local and national practices and views related to cultural property debates. What can be gained from a deep analysis of the communicative patterns and strategies that actors engage in – the entailing text and talk of negotiations – is a better understanding of the process itself: how do different actors argue, what kind of strategies and rhetorics do they use, to which instruments and institutions do they refer, and in what way do actors react to each other? An analysis of communicative interactions contributes to the question of how international negotiations work. The analytic inclusion of sociolinguistic practices allows insights into positions, strategies, and perspectives pertaining to cultural property. By looking at not only what actors say, but also at how and in what contexts they do so, it is possible to make more accurate statements about their positions and perceptions in cultural property debates. As these communicative interactions influence outcomes considerably, an approach from linguistic anthropology is not only beneficial for an understanding of specific negotiations, but also for the analysis of broader cultural property issues.Communicative interactions in international negotiations on cultural property not only provide information about the emergence and proliferation of arguments, rhetorics, and registers, but also permit valuable insights into actors’ positions, strategies and alliances. They significantly influence local and national practices and views related to cultural property debates. What can be gained from a deep analysis of the communicative patterns and strategies that actors engage in – the entailing text and talk of negotiations – is a better understanding of the process itself: how do different actors argue, what kind of strategies and rhetorics do they use, to which instruments and institutions do they refer, and in what way do actors react to each other? An analysis of communicative interactions contributes to the question of how international negotiations work. The analytic inclusion of sociolinguistic practices allows insights into positions, strategies, and perspectives pertaining to cultural property. By looking at not only what actors say, but also at how and in what contexts they do so, it is possible to make more accurate statements about their positions and perceptions in cultural property debates. As these communicative interactions influence outcomes considerably, an approach from linguistic anthropology is not only beneficial for an understanding of specific negotiations, but also for the analysis of broader cultural property issues

Two-Fold Personalized Feedback Mechanism for Social Network Consensus by Uninorm Interval Trust Propagation

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 71971135, Grant 71571166, and Grant 71910107002; and in part by the Spanish State Research Agency under Project PID2019-103880RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. This article was recommended by Associate Editor F. J. Cabrerizo.A twofold personalized feedback mechanism is established for consensus reaching in social network group decisionmaking (SN-GDM). It consists of two stages: (1) generating the trusted recommendation advice for individuals; and (2) producing personalized adoption coefficient for reducing unnecessary adjustment costs. This is achieved by means of a uninorm interval-valued trust propagation operator to obtain indirect trust. The trust relationship is used to generate personalized recommendation advice based on the principle of ‘a recommendation being more acceptable the higher the level of trust it derives from’. An optimization model is built to minimise the total adjustment cost of reaching consensus by determining personalized feedback adoption coefficient based on individuals’ consensus levels. Consequently, the proposed twofold personalized feedback mechanism achieves a balance between group consensus and individual personality. An example to demonstrate how the proposed twofold personalized feedback mechanism works is included, which is also used to show its rationality by comparison with the traditional feedback mechanism in GDM.National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) 71971135 71571166 71910107002Spanish Government PID2019-103880RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/50110001103

A minimum cost consensus-based failure mode and effect analysis framework considering experts’ limited compromise and tolerance behaviors

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This study proposes a minimum cost consensus-based failure mode and effect analysis (MCC-FMEA) framework considering experts’ limited compromise and tolerance behaviors, where the first behavior indicates that an FMEA expert might not tolerate modifying his/her risk assessment without limitations, and the second behavior indicates that an FMEA expert will accept risk assessment suggestions without being paid for any cost if the suggested risk assessments fall within his/her tolerance threshold. First, an MCC-FMEA with limited compromise behaviors is presented. Second, experts’ tolerance behaviors are added to the MCC-FMEA with limited compromise behaviors. Theoretical results indicate that in some cases, this MCC-FMEA with limited compromise and tolerance behaviors has no solution. Thus, a minimum compromise adjustment consensus model and a maximum consensus model with limited compromise behaviors are developed and analyzed, and an interactive MCC-FMEA framework, resulting in a FMEA problem consensual collective solution, is designed. A case study, regarding the assessment of COVID-19-related risk in radiation oncology, and a detailed sensitivity and comparative analysis with existing FMEA approaches are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach to FMEA consensus- reachin

Consistency-driven methodology to manage incomplete linguistic preference relation: A perspective based on personalized individual semantics

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.In linguistic decision making problems there may be cased when decision makers will not be able to provide complete linguistic preference relations. However, when estimating unknown linguistic preference values in incomplete preference relations, the existing research approaches ignore the fact that words mean different things for different people, i.e. decision makers have personalized individual semantics (PISs) regarding words. To manage incomplete linguistic preference relations with PISs, in this paper we propose a consistency-driven methodology both to estimate the incomplete linguistic preference values and to obtain the personalized numerical meanings of linguistic values of the different decision makers. The proposed incomplete linguistic preference estimation method combines the characteristic of the personalized representation of decision makers and guarantees the optimum consistency of incomplete linguistic preference relations in the implementation process. Numerical examples and a comparative analysis are included to justify the feasibility of the PISs based incomplete linguistic preference estimation method

Negotiating Tradition - The pragmatics of international deliberations on Cultural Property

Communicative interactions in international negotiations on cultural property not only provide information about the emergence and proliferation of arguments, rhetorics, and registers, but also permit valuable insights into actors’ positions, strategies and alliances. They significantly influence local and national practices and views related to cultural property debates. What can be gained from a deep analysis of the communicative patterns and strategies that actors engage in – the entailing text and talk of negotiations – is a better understanding of the process itself: how do different actors argue, what kind of strategies and rhetorics do they use, to which instruments and institutions do they refer, and in what way do actors react to each other? An analysis of communicative interactions contributes to the question of how international negotiations work. The analytic inclusion of sociolinguistic practices allows insights into positions, strategies, and perspectives pertaining to cultural property. By looking at not only what actors say, but also at how and in what contexts they do so, it is possible to make more accurate statements about their positions and perceptions in cultural property debates. As these communicative interactions influence outcomes considerably, an approach from linguistic anthropology is not only beneficial for an understanding of specific negotiations, but also for the analysis of broader cultural property issues

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