Compromise Alternatives Research Articles

Enhancing Natural Language Processing (NLP) through VIKOR Method: A Comprehensive Approach for Improved Computational Linguistics

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a revolutionary discipline that resides at the crossroads of computer science and linguistics, with its primary emphasis on the interaction between computers and human language. With roots in artificial intelligence, NLP seeks to equip machines with the ability to comprehend, interpret, and respond to natural language, enabling more intuitive and meaningful communication between humans and computers. This multidisciplinary domain leverages advanced algorithms and models to tackle a range of linguistic challenges, from language translation and sentiment analysis to speech recognition. Recent breakthroughs, particularly in deep learning and neural networks, have propelled NLP to new heights, with applications spanning diverse sectors such as healthcare, finance, and education. As NLP continues to advance, its potential impact on enhancing human-machine interaction and information processing is increasingly evident, promising a future where technology seamlessly integrates with our natural modes of communication. The significance of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in research lies in its capacity to revolutionize human-computer interaction. NLP empowers machines to understand and generate human language, enabling advancements in sentiment analysis, language translation, and conversational AI. This transformative capability has profound implications across various industries, including healthcare, finance, and education. NLP research not only enhances the efficiency of information retrieval and processing but also holds the key to developing more intuitive and user-friendly technologies. As the frontier of NLP research expands, its potential to bridge the communication gap between humans and machines continues to shape the future of technology and information access. VIKOR functions as a multi-criteria decision-making technique that determines the best option by comparing it to the ideal option. The ranking procedure comprises determining distances concerning the optimal solution. VIKOR uses linear normalization to get the best possible outcomes. This technique was first presented by Opricovic in 1998 and was intended to optimize multi-attribute complex systems. Its main focus is on ranking lists that allow for flexibility in the strategy weight interval and incorporate compromise alternatives to obtain desired results. Alternative taken as Open AI GPT-4, Google BERT, Microsoft Azure Text Analytics, IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding, spaCy, NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit), Amazon Comprehend. Evaluation Parameter taken as Sentiment Analysis (F1 Score), NER Performance, Language Support, Processing Speed (Response Time) (ms), Translation Accuracy (BLEU Score), Data Privacy. The result it is seen that Amazon Comprehend is got the first rank where as is the IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding is having the lowest rank.

Визначення системи цілей та оцінка рівня сталого розвитку промислових підприємств

Sustainable development is an objective necessity for the effective functioning of society. In the scientific works of both foreign and domestic economists, the discussion on the essence and methods of assessing sustainable development continues. The relevance of the article relies upon the consideration that the study of the problems of sustainable development at the level of industrial enterprises, in particular the development of scientific and methodological recommendations for determining the system of goals and assessing the level of sustainable development of industrial enterprises, is yet insufficiently elaborated. The aim of the article is to improve the theoretical foundations of sustainable development by developing scientific and methodological recommendations, defining a system of goals and assessing the level of sustainable development of industrial enterprises. To achieve this aim, a number of tasks are solved: an analysis of the theoretical foundations of sustainable development is carried out; on the basis of the system method of research, the factors of influence and criteria-indicators of sustainable development of enterprises are determined; according to the conception of management by goals, making use of the program-target method, a system of goals for sustainable development of industrial enterprises is defined; a hierarchy of the goals of sustainable development of enterprise has been built; the global (main) goal and sub-goals of sustainable development of industrial enterprises are formulated; on the basis of graph theory, a tree of goals (graphs) for sustainable development of industrial enterprises has been built; on the basis of the theory of utility, a multi-criteria model of integral assessment of sustainable development of enterprises has been proposed. The global (main) goal of enterprise development is formulated as «Achieving sustainable development of industrial enterprises». The tree of sustainable development goals of enterprises is a graph, the vertices of which are the goals, and the edges (arcs) are the connections between them. Depending on the purpose of the study, as well as the degree of specification of goals, it is possible to build many variants of the tree of goals, which will identify and illustrate various compromise alternatives for achieving goals. A system of criteria-indicators that characterize the achievement of the set goals has been formulated. As a criterion for achieving the goal, it is proposed to use a multi-criteria utility function. For an integral assessment of sustainable development, it is expedient to use the additive utility function, which makes it possible to calculate the integral indicator of sustainable development of enterprise. This, in turn, makes it possible to analyze the dynamics of sustainable development over a number of years, as well as to compare enterprises with each other.

