A Large-Scale Group Decision Making Model Based on Trust Relationship and Social Network Updating

With the development of big data and social computing,large-scale group decisionmaking(LGDM)is nowmerging with social networks.Using social network analysis(SNA),this study proposes an LGDM consensus model that considers the trust relationship among decisionmakers(DMs).In the process of consensusmeasurement:the social network is constructed according to the social relationship among DMs,and the Louvain method is introduced to classify social networks to form subgroups.In this study,the weights of each decision maker and each subgroup are computed by comprehensive network weights and trust weights.In the process of consensus improvement:A feedback mechanism with four identification and two direction rules is designed to guide the consensus of the improvement process.Based on the trust relationship among DMs,the preferences are modified,and the corresponding social network is updated to accelerate the consensus.Compared with the previous research,the proposedmodel not only allows the subgroups to be reconstructed and updated during the adjustment process,but also improves the accuracy of the adjustment by the feedbackmechanism.Finally,an example analysis is conducted to verify the effectiveness and flexibility of the proposed method.Moreover,compared with previous studies,the superiority of the proposed method in solving the LGDM problem is highlighted.

Multi-attribute group decision making algorithm for web services selection based on QoS

To address the problem of web services selection based on quality, an approach of multi-attribute group decision making algorithm is proposed. Based on the Borda social choice function, the group decision making algorithm aggregates the results of multiple methods with different principles which are used to obtain constantly changing quality of service, thus increasing the confidence to select the most appropriate web service for a special task. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach has better scalability and can be applied to large-scale distributed service computing environments. It is also shown that the proposed group decision making approach can effectively optimize the services selection and outperforms the random and robin policies. By using this approach, it can extend a method to obtain constantly changing quality of service and construct a synthetic information entity with multi-level knowledge, which guarantees the accuracy of services selection.

Novel combinatorial algorithm for the problems of fuzzy grey multi-attribute group decision making

To study the fuzzy and grey information in the problems of multi-attribute group decision making, the basic concepts of both fuzzy grey numbers and grey interval numbers are given firstly, then a new model of fuzzy grey multi-attribute group decision making based on the theories of fuzzy mathematics and grey system is presented. Furthermore, the grey interval relative degree and deviation degree is defined, and both the optimistic algorithm of the grey interval relational degree and the algorithm of deviation degree minimization for solving this new model are also given. Finally, a decision making example to demonstrate the feasibility and rationality of this new method is given, and the results by using these two algorithms are uniform.

Interactive group decision making procedure based on uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations

Group decision making problems are investigated with uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations.An unbalanced multiplicative linguistic label set is introduced,which can be used by the experts to express their linguistic preference information over alternatives.The uncertain linguistic weighted geometric mean operator is utilized to aggregate all the individual uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations into a collective one,and then a simple approach is developed to determine the experts＇ weights by utilizing the consensus degrees among the individual uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations and the collective uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations.Furthermore,a practical interactive procedure for group decision making is proposed based on uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations,in which a possibility degree formula and a complementary matrix are used to rank the given alternatives.Finally,the proposed procedure is applied to solve the group decision making problem of a manufacturing company searching the best global supplier for one of its most critical parts used in assembling process.

Three-way group decision making with linguistic evaluations

Based on linguistic evaluations, a linguistic threeway decision method is proposed. First, the alternatives are rated in linguistic forms and divided into acceptance, rejection and uncertainty regions. Secondly, the linguistic three-way group decision steps are provided. Specifically, the experts determine the lower bound and upper bound of the uncertainty region, respectively. When the evaluation is superior to the upper bound, the corresponding alternative is put into the acceptance region directly. Similarly, when the evaluation is inferior to the lower bound, the corresponding alternative is put into the rejection region directly, and the remaining alternatives are put into the uncertain region. Moreover, the objects in the uncertainty region are especially discussed. The linguistic terms are transformed into fuzzy numbers and then aggregated. Finally, a recommendation example is provided to illustrate the practicality and validity of the proposed method.

A group decision making method based on double hesitant linguistic preference relations

A simple decision method is proposed to solve the group decision making problems in which the weights of decision organizations are unknown and the preferences for alternatives are provided by double hesitant linguistic preference relations. First, double hesitant linguistic elements are defined as representing the uncertain assessment information in the process of group decision making accurately and comprehensively, and the double hesitant linguistic weighted averaging operator is developed based on the defined operational laws for double hesitant linguistic elements. Then, double hesitant linguistic preference relations are defined and a means to objectively determine the weights of decision organizations is put forward using the standard deviation of scores of preferences provided by the individual decision organization for altematives. Finally the correlation coefficient between the scores of preferences and the scores of preferences are provided by the other decision organizations. Accordingly, a group decision method based on double hesitant linguistic preference relations is proposed, and a practical example of the Jiudianxia reservoir operation alternative selection is used to illustrate the practicability and validity of the method. Finally, the proposed method is compared with the existing methods. Comparative results show that the proposed method can deal with the double hesitant linguistic preference information directly, does not need any information transformation, and can thus reduce the loss of original decision information.

