Multi-criteria Decision-making Environment Research Articles

Anticipating alliances of stakeholders in the optimal design of community energy systems

This work analyzes the influence of stakeholders in the design of distributed generation systems in rural communities. The developed mathematical model considers the computation of optimal solutions according to the interests of different stakeholders immersed in a multi-criteria decision-making environment. To mitigate the conflict associated with the differences between the participants preferences in the decision-making process, a novel methodology based on the generation of alliances is proposed. A similarity to the political influence and ideological polarization models is employed to identify potential alliances between stakeholders with similar interests and provide optimal solutions associated with each group. Soft-clustering strategies, the concept of ideological distance and modified utopia tracking approach are used in the formation of alliances for trading-off the multiple criteria and mitigating the conflict. To test these ideas, the optimal design of a distributed generation system based on biomass and renewable sources in an indigenous community in West-Central Mexico is addressed. The multi-objective optimization model considers the economic performance of the system, CO2 emissions and employment associated to the energy system. The results show that by implementing this methodology it is possible to propose an attractive solution for all the stakeholders groups, which influences the final design of the community energy system.

Identification of Shipyard Priorities in a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Environment through a Transdisciplinary Energy Management Framework: A Real Case Study for a Turkish Shipyard

Ship building, as an energy-intensive sector, produces significant amounts of air emissions, including greenhouse gases. Most research in greenhouse gas reductions from shipping concentrates on the reduction in emissions during the operational phase. However, as emissions during ship operation are reduced, the construction and dismantling phases of ships are becoming increasingly important in the assessment of the life-cycle impact of ships. In this study, priorities for a Turkish shipyard to become energy efficient were identified by means of a semi-structured questionnaire and an interview. This was undertaken using Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods, including the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution, which are part of a proposed systematic and transdisciplinary Energy Management Framework and System. By applying Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods, this framework supports the shipyard’s decision makers to make rational and optimized decisions regarding energy sectors within their activities. Applying the framework has significant potential to help achieve good product quality while reducing costs and environmental impacts, and can thereby enhance the sustainability of shipping. Moreover, the framework can boost both business and socio-economic perspectives for the shipyard, and improve its reputation and competitiveness, in alignment with achieving the Nationally Determined Contributions of States under the Paris Agreement.

Reliability as Key Software Quality Metric: A Multi-Criterion Intuitionistic Fuzzy-Topsis-Based Analysis

Software Quality has many parameters that govern its value. Of them, usually, Reliability has gained much attention of researchers and practitioners. However, today’s ever-demanding environment poses severe challenges in front of software creators as to continue treating Reliability as one of the most important attributes for governing software quality when other important parameters like re-usability, security and resilience to name a few are also available. Evaluating, ranking and selecting the most approximate attribute to govern the software quality is a complex concern, which technically requires a multi-criteria decision-making environment. Through this paper, we have proposed an Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set-based TOPSIS approach to showcase why reliability is one of the most preferable parameters for governing software quality. In order to collate individual opinions of decision makers; software developers of various firms were administered for rating the importance of various criteria and alternatives.

SIMILARITY MEASURES OF PYTHAGOREAN FUZZY SETS WITH APPLICATIONS TO PATTERN RECOGNITION AND MULTICRITERIA DECISION MAKING WITH PYTHAGOREAN TOPSIS

The construction of divergence measures between two Pythagorean fuzzy sets (PFSs) is significant as it has a variety of applications in different areas such as multicriteria decision making, pattern recognition and image processing. The main purpose of this study to introduce an information-theoretic divergence so-called Pythagorean fuzzy Jensen-Rényi divergence (PFJRD) between two PFSs. The strength and characterization of the proposed Jensen-Rényi divergence between Pythagorean fuzzy sets lie in its practical applications which are very closed to real life. The proposed divergence measure is utilized to induce some useful similarity measures between PFSs. We apply them in pattern recognition, characterization of the similarity between linguistic variables and in multiple criteria decision making. To demonstrate the practical utility and applicability, we present some numerical examples related to daily life with the construction of Pythagorean fuzzy TOPSIS (Techniques of preference similar to ideal solution). Which is utilized to rank the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) projects. Our numerical simulation results show that the suggested measures are well suitable in pattern recognition, characterization of linguistic variables and multi-criteria decision-making environment.

