Ranked hesitant fuzzy sets for multi-criteria multi-agent decisions

This paper introduces and investigates ranked hesitant fuzzy sets, a novel extension of hesitant fuzzy sets that is less demanding than both probabilistic and proportional hesitant fuzzy sets. This new extension incorporates hierarchical knowledge about the various evaluations submitted for each alternative. These evaluations are ranked (for example by their plausibility, acceptability, or credibility), but their position does not necessarily derive from supplementary numerical information (as in probabilistic and proportional hesitant fuzzy sets). In particular, strictly ranked hesitant fuzzy sets arise when no ties exist, i.e., when for any fixed alternative, each submitted evaluation is either strictly more plausible or strictly less plausible than any other submitted evaluation. A detailed comparison with similar models from the literature is performed. Then in order to produce a natural strategy for multi-criteria multi-agent decisions with ranked hesitant fuzzy sets, canonical representations, scores and aggregation operators are designed in the framework of ranked hesitant fuzzy sets. In order to help implementation of this model, Mathematica code is provided for the computation of both scores and aggregators. The decision-making technique that is prescribed is tested with a comparative analysis with four methodologies based on probabilistic hesitant fuzzy information. A conclusion of this numerical exercise is that this methodology is reliable, applicable and robust. All these evidences show that ranked hesitant fuzzy sets are an intuitive extension of the hesitant fuzzy set model designed by V. Torra, that can be implemented in practice with the aid of computationally assisted algorithms.Junta de Castilla y León y European Regional Development Fun

Ordering based decision making: a survey

Decision making is the crucial step in many real applications such as organization management, financial planning, products evaluation and recommendation. Rational decision making is to select an alternative from a set of different ones which has the best utility (i.e., maximally satisfies given criteria, objectives, or preferences). In many cases, decision making is to order alternatives and select one or a few among the top of the ranking. Orderings provide a natural and effective way for representing indeterminate situations which are pervasive in commonsense reasoning. Ordering based decision making is then to find the suitable method for evaluating candidates or ranking alternatives based on provided ordinal information and criteria, and this in many cases is to rank alternatives based on qualitative ordering information. In this paper, we discuss the importance and research aspects of ordering based decision making, and review the existing ordering based decision making theories and methods along with some future research directions

Hesitant fuzzy linguistic DNMA method with cardinal consensus reaching process for shopping mall location selection

The hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set is an effective tool to express qualitative evaluations since it is close to human reasoning and expressing habits. In this paper, we propose a multi-expert multi-criterion decision-making method integrating the double normalization-based multi-aggregation (DNMA) method with a cardinal consensus reaching process, where the assessments of alternatives over multiple criteria are expressed as hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets. To do so, the DNMA method involving double normalizations and three aggregation tools is extended to deal with the hesitant fuzzy linguistic information and derive the ranking of alternatives with respect to each expert. In addition, a cardinal consensus reaching process is introduced to help experts reach an acceptable consensus level. In other words, the soft consensus is considered in the multi-expert multi-criterion decision-making process. Subsequently, an extended Borda rule is developed to aggregate the subordinate ranks and integrated scores of alternatives, and then deduce the comprehensive ranking of alternatives. A case study is given to illustrate the practicability of the proposed method for selecting the optimal geographical location of a larger-scale shopping mall in the new urbanization for a construction investment agency. The proposed method is compared with other ranking methods to illustrate its advantages

Decision-making in semi-democratic contexts

Producción CientíficaA general problem, which may concern practical contexts of different nature, is to aggregate multi-experts rankings on a set of alternatives into a single fused ranking. Aggregation should also take into account the experts’ importance, which may not necessarily be the same for all of them. We synthetically define this context as semi-democratic. The main aim of the paper is the analysis of the possible semi-democratic paradigms that can be conceived when the experts’ importance is not the same: (i) the importance is described by means of a weighting vector; (ii) the importance is expressed by a weak order on the set of experts; (iii) the importance is described by a weak order on the set of experts with additional information on the ordinal proximities among them. The three paradigms can be applied in different decision-making situations, where some experts perform multiple assignments. In this paper various situations are discussed and analyzed in detail. A series of examples, in the field of interior design of a new car, will complement the description.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project ECO2016-77900-P)European Regional Development Fund (ERDF

Green suppler selection by an integrated method with stochastic acceptability analysis and MULTIMOORA

In the process of supplier selection for green supply chain management, uncertain information may appear in alternatives’ performances or experts’ preferences. The stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) is a beneficial technique to tackling the uncertain information in such a problem and the MULTIMOORA is a robust technique to aggregate alternatives’ utilities. This study dedicates to proposing an SMAA-MULTIMOORA method by considering the advantages of both methods. The integrated method can accept uncertain information as inputs. The steps of the SMAA-MULTIMOORA are illustrated. A case study about the selection of green suppliers is given to show the validity and robustness of the SMAA-MULTIMOORA method

