Methods of tropical optimization in rating alternatives based on pairwise comparisons

We apply methods of tropical optimization to handle problems of rating alternatives on the basis of the log-Chebyshev approximation of pairwise comparison matrices. We derive a direct solution in a closed form, and investigate the obtained solution when it is not unique. Provided the approximation problem yields a set of score vectors, rather than a unique (up to a constant factor) one, we find those vectors in the set, which least and most differentiate between the alternatives with the highest and lowest scores, and thus can be representative of the entire solution.Comment: 9 pages, presented at the Annual Intern. Conf. of the German Operations Research Society (GOR), Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Germany, August 30 - September 2, 201

A framework for the selection of the right nuclear power plant

Civil nuclear reactors are used for the production of electrical energy. In the nuclear industry vendors propose several nuclear reactor designs with a size from 35–45 MWe up to 1600–1700 MWe. The choice of the right design is a multidimensional problem since a utility has to include not only financial factors as levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) and internal rate of return (IRR), but also the so called “external factors” like the required spinning reserve, the impact on local industry and the social acceptability. Therefore it is necessary to balance advantages and disadvantages of each design during the entire life cycle of the plant, usually 40–60 years. In the scientific literature there are several techniques for solving this multidimensional problem. Unfortunately it does not seem possible to apply these methodologies as they are, since the problem is too complex and it is difficult to provide consistent and trustworthy expert judgments. This paper fills the gap, proposing a two-step framework to choosing the best nuclear reactor at the pre-feasibility study phase. The paper shows in detail how to use the methodology, comparing the choice of a small-medium reactor (SMR) with a large reactor (LR), characterised, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (2006), by an electrical output respectively lower and higher than 700 MWe

Influence of aggregation and measurement scale on ranking a compromise alternative in AHP

Author's pre-print version dated 20. December 2009 deposited in Munich Personal RePEc Archive. Final version published by Palgrave Macmillan; available online at http:// www.palgrave-journals.com/Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one of the most popular multi-attribute decision aid methods. However, within AHP, there are several competing preference measurement scales and aggregation techniques. In this paper, we compare these possibilities using a decision problem with an inherent trade-off between two criteria. A decision-maker has to choose among three alternatives: two extremes and one compromise. Six different measurement scales described previously in the literature and the new proposed logarithmic scale are considered for applying the additive and the multiplicative aggregation techniques. The results are compared with the standard consumer choice theory. We find that with the geometric and power scales a compromise is never selected when aggregation is additive and rarely when aggregation is multiplicative, while the logarithmic scale used with the multiplicative aggregation most often selects the compromise that is desirable by consumer choice theory

On reducing inconsistency of pairwise comparison matrices below an acceptance threshold

A recent work of the authors on the analysis of pairwise comparison matrices that can be made consistent by the modification of a few elements is continued and extended. Inconsistency indices are defined for indicating the overall quality of a pairwise comparison matrix. It is expected that serious contradictions in the matrix imply high inconsistency and vice versa. However, in the 35-year history of the applications of pairwise comparison matrices, only one of the indices, namely CR proposed by Saaty, has been associated to a general level of acceptance, by the well known ten percent rule. In the paper, we consider a wide class of inconsistency indices, including CR, CM proposed by Koczkodaj and Duszak and CI by Pel\'aez and Lamata. Assume that a threshold of acceptable inconsistency is given (for CR it can be 0.1). The aim is to find the minimal number of matrix elements, the appropriate modification of which makes the matrix acceptable. On the other hand, given the maximal number of modifiable matrix elements, the aim is to find the minimal level of inconsistency that can be achieved. In both cases the solution is derived from a nonlinear mixed-integer optimization problem. Results are applicable in decision support systems that allow real time interaction with the decision maker in order to review pairwise comparison matrices.Comment: 20 page