Hospital Location Selection: A Systematic Literature Review on Methodologies and Applications

The increased focus of people on the quality of health care in recent years has led hospital owners to develop strategies and policies to improve medical services through the establishment of new hospitals. For hospitals to be competitive, the hospitalʼs location and proximity to potential patients are considered crucial factors in establishing new hospitals. In this context, evaluating and selecting the most suitable hospital location to establish a new hospital from the multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) perspective is a priority for the entrepreneurs or government to gain a competitive advantage. Therefore, this study aims to present a systematic literature review of the hospital location selection problem considering the applied methods and application areas. The preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis statement (PRISMA) are used as a reference framework. Initially, known electronic databases (Web of science, IEEEXplore, Scopus, Science direct, and Google Scholar) were searched up to the early 2021. A number of 47 articles are selected and analyzed under this systematic framework based on inclusion-exclusion points. State-of-the-art developments in adopting MCDM methods and their fuzzy extensions are summarized. All the articles have been examined in a systematic taxonomy to find answers to six research questions (trend, country of origin, outlet journal, MCDM methods used, MCDM environment and criteria type, and decision criteria used). Results show that (1) AHP and GIS-based MCDM models are the most contributing approaches to the solution of this problem, (2) location selection criteria are mostly cost, demand, environment, population, government, competition in the market, and distance to some important places, (3) the fuzzy structure is also preferred in addition to the MCDM structure depending on the crisp data type, and (4) the location selection criteria are mostly considered subjective. We pay attention to promising directions that can dominate future research in this field from a methodological or applicability perspective. This study shows the current views and opportunities for researchers and practitioners and acts as a guide to encourage more creative studies in this field.

Sustainable supplier selection under attractive criteria through FIS and integrated fuzzy MCDM techniques

ABSTRACT Suppliers as upstream partners play a crucial role to establish sustainability in the supply chain. For precise evaluation of the supplier’s performance on sustainability criteria researchers have mainly focused on Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) approaches. The objective of the paper is to evaluate the supplier’s sustainability performance through FIS and fuzzy MCDM approaches. Further, the results are compared and utilised to develop the Sustainable Supplier Selection (SSS) framework for the iron and steel industry of India. To calculate Suppliers Performance Index (SPI), three distinct FIS engines have been developed for each sustainability dimensions and fuzzy AHP and TOPSIS techniques are used for the MCDM environment. The results provide a deep inside of the sustainability performance of each supplier. It elicits from the results of two approaches, that ranks are interchanged among the top two suppliers.

Extending the WEDBA to the fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making environment

Extending the WEDBA to the fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making environment

An Integrated AFS-Based SWOT Analysis Approach for Evaluation of Strategies Under MCDM Environment

This article outlines the development of a hybrid methodology aimed to help the policymakers in strategic planning. The proposed methodology integrates the axiomatic fuzzy set (AFS) theory, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and the concept of simple additive weighting (SAW) to evaluate the strategies by strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis. The combination of AHP with SWOT yields analytically determined weights of the factors included in SWOT analysis. The SAW technique provides a flexible technique to obtain the final ranking of strategies in multi-criteria decision situations. In SAW, the strategies are described using the AFS-based AHP calculation framework for normalization and consistent ratings over the SWOT factors. The AFS theory is incorporated in the model to overcome the uncertainty and ambiguity in human decision-making processes. The proposed integrated methodology copes with the inconsistency caused by different types of fuzzy numbers and normalization methods required in solving multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems. A real-world application is conducted to illustrate the utilization of the model to evaluate SWOT analysis and strategies for tourism development.

