On Incomplete Fuzzy and Multiplicative Preference Relations In Multi-Person Decision Making

This research work has been developed with the financing of FEDER funds in FUZZYLING-II Project TIN2010- 17876, the Andalusian Excellence Projects TIC-05299 and TIC-5991 and the mobility grant program awarded by the University of Granada ’s International Office.2nd International Conference on Information Technology and Quantitative Management, ITQM 2014Rapid changes in the business environment such us the globalization as well as the increasing necessity to make crucial decisions involving a huge range of alternatives in short period of time or even in real time have made that computerized group decision support systems become very useful tools. However in the majority of the cases the panel of experts cannot provide all the information about their preferences due to different reasons such as lack of knowledge, time etc. Therefore different approaches have been presented to deal with the missing preferences in group decision making contexts. In this paper we review and analyse the state-of-the-art research efforts carried out on this topic for incomplete fuzzy preference relations and multiplicative preference relations.FEDER funds in FUZZYLING-II Project TIN2010- 17876Andalusian Excellence Projects TIC-05299 and TIC-5991Mobility grant program awarded by the University of Granada ’s International Offic

Incomplete pairwise comparison and consistency optimization

This paper proposes a new method for calculating the missing elements of an incomplete matrix of pairwise comparison values for a decision problem. The matrix is completed by minimizing a measure of global inconsistency, thus obtaining a matrix which is optimal from the point of view of consistency with respect to the available judgements. The optimal values are obtained by solving a linear system and unicity of the solution is proved under general assumptions. Some other methods proposed in the literature are discussed and a numerical example is presented.consistency, pairwise comparison matrices

Group decision making with incomplete reciprocal preference relations based on multiplicative consistency

This paper comprises a new iterative method for multi-person decision making based on multiplicative consistency with incomplete reciprocal preference relations (IRPRs). Additionally, multiplicative transitivity property of reciprocal preference relation (RPR) is used at the first level to estimate the unknown preference values and get the complete preference relation, then it is confirmed to be multiplicative consistent by using transitive closure formula. Following this, expert's weights are evaluated by merging consistency and trust weights. The consistency weights against the experts are evaluated through multiplicative consistency investigation of the preferences given by each expert, while trust weights play the role to measure the level of trust for an expert. The consensus process determines whether the selection procedure should start or not. If it results in negative, the feedback mechanism is used to enhance the consensus degree. At the end, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the efficiency and practicality of the proposed method

Consistency based completion approaches of incomplete preference relations in uncertain decision contexts.

Uncertainty, hesitation and vagueness are inherent to human beings when articulating opinions and preferences. Therefore in decision making situations it might well be the case that experts are unable to express their opinions in an accurate way. Under these circumstances, various families of preference relations (PRs) have been proposed (linguistic, intuitionistic and interval fuzzy PRs) to allow the experts to manifest some degree of hesitation when enunciating their opinions. An extreme case of uncertainty happens when an expert is unable to differentiate the degree up to which one preference is preferred to another. Henceforth, incomplete preference relations are possible. It is worth to bear in mind that incomplete information does not mean low quality information, on the contrary, in many occasions experts might prefer no to provide information in other to keep consistency. Consequently mechanism to deal with incomplete information in decision making are necessary. This contribution presents the main consistency based completion approaches to estimate incomplete preference values in linguistic, intuitionistic and interval fuzzy PRs

Managing Incomplete Preference Relations in Decision Making: A Review and Future Trends

In decision making, situations where all experts are able to efficiently express their preferences over all the available options are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, the above scenario requires all experts to possess a precise or sufficient level of knowledge of the whole problem to tackle, including the ability to discriminate the degree up to which some options are better than others. These assumptions can be seen unrealistic in many decision making situations, especially those involving a large number of alternatives to choose from and/or conflicting and dynamic sources of information. Some methodologies widely adopted in these situations are to discard or to rate more negatively those experts that provide preferences with missing values. However, incomplete information is not equivalent to low quality information, and consequently these methodologies could lead to biased or even bad solutions since useful information might not being taken properly into account in the decision process. Therefore, alternative approaches to manage incomplete preference relations that estimates the missing information in decision making are desirable and possible. This paper presents and analyses methods and processes developed on this area towards the estimation of missing preferences in decision making, and highlights some areas for future research