Pairwise comparison matrices and the error-free property of the decision maker

Pairwise comparison is a popular assessment method either for deriving criteria-weights or for evaluating alternatives according to a given criterion. In real-world applications consistency of the comparisons rarely happens: intransitivity can occur. The aim of the paper is to discuss the relationship between the consistency of the decision maker—described with the error-free property—and the consistency of the pairwise comparison matrix (PCM). The concept of error-free matrix is used to demonstrate that consistency of the PCM is not a sufficient condition of the error-free property of the decision maker. Informed and uninformed decision makers are defined. In the first stage of an assessment method a consistent or near-consistent matrix should be achieved: detecting, measuring and improving consistency are part of any procedure with both types of decision makers. In the second stage additional information are needed to reveal the decision maker’s real preferences. Interactive questioning procedures are recommended to reach that goal

On pairwise comparison matrices that can be made consistent by the modification of a few elements

Pairwise comparison matrices are often used in Multi-attribute Decision Making forweighting the attributes or for the evaluation of the alternatives with respect to a criteria. Matrices provided by the decision makers are rarely consistent and it is important to index the degree of inconsistency. In the paper, the minimal number of matrix elements by the modification of which the pairwise comparison matrix can be made consistent is examined. From practical point of view, the modification of 1, 2, or, for larger matrices, 3 elements seems to be relevant. These cases are characterized by using the graph representation of the matrices. Empirical examples illustrate that pairwise comparison matrices that can be made consistent by the modification of a few elements are present in the applications

A matter of words: NLP for quality evaluation of Wikipedia medical articles

Automatic quality evaluation of Web information is a task with many fields of applications and of great relevance, especially in critical domains like the medical one. We move from the intuition that the quality of content of medical Web documents is affected by features related with the specific domain. First, the usage of a specific vocabulary (Domain Informativeness); then, the adoption of specific codes (like those used in the infoboxes of Wikipedia articles) and the type of document (e.g., historical and technical ones). In this paper, we propose to leverage specific domain features to improve the results of the evaluation of Wikipedia medical articles. In particular, we evaluate the articles adopting an "actionable" model, whose features are related to the content of the articles, so that the model can also directly suggest strategies for improving a given article quality. We rely on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and dictionaries-based techniques in order to extract the bio-medical concepts in a text. We prove the effectiveness of our approach by classifying the medical articles of the Wikipedia Medicine Portal, which have been previously manually labeled by the Wiki Project team. The results of our experiments confirm that, by considering domain-oriented features, it is possible to obtain sensible improvements with respect to existing solutions, mainly for those articles that other approaches have less correctly classified. Other than being interesting by their own, the results call for further research in the area of domain specific features suitable for Web data quality assessment

The rank reversal problem in multi-criteria decision making : a literature review

Despite the importance of multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques for constructing effective decision models, there are many criticisms due to the occurrence of a problem called rank reversal. Nevertheless, there is a lack of a systematic literature review on this important subject which involves different methods. This study reviews the pertinent literature on rank reversal, based on 130 related articles published from 1980 to 2015 in international journals, which were gathered and analyzed according to the following perspectives: multicriteria technique, year and journal in which the papers were published, co-authorship network, rank reversal types, and research goal. Thus our survey provides recommendations for future research, besides useful information and knowledge regarding rank reversal in the MCDM field

Application of the ANP to the prioritization of project stakeholders in the context of responsible research and innovation