A Fuzzy Trade-Off Ranking Method for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making

The aim of this paper is to present a trade-off ranking method in a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making environment. The triangular fuzzy numbers are used to represent the imprecise numerical quantities in the criteria values of each alternative and the weight of each criterion. A fuzzy trade-off ranking method is developed to rank alternatives in the fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making problem with conflicting criteria. The trade-off ranking method tackles this type of multi-criteria problems by giving the least compromise solution as the best option. The proposed method for the fuzzy decision-making problems is compared against two other fuzzy decision-making approaches, fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and fuzzy VlseKriterijuska Optimizacija I Komoromisno Resenje (VIKOR), used for ranking alternatives.

A NOVEL HYBRID METHOD FOR NON-TRADITIONAL MACHINING PROCESS SELECTION USING FACTOR RELATIONSHIP AND MULTI-ATTRIBUTIVE BORDER APPROXIMATION METHOD

Selection of the most appropriate non-traditional machining process (NTMP) for a definite machining requirement can be observed as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem with conflicting criteria. This paper proposes a novel hybrid method encompassing factor relationship (FARE) and multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) methods for selection and evaluation of NTMPs. The application of FARE method is pioneered in NTMP assessment domain to estimate criteria weights. It significantly condenses the problem of pairwise comparisons for estimating criteria weights in MCDM environment. In order to analyze and rank different NTMPs in accordance with their performance and technical properties, MABAC method is applied. Computational procedure of FARE-MABAC hybrid model is demonstrated while solving an NTMP selection problem for drilling cylindrical through holes on non-conductive ceramic materials. The results achieved by FARE-MABAC method exactly corroborate with those obtained by the past researchers which validate the usefulness of this method while solving complex NTMP selection problems.

ELECTRE methods in prioritized MCDM environment

In most cases, ELECTRE methods just apply to traditional multicriteria decision making (MCDM) problems with independent criteria. However, there exist more or less interdependences among criteria in actual situations. A special case is MCDM with prioritizations among criteria, called prioritized MCDM. In recent years, how to deal with MCDM problems in the environment of prioritized criteria becomes hot topic increasingly. Lots of existing methods, including PROMETHEE, are modified for the prioritized MCDM, but the advantages of ELECTRE have not been exploited to the prioritized MCDM. In my opinion, design specific ELECTRE methods for prioritized MCDM problems will benefit the developments of both ELECTRE and prioritized MCDM. In this paper, we firstly reformulate the expressions of concordance and discordance indices for use in the MCDM problems with dependent criteria, especially prioritized criteria, based on the concepts of fuzzy measures and digraphs respectively. After replacing the fuzzy measure by a prioritized measure, we successfully validate the concordance of an assertion under prioritized criteria. Furthermore, we design an approach to validate the discordance of the assertion based on a digraph constructed by the criteria and their prioritizations. Finally, we design three procedures to construct outranking relations in the prioritized MCDM environment according to the ideas of ELECTRE-I, ELECTRE-Iv, and ELECTRE-IS respectively. It is meaningful of this paper to provide a new idea to solve the prioritized MCDM problems and widen the application scope of ELECTRE methods by means of the reformulations of concordance and discordance.

An econometric irrigated crop allocation model for analyzing the impact of water restriction policies

The objective of the Spanish government-funded GESMO project is to research on new water policy evaluation and monitoring tools, applied to aquifer 8/23 in the Eastern Mancha, which covers one of the most important areas under the charge of the Júcar Catchment Confederation. The project is to output two types of end products: Decision Support Systems for defining water use policies, including economic impact and environmental simulators within a single multi-criteria decision-making environment and Measure Monitoring and Control Systems employing tele-detection and simulation of crop water needs. The Decision Support Systems will include three, highly complex, theoretical models in a single information technology product: a three-dimensional aquifer 8/23 behavior simulation model, an econometric model to predict crop allocation depending on the economic environment, water availabilities, etc., and an automatic alternative generation and evaluation system based on a multi-criteria methodology. The objective of the system is to advise on possible water policies and how they would materialize into spatially and temporally distributed water quotas (m 3/ha) with the objective of both safeguarding the aquifer in the medium and long term and increasing the economic profitability of regional agriculture. In this paper, a regional econometric model is presented for studying the impact of water use quotas on the main irrigated crops allocation in the region.