A review of fuzzy AHP methods for decision-making with subjective judgements

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a broadly applied multi-criteria decision-making method to determine the weights of criteria and priorities of alternatives in a structured manner based on pairwise comparison. As subjective judgments during comparison might be imprecise, fuzzy sets have been combined with AHP. This is referred to as fuzzy AHP or FAHP. An increasing amount of papers are published which describe different ways to derive the weights/priorities from a fuzzy comparison matrix, but seldomly set out the relative benefits of each approach so that the choice of the approach seems arbitrary. A review of various fuzzy AHP techniques is required to guide both academic and industrial experts to choose suitable techniques for a specific practical context. This paper reviews the literature published since 2008 where fuzzy AHP is applied to decision-making problems in industry, particularly the various selection problems. The techniques are categorised by the four aspects of developing a fuzzy AHP model: (i) representation of the relative importance for pairwise comparison, (ii) aggregation of fuzzy sets for group decisions and weights/priorities, (iii) defuzzification of a fuzzy set to a crisp value for final comparison, and (iv) consistency measurement of the judgements. These techniques are discussed in terms of their underlying principles, origins, strengths and weakness. Summary tables and specification charts are provided to guide the selection of suitable techniques. Tips for building a fuzzy AHP model are also included and six open questions are posed for future work

Investigation on soft computing techniques for airport environment evaluation systems

Spatial and temporal information exist widely in engineering fields, especially in airport environmental management systems. Airport environment is influenced by many different factors and uncertainty is a significant part of the system. Decision support considering this kind of spatial and temporal information and uncertainty is crucial for airport environment related engineering planning and operation. Geographical information systems and computer aided design are two powerful tools in supporting spatial and temporal information systems. However, the present geographical information systems and computer aided design software are still too general in considering the special features in airport environment, especially for uncertainty. In this thesis, a series of parameters and methods for neural network-based knowledge discovery and training improvement are put forward, such as the relative strength of effect, dynamic state space search strategy and compound architecture. [Continues.

The Encyclopedia of Neutrosophic Researchers - vol. 1

This is the first volume of the Encyclopedia of Neutrosophic Researchers, edited from materials offered by the authors who responded to the editor’s invitation. The authors are listed alphabetically. The introduction contains a short history of neutrosophics, together with links to the main papers and books. Neutrosophic set, neutrosophic logic, neutrosophic probability, neutrosophic statistics, neutrosophic measure, neutrosophic precalculus, neutrosophic calculus and so on are gaining significant attention in solving many real life problems that involve uncertainty, impreciseness, vagueness, incompleteness, inconsistent, and indeterminacy. In the past years the fields of neutrosophics have been extended and applied in various fields, such as: artificial intelligence, data mining, soft computing, decision making in incomplete / indeterminate / inconsistent information systems, image processing, computational modelling, robotics, medical diagnosis, biomedical engineering, investment problems, economic forecasting, social science, humanistic and practical achievements

Neutrosophic Theory and its Applications : Collected Papers - vol. 1

Neutrosophic Theory means Neutrosophy applied in many fields in order to solve problems related to indeterminacy. Neutrosophy is a new branch of philosophy that studies the origin, nature, and scope of neutralities, as well as their interactions with different ideational spectra. This theory considers every entity together with its opposite or negation and with their spectrum of neutralities in between them (i.e. entities supporting neither nor ). The and ideas together are referred to as . Neutrosophy is a generalization of Hegel\u27s dialectics (the last one is based on and only). According to this theory every entity tends to be neutralized and balanced by and entities - as a state of equilibrium. In a classical way , , are disjoint two by two. But, since in many cases the borders between notions are vague, imprecise, Sorites, it is possible that , , (and of course) have common parts two by two, or even all three of them as well. Hence, in one hand, the Neutrosophic Theory is based on the triad , , and . In the other hand, Neutrosophic Theory studies the indeterminacy, labelled as I, with In = I for n ≥ 1, and mI + nI = (m+n)I, in neutrosophic structures developed in algebra, geometry, topology etc. The most developed fields of the Neutrosophic Theory are Neutrosophic Set, Neutrosophic Logic, Neutrosophic Probability, and Neutrosophic Statistics - that started in 1995, and recently Neutrosophic Precalculus and Neutrosophic Calculus, together with their applications in practice. Neutrosophic Set and Neutrosophic Logic are generalizations of the fuzzy set and respectively fuzzy logic (especially of intuitionistic fuzzy set and respectively intuitionistic fuzzy logic). In neutrosophic logic a proposition has a degree of truth (T), a degree of indeterminacy (I), and a degree of falsity (F), where T, I, F are standard or non-standard subsets of ]-0, 1+[. Neutrosophic Probability is a generalization of the classical probability and imprecise probability. Neutrosophic Statistics is a generalization of the classical statistics. What distinguishes the neutrosophics from other fields is the , which means neither nor . And , which of course depends on , can be indeterminacy, neutrality, tie (game), unknown, contradiction, vagueness, ignorance, incompleteness, imprecision, etc

Indirect ties in knowledge networks:a social network analysis with ordered weighted averaging operators

This PhD thesis analyses networks of knowledge flows, focusing on the role of indirect ties in the knowledge transfer, knowledge accumulation and knowledge creation process. It extends and improves existing methods for mapping networks of knowledge flows in two different applications and contributes to two stream of research. To support the underlying idea of this thesis, which is finding an alternative method to rank indirect network ties to shed a new light on the dynamics of knowledge transfer, we apply Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) to two different network contexts. Knowledge flows in patent citation networks and a company supply chain network are analysed using Social Network Analysis (SNA) and the OWA operator. The OWA is used here for the first time (i) to rank indirect citations in patent networks, providing new insight into their role in transferring knowledge among network nodes; and to analyse a long chain of patent generations along 13 years; (ii) to rank indirect relations in a company supply chain network, to shed light on the role of indirectly connected individuals involved in the knowledge transfer and creation processes and to contribute to the literature on knowledge management in a supply chain. In doing so, indirect ties are measured and their role as means of knowledge transfer is shown. Thus, this thesis represents a first attempt to bridge the OWA and SNA fields and to show that the two methods can be used together to enrich the understanding of the role of indirectly connected nodes in a network. More specifically, the OWA scores enrich our understanding of knowledge evolution over time within complex networks. Future research can show the usefulness of OWA operator in different complex networks, such as the on-line social networks that consists of thousand of nodes