Estimating unknown values in reciprocal intuitionistic preference relations via asymmetric fuzzy preference relations

Intuitionistic preference relations are becoming increasingly important in the field of group decision making since they present a flexible and simple way to the experts to provide their preference relations, while at the same time allowing them to accommodate a certain degree of hesitation inherent to all decision making processes. In this contribution, we prove the mathematical equivalence between the set of asymmetric fuzzy preference relations and the set of reciprocal intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations. This result is exploited to tackle the presence of incomplete reciprocal intuitionistic fuzzy preference relation in decision making by developing a consistency driven estimation procedure via the corresponding equivalent incomplete asymmetric fuzzy preference relation

An overview on managing additive consistency of reciprocal preference relations for consistency-driven decision making and Fusion: Taxonomy and future directions

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.The reciprocal preference relation (RPR) is a powerful tool to represent decision makers’ preferences in decision making problems. In recent years, various types of RPRs have been reported and investigated, some of them being the ‘classical’ RPRs, interval-valued RPRs and hesitant RPRs. Additive consistency is one of the most commonly used property to measure the consistency of RPRs, with many methods developed to manage additive consistency of RPRs. To provide a clear perspective on additive consistency issues of RPRs, this paper reviews the consistency measurements of the different types of RPRs. Then, consistency-driven decision making and information fusion methods are also reviewed and classified into four main types: consistency improving methods; consistency-based methods to manage incomplete RPRs; consistency control in consensus decision making methods; and consistency-driven linguistic decision making methods. Finally, with respect to insights gained from prior researches, further directions for the research are proposed

An optimal feedback model to prevent manipulation behaviours in consensus under social network group decision making

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.A novel framework to prevent manipulation behaviour in consensus reaching process under social network group decision making is proposed, which is based on a theoretically sound optimal feedback model. The manipulation behaviour classification is twofold: (1) ‘individual manipulation’ where each expert manipulates his/her own behaviour to achieve higher importance degree (weight); and (2) ‘group manipulation’ where a group of experts force inconsistent experts to adopt specific recommendation advices obtained via the use of fixed feedback parameter. To counteract ‘individual manipulation’, a behavioural weights assignment method modelling sequential attitude ranging from ‘dictatorship’ to ‘democracy’ is developed, and then a reasonable policy for group minimum adjustment cost is established to assign appropriate weights to experts. To prevent ‘group manipulation’, an optimal feedback model with objective function the individual adjustments cost and constraints related to the threshold of group consensus is investigated. This approach allows the inconsistent experts to balance group consensus and adjustment cost, which enhances their willingness to adopt the recommendation advices and consequently the group reaching consensus on the decision making problem at hand. A numerical example is presented to illustrate and verify the proposed optimal feedback model

Dealing with Incomplete Information in Linguistic Group Decision Making by Means of Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Sets

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.Nowadays in the social network based decision making processes, as the ones involved in e-commerce and e-democracy, multiple users with di erent backgrounds may take part and diverse alternatives might be involved. This diversity enriches the process but at the same time increases the uncertainty in the opinions. This uncertainty can be considered from two di erent perspectives: (i) the uncertainty in the meaning of the words given as preferences, that is motivated by the heterogeneity of the decision makers, (ii) the uncertainty inherent to any decision making process that may lead to an expert not being able to provide all their judgments. The main objective of this contribution is to address these two type of uncertainty. To do so the following approaches are proposed: Firstly, in order to capture, process and keep the uncertainty in the meaning of the linguistic assumption the Interval Type 2 Fuzzy Sets are introduced as a way to model the experts linguistic judgments. Secondly, a measure of the coherence of the information provided by each decision maker is proposed. Finally, a consistency based completion approach is introduced to deal with the uncertainty presented in the expert judgments. The proposed approach is tested in an e-democracy decision making scenario

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