[EN] This paper presents a methodology to assess the stakeholders¿ influence in a research project within the context of responsible research and innovation. The methodology is based on a combination of the multicriteria decision making technique analytic network process and the key areas of responsible research. The method allows ranking and ordering the project¿s stakeholders based on their influence upon its responsibility. The purpose of such an assessment is to help research teams to more efficiently devote their limited resources to stakeholder management. The procedure is applied to a case study of the Information and Communication Technology business sector. It is an ongoing project at an early phase of development. Influential stakeholders have been identified first, and have been further classified into groups based on their relative importance. The assessment of their influence has been based on up to 16 different criteria, mainly belonging to the framework of responsible research and innovation. In the case study, the most influential criterion was the Capability to promote public engagement, while Developers were found to be the stakeholders most contributing to the research project responsibility. However, as explained, this is a temporary situation, valid for the current project development situation. It may vary over time as criteria vary in weight and stakeholders vary in influence.The authors would like to thank to our anonymous referees for their constructive comments and suggestions that helped us to improve the quality of the paper. Also, to the “Bolívar Gana con Ciencia” program from the Gobernación de Bolívar (Colombia) for the financial support. For the same reason, the authors are grateful to the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación for its support of the project Propuesta de Indicadores para Impulsar el Diseño de Una Política Orientada al Desarrollo de Investigación e Innovación Responsable en España (CSO2016-76828-R)Ligardo-Herrera, I.; Gómez-Navarro, T.; Gonzalez-Urango, H. (2018). Application of the ANP to the prioritization of project stakeholders in the context of responsible research and innovation. Central European Journal of Operations Research. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-018-0573-4S123Akbari N, Irawan CA, Jones DF, Menachof D (2017) A multi-criteria port suitability assessment for developments in the offshore wind industry. Renew Energy 102:118–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2016.10.035Aragonés-Beltrán P, García-Melón M, Montesinos-Valera J (2017) How to assess stakeholders’ influence in project management? A proposal based on the analytic network process. Int J Proj Manag. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2017.01.001Barrios Ortiz MA, De Felice F, Negrete KP et al (2016) An AHP-topsis integrated model for selecting the most appropriate tomography equipment. Int J Inf Technol Decis Mak 15:861–885. https://doi.org/10.1142/S021962201640006XBhupendra KV, Sangle S (2017) What drives successful implementation of product stewardship strategy? The role of absorptive capability. Corp Soc Responsib Environ Manag 24:186–198. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1394Botero C, Pereira C, Tosic M, Manjarrez G (2015) Design of an index for monitoring the environmental quality of tourist beaches from a holistic approach. Ocean Coast Manag 108:65–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.07.017Brugha R (2000) Stakeholder analysis: a review. Health Policy Plan 15:239–246. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/15.3.239Burget M, Bardone E, Pedaste M (2017) Definitions and conceptual dimensions of responsible research and innovation: a literature review. Sci Eng Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9782-1Caballero-Luque A, Aragonés-Beltrán P, García-Melón M, Dema-Pérez C (2010) Analysis of the alignment of Company goals to Web content using ANP. Int J Inf Technol Decis Mak 9:419–436. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219622010003889Claudia K, Köppl A, Stagl S (2014) Towards an operational measurement of socio-ecological performance. Working Paper no 52Colin E, Ackermann F (1998) Making strategy: the journey of strategic management. SAGE Publications Ltd, LondonDahlsrud A (2006) How corporate social responsibility is defined: an analysis of 37 definitions. Corp Soc Responsib Environ Manag 13:1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/csrde Jong IM, Kupper F, Broerse J (2016) Inclusive deliberation and action in emerging RRI practices: the case of neuroimaging in security management. J Responsib Innov 3:26–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2015.1137752De Lopez T (2001) Stakeholder management for conservation projects: a case study of Ream National Park, Cambodia. J Environ Manag 28:47–60De Lotto R, Gazzola V, Gossenberg S et al (2016) Proposal to reduce natural risks: analytic network process to evaluate efficiency of city planning strategies. Springer, Cham, pp 650–664European Commission (2011) DG Research workshop on Responsible Research & Innovation in EuropeGeoghegan-Quinn M (2012) Responsible research and innovation. Europe’s ability to respond to societal challengesGörener A (2012) Comparing AHP and ANP: an application of strategic decisions making in a Manufacturing Company. Int J Bus Soc Sci 3:194–208Jaafari A, Najafi A, García-Melón M (2015) Decision-making for the selection of a best wood extraction method: an analytic network process approach. For Policy Econ 50:200–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.09.010Koops BJ (2015) The concepts, approaches, and applications of responsible innovations: an introduction. In: Koops BJ, Oosterlaken I, Romijn H, Swierstra T, van den Hoven J (eds) Responsible innovation 2: concepts, approaches, and applications. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 1–15Ligardo-Herrera I, Gómez-Navarro T, Inigo EA, Blok V (2018) Addressing climate change in responsible research and innovation: recommendations for its operationalization. Sustainability 10:20. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10062012Lubberink R, Blok V, van Ophem J, Omta O (2017) Lessons for responsible innovation in the business context: a systematic literature review of responsible, social and sustainable innovation practices. Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9050721Mitchell RK, Agle BR, Wood DJ (1997) Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: defining the principle of who and what really. Acad Manag Rev 22:853–886. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMR.1997.9711022105Owen R, Bessant J, Heintz M (2013) Responsible innovation: managing the responsible emergence of science and innovation in society. Wiley, New YorkPeris J, García-Melón M, Gómez-Navarro T, Calabuig C (2013) Prioritizing local agenda 21 programmes using analytic network process: a Spanish case study. Sustain Dev 21:338–352. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.514Ramzan N, Degenkolbe S, Witt W (2008) Evaluating and improving environmental performance of HC’s recovery system: a case study of distillation unit. Chem Eng J 140:201–213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2007.09.042Rosso M, Bottero M, Pomarico S et al (2014) Integrating multicriteria evaluation and stakeholders analysis for assessing hydropower projects. Energy Policy 67:870–881. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.12.007Saaty TL (1990) How to make a decision: the analytic hierarchy process. Eur J Oper Res 48:9–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/0377-2217(90)90057-ISaaty TL (1994) How to make a decision: the analytic hierarchy process. Interfaces (Providence) 24:19–43Saaty TL (2001) The analytic network process: decision making with dependence and feedback. RWS Publications, PittsburghSaaty TL (2005) Theory and applications of the analytic network process: decision making with benefits, opportunities, costs, and risks. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and its generalization to dependence and feedback, the Analytic Network Process (ANP), are methods of relative measurement of tangibles and intangibles. Being able to derive such measurements is essential for making goSaaty TL (2008) Decision making with the analytic hierarchy process. Int J Serv Sci 1:83. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSSCI.2008.017590Saaty TL, Peniwati K (2008) Group decision making : drawing out and reconciling differences. RWS Publications, PittsburghSangle S, Babu PR (2007) Evaluating sustainability practices in terms of stakeholders’ satisfaction. Int J Bus Gov Ethics 3:56. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBGE.2007.011934Shiau TA, Chuen-Yu JK (2016) Developing an indicator system for measuring the social sustainability of offshore wind power farms. Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8050470Šijanec M, Žarnić R, Šelih J (2009) Multicriterial sustainability assessment of residential buildings. Technol Econ Dev Econ 15:612–630. https://doi.org/10.3846/1392-8619.2009.15.612-630Sipahi S, Timor M (2010) The analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process: an overview of applications. Manag Decis 48:775–808. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251741011043920Sólnes J (2003) Environmental quality indexing of large industrial development alternatives using AHP. Environ Impact Assess Rev 23:283–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0195-9255(03)00004-0Stahl BC, Coeckelbergh M (2016) Ethics of healthcare robotics: towards responsible research and innovation. Rob Auton Syst 86:152–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2016.08.018Stilgoe J, Owen R, Macnaghten P (2013) Developing a framework for responsible innovation. Res Policy 42:1568–1580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2013.05.008Strand R, Spaapen J, Bauer MW et al (2015) Indicators for promoting and monitoring responsible research and innovation report from the expert group on policy indicatorsVaidya OS, Kumar S (2006) Analytic hierarchy process: an overview of applications. Eur J Oper Res 169:1–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2004.04.028van de Poel I, Asveld L, Flipse S et al (2017) Company strategies for responsible research and innovation (RRI): a conceptual model. Sustainability 9:2045. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9112045Von Schomberg R (2011) Prospects for technology assessment in a framework of responsible research and innovation. Tech abschätzen lehren Bild transdisziplinärer Methoden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-93468-6_2Wu X, Cui P (2016) A study of the time-space evolution characteristics of urban-rural integration development in a mountainous area based on ESDA-GIS: the case of the Qinling-Daba mountains in China. Sustainability 8:1085. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8111085Yüksel I, Dagdeviren M (2007) Using the analytic network process (ANP) in a SWOT analysis—a case study for a textile firm. Inf Sci (NY) 177:3364–3382. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2007.01.00