Interval Consistency Repairing Method for Double Hierarchy Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Preference Relation and Application in the Diagnosis of Lung Cancer

Abstract

Natural language is more in line with the real thoughts of people than crisp numbers considering that qualitative language information is more consistent with the expression habits of experts. Double hierarchy hesitant fuzzy linguistic preference relation (DHHFLPR) can be used to express complex linguistic preference information accurately because the pairwise comparison methods are more accurate than non-pairwise methods. Consistency reflects the rationalization of a preference relation and can be used to judge whether a preference relation is self-contradictory or not. In this paper, an interval consistency index of DHHFLPR is developed, which is consisted by the consistency indices of all double hierarchy linguistic preference relations associated with the DHHFLPR. Additionally, an average consistency index of DHHFLPR is given by calculating the average value of the consistency indices of all double hierarchy linguistic preference relations. Moreover, we develop a consistency checking and repairing method for DHHFLPR. Finally, we apply the proposed method into a practical group decision-making problem that is to identify the most critical factors in developing lung cancer, and some comparative analyses involving the connections and differences among the proposed consistency indices are analysed