Aggregating Imprecise Linguistic Expressions

Producción CientíficaIn this chapter, we propose a multi-person decision making procedure where agents judge the alternatives through linguistic expressions generated by an ordered finite scale of linguistic terms (for instance, ‘very good’, ‘good’, ‘acceptable’, ‘bad’, ‘very bad’). If the agents are not confident about their opinions, they might use linguistic expressions composed by several consecutive linguistic terms (for instance, ‘between acceptable and good’). The procedure we propose is based on distances and it ranks order the alternatives taking into account the linguistic information provided by the agents. The main features and properties of the proposal are analyzed.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2009-07332)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2009-12836)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2008-03204-E)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2012-32178

Probabilistic double hierarchy linguistic alternative queuing method for real economy development evaluation under the perspective of economic financialization

With the development of science and technology, the new road of scientific economic and financial development has played a decisive role in supporting the financial undertaking. To accelerate the economic development, it is very important to increase the guiding role of financial undertaking in the real economy. Therefore, it is necessary to promote the development of the real economy under the perspective of economic financialization based on some actions. To judge the implementation effect of these actions, this paper develops a multiple criteria decisionmaking (MCDM) method to evaluate them. First, the decisionmaking matrices are established with the probabilistic double hierarchy linguistic term set in which the probabilities are added to all double hierarchy linguistic terms. Additionally, a weightdetermining method is developed to obtain the weight vector of criteria, and we develop a MCDM method named the probabilistic double hierarchy linguistic alternative queuing method (PDHLAQM), where the decision-making result is intuitive by a directed graph or a 0–1 precedence relationship matrix. Furthermore, we apply the PDHL-AQM to solve a practical MCDM problem involving the real economy development evaluation under the perspective of economic financialization. Finally, some comparative analyses are made to show the advantages and reasonableness of the PDHL-AQM

A systematic review on multi-criteria group decision-making methods based on weights: analysis and classification scheme

Interest in group decision-making (GDM) has been increasing prominently over the last decade. Access to global databases, sophisticated sensors which can obtain multiple inputs or complex problems requiring opinions from several experts have driven interest in data aggregation. Consequently, the field has been widely studied from several viewpoints and multiple approaches have been proposed. Nevertheless, there is a lack of general framework. Moreover, this problem is exacerbated in the case of experts’ weighting methods, one of the most widely-used techniques to deal with multiple source aggregation. This lack of general classification scheme, or a guide to assist expert knowledge, leads to ambiguity or misreading for readers, who may be overwhelmed by the large amount of unclassified information currently available. To invert this situation, a general GDM framework is presented which divides and classifies all data aggregation techniques, focusing on and expanding the classification of experts’ weighting methods in terms of analysis type by carrying out an in-depth literature review. Results are not only classified but analysed and discussed regarding multiple characteristics, such as MCDMs in which they are applied, type of data used, ideal solutions considered or when they are applied. Furthermore, general requirements supplement this analysis such as initial influence, or component division considerations. As a result, this paper provides not only a general classification scheme and a detailed analysis of experts’ weighting methods but also a road map for researchers working on GDM topics or a guide for experts who use these methods. Furthermore, six significant contributions for future research pathways are provided in the conclusions.The first author acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Universities [grant number FPU18/01471]. The second and third author wish to recognize their support from the Serra Hunter program. Finally, this work was supported by the Catalan agency AGAUR through its research group support program (2017SGR00227). This research is part of the R&D project IAQ4EDU, reference no. PID2020-117366RB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

A new consensus ranking approach for correlated ordinal information based on Mahalanobis distance

Producción CientíficaWe investigate from a global point of view the existence of cohesiveness among experts’ opinions. We address this general issue from three basic essentials: the management of experts’ opinions when they are expressed by ordinal information; the measurement of the degree of dissensus among such opinions; and the achievement of a group solution that conveys the minimum dissensus to the experts’ group. Accordingly, we propose and characterize a new procedure to codify ordinal information. We also define a new measurement of the degree of dissensus among individual preferences based on the Mahalanobis distance. It is especially designed for the case of possibly correlated alternatives. Finally, we investigate a procedure to obtain a social consensus solution that also includes the possibility of alternatives that are correlated. In addition, we examine the main traits of the dissensus measurement as well as the social solution proposed. The operational character and intuitive interpretation of our approaches are illustrated by an explanatory example.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2012–32178

Allowing agents to be imprecise: A proposal using multiple linguistic terms

Producción CientíficaIn this paper we propose a decision-making procedure where the agents judge the alternatives through linguistic terms such as `very good', `good', `acceptable', etc. If the agents are not con dent about their opinions, they can use a linguistic expression formed by several consecutive linguistic terms. To obtain a ranking on the set of alternatives, the method consists of three di erent stages. The rst stage looks for the alternatives in which the overall opinion is closer to the ideal assessment. The overall opinion is developed by a distance-based process among the individual assessments. The next two stages form a tie-breaking process. Firstly by using a dispersion index based on the Gini coe cient, and secondly by taking into account the number of best-assessments. The main characteristics of the proposed decision-making procedure are analyzed.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2009-07332)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2009-12836)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2008-03204-E)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (ECO2012-32178