Designing diversified crop rotations to advance sustainability: A method and an application

Diversified crop rotations are considered key to solving sustainability issues with modern farming but trade-offs often occur among different sustainability objectives. It remains a challenge to design rotations that reach compromises across multiple sustainability domains. Here we propose a methodological framework for systematic design of compromise rotations in terms of a set of sustainability indicators, which for the first time combines a rotation generator model (ROTAT), Pareto-based decision-aid tools, and a multi-criteria characterization process. We exemplify this framework by exploring promising diversified rotations in terms of 11 sustainability indicators for Quzhou, a typical cereal-growing county in the North China Plain. ROTAT generated 3011 agronomically feasible rotations but none of them outperformed the currently dominant wheat-maize system in all indicators. Then 125 rotations (4 %) were selected as compromise rotations using the Pareto-based decision-aid methods. Finally, these compromise rotations were divided into eight clusters representing contrasting sustainability patterns, including two profitability-oriented, two nutrition-oriented, and two environment-oriented clusters, as well as two clusters that achieved balance across sustainability domains. We conclude that no single alternative rotation can solve all conflicting sustainability issues, but compromise alternatives could serve diverse stakeholder demands and provide well-planned options for future agricultural landscapes. The crop rotation design method showcased here could also be used in other specialized agricultural regions to inform stakeholders and policy-makers about possibilities and trade-offs when improving sustainability of crop production.

The influence of group decision-making on residents’ preferences for sustainable energy measures of dwellings

ABSTRACT As a part of the shift towards a more sustainable society, improving the energy efficiency of the current dwelling stock has gained momentum in the past few years. In case of co-ownership of a building (e.g. apartment building), the residents of a home-owner association have to come to a collective agreement when deciding upon the implementation of sustainable energy measures of the dwellings. Stated choice modelling is a well-known technique to measure individuals’ preferences of attributes of choice alternatives. This study introduces an extension of the technique to estimate preferences of residents that takes into account group influences and group dynamics in joint decision-making. The findings of an application based on a national sample of 167 home-owner associations members indicate that owner association members show cooperative behaviour. They are willing to make concessions to their own preferences in order to reach a group decision. When preferences of members differ on outcomes that are considered to be very important, however, the willingness to adapt may be limited. We conclude therefore that compromise alternatives have a higher probability of acceptance than high-gain high-cost alternatives, given the group decision context.

Mining method selection for underground mining with the application of VIKOR method

Multi-criteria decision making is widely used in mining to solve a variety of problems, as well as to support the mine planning and design process. The choice of the mining method of excavation for underground exploitation is a very complex and responsible matter, and support in the application of multi-criteria decision-making methods are of great importance of making the final decision. This paper will present the scientific methodology for the mining method selection by the application of VIKOR method, which gives the results of compromise alternatives.

The (un)compromise effect: How suggested alternatives can promote active choice

In a large-scale field experiment, I study the impact of intermediate suggested donations, and the absence of them, on charitable giving. In line with a compromise effect, transforming $100 from the highest suggested donation to the intermediate suggested donation tripled the likelihood to donate $100, and increased the average donation. However, it was the introduction of a higher maximum suggestion—not the change in the intermediate suggestion per se—that was decisive: Faced with only the two extreme suggested donations, people turned to the write in category to select an individual compromise donation. I refer to this finding as the (un)compromise effect, because it highlights that people gravitate towards compromise alternatives also in the explicit absence of them. A follow-up experiment confirms that time pressure moderates the (un)compromise effect, which suggests that the underlying mechanism is cognitive rather than an instinctive response to avoid extreme alternatives. Overall, the study adds to our understanding of why people prefer intermediate options in general, and how suggested donations shape public good contributions in particular.

Product line optimization in the presence of preferences for compromise alternatives

Recent advances in customer choice analysis demonstrated the strong impact of compromise alternatives on the behaviour of decision-makers in a wide range of decision situations. Compromise alternatives are characterized by an intermediate performance on some of the relevant attributes. For instance, price compromises are well known in the sense that customers tend to buy neither the cheapest, nor the most expensive alternative, but the mid-priced one. However, thus far, the literature on product line optimization has not considered such context effects.In this paper, we propose a model-based approach for optimal product line selection which incorporates customers’ preferences for compromise alternatives. We consider customer choice in a realistic, sophisticated fashion by applying an established utility model that integrates compromise variables into a multinomial logit model. We formulate the resulting optimization problem as a mixed-integer linear program. The challenging feature for modelling – making the formulation substantially more complicated than existing ones without compromises – are the endogenous effects of selected products on other alternatives’ utilities that need to be adequately captured via compromise variables. Based on data we collected by a stated choice experiment in a retail setting, we perform a computational study and demonstrate the superiority of our product line selection approach compared to a reference model that does not take compromises into account. Even under uncertainty of the estimated utility parameters, profit gains of, on average, 23% can be achieved in our experimental setting.