Solution to multiple attribute group decision making problems with two decision makers

A kind of multiple attribute group decision making （MAGDM） problem is discussed from the perspective of statistic decision-making. Firstly, on the basis of the stability theory, a new idea is proposed to solve this kind of problem. Secondly, a con- crete method corresponding to this kind of problem is proposed. The main tool of our research is the technique o~ the jackknife method. The main advantage of the new method is that it can identify and determine the reliability degree of the existed decision making information. Finally, a traffic engineering example is given to show the effectiveness of the new method.

Multi-criteria group decision making with fuzzy data:an extension of the VIKOR method

The VIKOR method is a multi-criteria decision making aid, which employs linear normalization to offer compromise solu- tions and has been successfully applied to various group decision making problems. However, the conventional VIKOR techniques used to integrate group judgments and the information loss arising from defuzzification are problematic and distort final outcomes. An improved integration method, which is optimization-based, is proposed. And it can handle fuzzy criteria values and weights. The precondition for accurately defuzzifying triangular fuzzy num- bers is identified. Several effective defuzzification procedures are proposed to improve the extant VIKOR, and a comprehensive evaluation framework is offered to aid multi-criteria group decision making. Finally, a numerical example is provided to illustrate the practicability of the proposed method.

Multi-attribute group decision making method under 2-dimension uncertain linguistic variables

A method is proposed to deal with the uncertain multiple attribute group decision making problems,where 2-dimension uncertain linguistic variables(2DULVs)are used as the reliable way for the experts to express their fuzzy subjective evaluation information.Firstly,in order to measure the 2DULVs more accurately,a new method is proposed to compare two 2DULVs,called a score function,while a new function is defined to measure the distance between two 2DULVs.Secondly,two optimization models are established to determine the weight of experts and attributes based on the new distance formula and a weighted average operator is used to determine the comprehensive evaluation value of each alternative.Then,a score function is used to determine the ranking of the alternatives.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed method is proved by an illustrated example.

Group Decision Making With Consistency of Intuitionistic Fuzzy Preference Relations Under Uncertainty

Intuitionistic fuzzy preference relation(IFPR) is a suitable technique to express fuzzy preference information by decision makers(DMs). This paper aims to provide a group decision making method where DMs use the IFPRs to indicate their preferences with uncertain weights. To begin with, a model to derive weight vectors of alternatives from IFPRs based on multiplicative consistency is presented. Specifically, for any IFPR,by minimizing its absolute deviation from the corresponding consistent IFPR, the weight vectors are generated. Secondly,a method to determine relative weights of DMs depending on preference information is developed. After that we prioritize alternatives based on the obtained weights considering the risk preference of DMs. Finally, this approach is applied to the problem of technical risks assessment of armored equipment to illustrate the applicability and superiority of the proposed method.

Weighted Parameterized Correlation Coefficients of Indeterminacy Fuzzy Multisets and Their Multicriteria Group Decision Making Method with Different Decision Risks

Real-life data introduce noise,uncertainty,and imprecision to statistical projects;it is advantageous to consider strategies to overcome these information expressions and processing problems.Neutrosophic(indeterminate)numbers can flexibly and conveniently represent the hybrid information of the partial determinacy and partial indeterminacy in an indeterminate setting,while a fuzzy multiset is a vital mathematical tool in the expression and processing of multi-valued fuzzy information with different and/or same fuzzy values.If neutrosophic numbers are introduced into fuzzy sequences in a fuzzy multiset,the introduced neutrosophic number sequences can be constructed as the neutrosophic number multiset or indeterminate fuzzy multiset.Motivated based on the idea,this study first proposes an indeterminate fuzzy multiset,where each element in a universe set can be repeated more than once with the different and/or identical indeterminate membership values.Then,we propose the parameterized correlation coefficients of indeterminate fuzzy multisets based on the de-neutrosophication of transforming indeterminate fuzzy multisets into the parameterized fuzzy multisets by a parameter(the parameterized de-neutrosophication method).Since indeterminate decision-making issues need to be handled by an indeterminate decision-making method,a group decision-making method using the weighted parameterized correlation coefficients of indeterminate fuzzy multisets is developed along with decision makers’different decision risks(small,moderate,and large risks)so as to handle multicriteria group decision-making problems in indeterminate fuzzy multiset setting.Finally,the developed group decision-making approach is used in an example on a selection problem of slope design schemes for an open-pit mine to demonstrate its usability and flexibility in the indeterminate group decision-making problem with indeterminate fuzzy multisets.