Implementation in undominated strategies by bounded mechanisms: Some results on compromise alternatives

We consider an impossibility result in Börgers (1991), which says in a restricted environment with two players or three alternatives it is impossible to implement a social choice correspondence that is efficient, enforces compromises at a profile and is implementable in undominated strategies by a bounded mechanism. We extend and refine this result in many ways- we generalize the impossibility result for any number of players and alternatives when the compromises are enforced at a near-unanimous preference profile. We further show that the impossibility result in Börgers (1991) holds good if we replace efficiency of SCCs by neutrality. Also the impossibility result holds good for two agents and any number of alternatives when the SCC is unanimous and minimal. Interestingly, we get a possibility result when we relax the assumption of minimality.

Implementation in Undominated Strategies by Bounded Mechanisms: Some Results on Compromise Alternatives

We consider an impossibility result in Borgers (1991), which says in a restricted environment with two players or three alternatives it is impossible to implement a social choice correspondence that is efficient, enforces compromises at a profile and is implementable in undominated strategies by a bounded mechanism. We extend and refine this result in many ways - we generalize the impossibility result for any number of players and alternatives when the compromises are enforced at a near-unanimous preference profile. We further show that the impossibility result in Borgers (1991) holds good if we replace efficiency of SCCs by neutrality. Also the impossibility result holds good for two agents and any number of alternatives when the SCC is unanimous and minimal. Interestingly, we get a possibility result when we relax the assumption of minimality.

Socially-Optimal and Nash Pareto-Based Alternatives for Water Allocation under Uncertainty: an Approach and Application

This study has proposed a methodology by enhancing an interactive algorithm to multi-objective optimization problems with interval parameters, in an attempt to reach the tradeoff between quality and reliability of the resultant optimum solutions. The earlier algorithm could turn into a prolonged procedure that deals with several players with different aspirations at different reliability, or risk, levels under non-deterministic conditions. Hence, it is not a pertinent approach to solve problems of water allocation between competing parties. The enhanced methodology aims to alleviate the burdens of the procedure and generate a unique set of solutions (i.e., near-Pareto-optimal alternatives), instead of a myriad of compromise solution sets. We have investigated a real-world hydro-environmental problem, the allocation of water between Dorudzan-Korbal irrigation networks and Bakhtegan Lake in Fars Province, Iran to assess feasibility of this methodology. In order to reach a consensus concerning the stakeholders’ individual preferences, we identified the compromise alternatives from the obtained sets of non-dominated solutions by taking advantage of various social choice rules and the Nash bargaining model. The results demonstrated that the developed methodology could incorporate the risk of system constraints violations (i.e., planning reliability under uncertainty) into the process of approximating the optimal tradeoff set of solutions. It also gave policymakers a chance to acquire perception into the potentially best compromise for land and water allocation schemes regarding the preference profiles of the involved interest groups.

Men and the Middle: Gender Differences in Dyadic Compromise Effects

Individual decision makers show robust tendencies toward choosing compromise options. But what happens when consumers make choices with someone else? This article examines the choice of compromise options in joint dyadic decisions. Findings reveal that preferences for compromise alternatives replicate in mixed-gender and female-female dyads as among individuals but are attenuated when two males make a choice together. Moreover, when two males make joint choices, their tendency to choose the compromise alternative decreases not only relative to other types of pairs but also to male and female individual decision makers. Evidence is presented that this happens because male-male dyadic contexts cue gender dichotomization, behavior that is consistent with masculine but not feminine gender norms. Because the extremity in decision making is maximally consistent with masculine but not feminine gender role norms, male-male dyads exhibit lower preferences for compromise options. However, if men have an opportunity to signal masculinity to one another prior to making joint compromise choices, male-male dyads prefer compromise options at proportions no different from female-female dyads. This work brings together the judgment and decision-making literature with insights from the social psychology literature, identifying a case when gender role norms have profound influences on classic judgment and decision-making effects.

Limited public resources allocation model based on social fairness using an extended VIKOR method

Purpose Different from manufacturing resources allocation problems, the prices and amounts of limited public service resources could not be changed with the consumers’ requirements and social fairness is the most important objective for improving allocation efficiency. To measure social fairness reasonably, the purpose of this paper is fourfold: first, divide social fairness into longitudinal comparative fairness and crosswise comparative fairness, therefore providing their calculation formula and describing the comprehensive fair degree by using the interval numbers. Second, the comparison regulations of interval numbers are given and the corresponding features are also described. Third, an extension of VIKOR method is put forward for evaluating social fairness of different allocation alternatives with interval numbers. Finally, a numerical example illustrates the proposed method and clarifies the main results developed in the paper. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the author depicts the social fair degree as an interval number, and thus proposes the comparison method between any two interval numbers. Based on the basis procedure of the VIKOR method, the paper proposes an extension of the fuzzy VIKOR method with the interval numbers to rank and select the compromise allocation alternatives. Finally, a numerical example illustrates the practicability of the proposed method. Findings The comparison of interval numbers is very important when the author evaluates the decision alternatives. Through analyzing the present comparison methods, the paper proposes the simple method of comparing the interval numbers, which can obtain the same results with the above two methods. The fuzzy VIKOR method, a popular multi-criteria decision-making method, focusses on ranking and selecting from a set of alternatives in a fuzzy environment. For the fuzzy value, the paper also proposes the extension of the VIKOR method to perform an evaluation and get the compromise alternatives. Originality/value According to the huge customers’ requirement, how to improve their social fair degree has become the focus in public service resources allocation, where the social fair degree may be a comprehensive concept which includes the fair degree compared with all the other allocation alternatives and the fair degree compared with the other small group under the same allocation alternative. In the paper, the author defines the above two types of fair degree and then depicts the comprehensive fair degree as their integration, which will be interval numbers.

Different shades of grey: Compromise products to encourage animal friendly consumption

Contemporary production and consumption are often characterised by negative externalities, for example regarding animal welfare. Despite consumer concerns about animal welfare standards in livestock production systems, the market share of organic meat is still low. The current paper investigates to what extent a more differentiated product assortment including “compromise alternatives”, providing consumers with more options to trade-off animal welfare against other attributes, increases the choice share of meat produced at beyond-regulatory standards for animal welfare. Results from a choice experiment in The Netherlands reveal considerable heterogeneity in consumer preferences regarding the trade-off between animal welfare level and price level. Two out of six segments, typically consumers with a lower education level and shoppers at discount supermarkets, are not or hardly prepared to pay a price premium for welfare enhanced meat. Two other segments show a preference for small increases in animal welfare level and associated costs. The remaining two other segments seem to reflect “protestors” against mainstream meat production in that they hold negative attitudes, beliefs and feelings regarding the consumption of conventionally-produced meat, either by turning to meat produced at high animal welfare standards (including meat replacement products) or by reducing meat consumption. It is concluded that an assortment that better caters for this heterogeneity in consumer preference by including “compromise meat products” is of the benefit to both the individual consumer (preferences), the animal (animal welfare levels) and the meat sector (clientele).

VIKOR and its Applications

Recently, Multiple-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) tools have increasingly been expanded to help researchers and practitioners to evaluate and select the best compromise alternatives. Among popular MCDM methods, Vlsekriterijumska Optimizacija I KOmpromisno Resenje (VIKOR) has attracted much attention to cope with complex problems with conflict factors. The current study conducted a state-of-the-art literature review to embody the research on VIKOR and its applications. The paper structure consists of 198 papers from more than 100 journals and conference proceedings since 2002 which were classified into nine categories: 1) Design and manufacturing management, 2) Business and marketing management, 3) Supply chain and logistics management, 4) Environmental resources and energy management, 5) Construction management, 6) Education management, 7) Health-care and risk management, 8) Tourism management, and 9) Other topics. The last topic contains Information and knowledge management, Mine industry, etc. The study also proposes four classifications: 1) Publication year, 2) Journals, 3) other techniques combined or compared with VIKOR, and 4) Keywords distribution by VIKOR papers specifications. Finally, it was proposed forthcoming areas of study and recommendations for practical means. This study intends to generate insights on decision making techniques.

Combining VIKOR-DANP model for glamor stock selection and stock performance improvement

This study proposes a multiple attributes decision making (MADM) method for solving glamor stock selection problem based on fundamental analysis. Traditional analyzes rely on choosing key financial ratios in making comparison, or by observing the trends of change in various financial variables (also termed as criteria or signals in this study). However, most of the criteria for stock selection have inter-dependent/interactive characteristics. In practice, investors often have to make compromising decisions when target stocks indicate conflicting performance outcomes in different criteria. Traditional methods have difficulty in making decision while facing inter-dependent criteria and compromise alternatives. Thus, this study proposes a combined MADM method to retrieve financial experts’ knowledge for glamor stock selection. The proposed method not only helps to identify the ideal glamor stock, but the pertaining insights may also be used for the management teams of glamor stocks to prioritize their improvement plans. In addition, this study provides an empirical case in analyzing five glamor stocks of semiconductor industry in Taiwan. The result indicates that the proposed method for glamor stock selection is effective and provides meaningful implications for investors and management teams to refer. The selected top ranking stock consistently outperformed the other four glamor stocks in 32month and 44month holding periods from May 2009 to December 2012 with statistical significance, which indicated the effectiveness of the proposed model.