Fuzzy interval linguistic sets with applications in multi-attribute group decision making

Uncertain and hesitant information, widely existing in the real-world qualitative decision making problems, brings great challenges to decision makers. Hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets(HFLTSs), an effective linguistic computational tool in modeling and eliciting such information, have hence aroused many scholars’ interests and some extensions have been introduced recently.However, these methods are based on the discrete linguistic term framework with the limited expression domain, which actually depict qualitative information using several single values. Therefore,it is hard to ensure the integrity of the semantics representation and the accuracy of the computation results. To deal with this problem, a semantics basis framework called complete linguistic term set(CLTS) is designed, which adopts a separation structure of linguistic scale and expression domain, enriching semantics representation of decision makers. On this basis the concept of fuzzy interval linguistic sets(FILSs) is put forward that employs the interval linguistic term with probability to increase the flexibility of eliciting and representing uncertain and hesitant qualitative information. For practical applications, a fuzzy interval linguistic technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution(FILTOPSIS) method is developed to deal with multi-attribute group decision making(MAGDM) problems. Through the cases of movie and enterprise resource planning(ERP) system selection, the effectiveness and validity of the proposed method are illustrated.

Some properties of linguistic preference relation and its ranking in group decision making

The group decision making problem with linguistic pref- erence relations is studied. The concept of additive consistent linguistic preference relation is defined, and then some properties of the additive consistent linguistic preference relation are studied. In order to rank the alternatives in the group decision making with the linguistic preference relations, the weighted average is first utilized to combine the group linguistic preference relations to one linguistic preference relation, and then the transformation function is proposed to transform the linguistic preference relation to the multiplicative preference relation, and thus the Saaty＇s eigenvec- tor method （EM） of multiplicative preference relation is utilized to rank the alternatives in group decision making with the linguistic preference relations. Finally, an illustrative numerical example is given to verify the proposed method. A comparative study to the linguistic ordered weighted averaging （LOWA） operator method is also demonstrated.

Large-Scale Group Decision Making:A Systematic Review and a Critical Analysis

The society in the digital transformation era demands new decision schemes such as e-democracy or based on social media.Such novel decision schemes require the participation of many experts/decision makers/stakeholders in the decision processes.As a result,large-scale group decision making(LSGDM)has attracted the attention of many researchers in the last decade and many studies have been conducted in order to face the challenges associated with the topic.Therefore,this paper aims at reviewing the most relevant studies about LSGDM,identifying the most profitable research trends and analyzing them from a critical point of view.To do so,the Web of Science database has been consulted by using different searches.From these results a total of 241 contributions were found and a selection process regarding language,type of contribution and actual relation with the studied topic was then carried out.The 87 contributions finally selected for this review have been analyzed from four points of view that have been highly remarked in the topic,such as the preference structure in which decision-makers’opinions are modeled,the group decision rules used to define the decision making process,the techniques applied to verify the quality of these models and their applications to real world problems solving.Afterwards,a critical analysis of the main limitations of the existing proposals is developed.Finally,taking into account these limitations,new research lines for LSGDM are proposed and the main challenges are stressed out.

Group Decision Making Based Fuzzy Pattern Recognition Model for Lectotype Optimization of Offshore Platforms 1

This paper develops a fuzzy pattern recognition model for group decision making to solve the problem of lectotype optimization of offshore platforms. The lack of data and the inexact or incomplete information for criteria are the main cause of uncertainty in the evaluation process, therefore it is necessary to integrate the judgments from different decision makers with different experience, knowledge and preference. This paper first uses a complementary principle based pairwise comparison method to obtain the subjective weight of the criteria from each decision maker. A fuzzy pattern recognition model is then developed to integrate the judgments from all the decision makers and the information from the criteria, under the supervision of the subjective weights. Finally a case study is given to show the efficiency and robustness of the proposed model.

A Confidence-based Consensus Model for Multi-Attribute Group Decision Making:Exploring the Bounded Trust Propagation and Personalized Adjustment Willingness

Social trust network(STN)and minimum cost consensus(MCC)models have been widely used to address consensus issues in multi-attribute group decision-making(MAGDM)problems with limited resources.However,most researchers have overlooked the decision maker‘(DMs)’confidence levels(CLs)and adjustment willingness implicit in their evaluations.To address these problems,this paper explores a confidence-based MCC model that considers DMs’adjustment willingness in the STN.The proposed model includes several modifications to the traditional trust propagation and consensus optimization models.Firstly,the improved method for measuring CLs of DMs and the confidence-based normalization approach are defined,respectively.Secondly,the bounded trust propagation operator is proposed,which considers the credibility of mediators to complete the STN.Thirdly,the identification rules based on the consensus index and CL are defined,and the MCC model with personalized cost functions and acceptable adjustment thresholds is built to automatically generate adjustment values for non-consensus DMs.Finally,a model to identify the non-cooperative behavior at the element level is established and the hybrid MCC model with persuasion strategies is provided.Finally,a case study is processed to verify the applicability of the proposed model,and comparison and sensitivity analysis are conducted to highlight its benefits.