Pareto-set reduction using compound information of a closed type

The axiomatic approach of Pareto-set reduction is used in this paper to solve the multicriteria choice problem. The goal is to construct an upper estimate for an unknown set of selected alternatives. A method for reducing the set of compromise alternatives using compound closed information on the preference relation of a decision maker is determined. An illustrative example is given.

An empirical comparison of travel choice models that capture preferences for compromise alternatives

Compromise alternatives have an intermediate performance on each or most attributes rather than having a poor performance on some attributes and a strong performance on others. The relative popularity of compromise alternatives among decision-makers has been convincingly established in a wide range of decision contexts, while being largely ignored in travel behavior research. We discuss three (travel) choice models that capture a potential preference for compromise alternatives. One approach, which is introduced in this paper, involves the construction of a so-called compromise variable which indicates to what extent (i.e., on how many attributes) a given alternative is a compromise alternative in its choice set. Another approach consists of the recently introduced random regret-model form, where the popularity of compromise alternatives emerges endogenously from the regret minimization-based decision rule. A third approach consists of the contextual concavity model, which is known for favoring compromise alternatives by means of a locally concave utility function. Estimation results on a stated route choice dataset show that, in terms of model fit and predictive ability, the contextual concavity and random regret models appear to perform better than the model that contains an added compromise variable.

A Comprehensive Literature Review of the Rank Reversal Phenomenon in the Analytic Hierarchy Process

ABSTRACTDuring the last few decades, several multi‐criteria decision analysis methods have been proposed to help in selecting the best compromise alternatives. Among them, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and its applications have attracted much attention from academics and practitioners. However, since the early 1980s, critics have raised questions regarding its proper use. One of them concerns the unacceptable changes in the ranks of the alternatives, called rank reversal, upon changing the structure of the decision. Several modifications were suggested to preserve ranks. In this paper, a classification scheme and a comprehensive literature review are presented in order to uncover, classify and interpret the current research on AHP methodologies and rank reversals. On the basis of the scheme, 61 scholarly papers from 18 journals are categorized into specific areas. The specific areas include the papers on the topics of adding/deleting alternatives and the papers published in adding/deleting criteria. The scholarly papers are also classified by (1) year of publication, (2) journal of publication, (3) authors' geographic location and (4) using the AHP in association with other methods. It is hoped that the paper can meet the needs of researchers and practitioners for convenient references of AHP methodologies and rank reversals and hence promote the future of rank reversal research. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

It’s not easy being green: the effects of attribute tradeoffs on green product preference and choice

Despite widespread pro-green attitudes, consumers frequently purchase non-green alternatives. One possible explanation for this value–action gap is the tradeoffs that green products often force on their users: higher prices, lower quality, and/or reduced performance. The current study uses conjoint analysis to uncover the attribute preferences of car and TV buyers when green attributes are negatively correlated with conventional attributes. These attribute preferences are then used to predict choice among sets of green and less green alternatives currently sold in the marketplace. Strong preferences for green products are found when tradeoffs are not apparent, but preference shifts significantly to less green compromise alternatives when the actual attribute tradeoffs are considered. Although general preference is reduced by tradeoffs, a green product offering some compensatory advantage on a conventional attribute does attract a broader spectrum of consumers, while only “dark green” consumers are willing to pay the price to go green when the product offers few compensatory qualities. In all cases, however, predicted buyers of the greenest technologies offset some of their environmental benefits by choosing more energy-thirsty specifications on negatively correlated conventional attributes. Managerial and public policy implications of the findings are then discussed.

Fuzzy TOPSIS Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Applied to Karun Reservoirs System

Water resource systems, with an abundance of project purposes and resource values, are subject to conflicting policy, planning, and management decisions. Multi-criteria decision making methods (MCDM) provide a framework to help water managers identify critical issues, attach relative priorities to those issues, select best compromise alternatives, and facilitate communication to gain general acceptance. This paper addresses a method that incorporates several system factors/components within a general framework for providing a holistic analysis of the problems and comprehensive evaluation of the related mitigation/adaptation measures and policy responses. The method accounts for uncertainties in both the quantification and importance of objectives in the ranking process. The proposed fuzzy multi-criteria decision making process uses the well known Technique for Order Preference by Similarity of Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method in both deterministic and uncertain environments. The performance of the proposed approach to a real water resource management problem in Iran is illustrated. Results show that the model may be used in a large-scale multi-level assessment process. Ranks of the alternatives are presented using deterministic and fuzzy based models.