Non-Cooperative Behavior Management in Large-Scale Group Decision-Making Considering the Altruistic Behaviors of Experts and Its Application in Emergency Alternative Selection

Emergency decision-making problems usually involve many experts with different professional backgrounds and concerns,leading to non-cooperative behaviors during the consensus-reaching process.Many studies on noncooperative behavior management assumed that the maximumdegree of cooperation of experts is to totally accept the revisions suggested by the moderator,which restricted individuals with altruistic behaviors to make more contributions in the agreement-reaching process.In addition,when grouping a large group into subgroups by clustering methods,existing studies were based on the similarity of evaluation values or trust relationships among experts separately but did not consider them simultaneously.In this study,we introduce a clustering method considering the similarity of evaluation values and the trust relations of experts and then develop a consensusmodel taking into account the altruistic behaviors of experts.First,we cluster experts into subgroups by a constrained Kmeans clustering algorithm according to the opinion similarity and trust relationship of experts.Then,we calculate the weights of experts and clusters based on the centrality degrees of experts.Next,to enhance the quality of consensus reaching,we identify three kinds of non-cooperative behaviors and propose corresponding feedback mechanisms relying on the altruistic behaviors of experts.A numerical example is given to show the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed method in emergency decision-making.The study finds that integrating altruistic behavior analysis in group decision-making can safeguard the interests of experts and ensure the integrity of decision-making information.

EXTENSION OF THE TOPSIS METHOD BASED ON PROSPECT THEORY AND TRAPEZOIDAL INTUITIONISTIC FUZZY NUMBERS FOR GROUP DECISION MAKING

Considering the decision maker＇s risk psychological factors and information ambiguity under uncertainty, a novel TOPSIS based on prospect theory （PT） and trapezoidal intuitionistic fuzzy numbers （YrIFNs） for group decision making is investigated, in which the criteria values and the criteria weights take the form of TrIFNs, and weights of decision makers are unknown. Firstly, distance measures for TrIFNs are used to induce value function under trapezoidal intuitionistic fuzzy environment. Secondly, the concepts of distance measures and trapezoidal intuitionistie fuzzy weighted averaging operator are employed to induce the weights of decision makers and thus the decision makers＇ options can be aggregated. Then the PT-based separation measures and relative closeness coefficient are defined and an algorithm for ranking alternatives under trapezoidal intuitionistic fuzzy environment is proposed. Finally, a numerical example further illustrates the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed TOPSIS method.

Network selection based on multiple attribute decision making and group decision making for heterogeneous wireless networks

One of the key issues for radio resources management is network selection strategy in heterogeneous scenarios. In order to provide ubiquitous service, the paper puts forward a network selection algorithm based on multiple attribute decision making （MADM） and group decision making （GDM）. Firstly, the proposed algorithm acquires attribute weights＇ vectors of the subjective and objective decision makers based on MADM, and then the two attribute weights＇ vectors are synthesized to be a new attribute weights＇ vector by using GDM. Considering that the results of GDM should be reasonable and convincible, the criterion of consistency is adopted for judging the compatibility of group judgments. More specit]cally, the algorithm takes into account not only objective attributes of networks but also the preference of subscribers and traft]c class Hence it guarantees that the subscribers can not select the networks with poor performance depending on their preference. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce the handoff number and provide subscribers with satisfactory quality of service （QoS）.

A Dynamic Emergency Decision-Making Method Based on Group Decision Making with Uncertainty Information

In emergency decision making(EDM),it is necessary to generate an effective alternative quickly.Case-based reasoning(CBR)has been applied to EDM;however,choosing the most suitable case from a set of similar cases after case retrieval remains challenging.This study proposes a dynamic method based on case retrieval and group decision making(GDM),called dynamic casebased reasoning group decision making(CBRGDM),for emergency alternative generation.In the proposed method,first,similar historical cases are identified through case similarity measurement.Then,evaluation information provided by group decision makers for similar cases is aggregated based on regret theory,and comprehensive perceived utilities for the similar cases are obtained.Finally,the most suitable historical case is obtained from the case similarities and the comprehensive perceived utilities for similar historical cases.The method is then applied to an example of a gas explosion in a coal company in China.The results show that the proposed method is feasible and effective in EDM.The advantages of the proposed method are verified based on comparisons with existing methods.In particular,dynamic CBRGDM can adjust the emergency alternative according to changing emergencies.The results of application of dynamic CBRGDM to a gas explosion and comparison with existing methods verify its feasibility and practicability.