A goal programming model for incomplete interval multiplicative preference relations and its application in group decision-making

In decision making problems, there may be the cases where the decision makers express their judgements by using preference relations with incomplete information. Then one of the key issues is how to estimate the missing preference values. In this paper, we introduce an incomplete interval multiplicative preference relation and give the definitions of consistent and acceptable incomplete ones, respectively. Based on the consistency property of interval multiplicative preference relations, a goal programming model is proposed to complement the acceptable incomplete one. A new algorithm of obtaining the priority vector from incomplete interval multiplicative preference relations is given. The goal programming model is further applied to group decision-making (GDM) where the experts evaluate their preferences as acceptable incomplete interval multiplicative preference relations. An interval weighted geometric averaging (IWGA) operator is proposed to aggregate individual preference relations into a social one. Furthermore, the social interval multiplicative preference relation owns acceptable consistency when every individual one is acceptably consistent. Two numerical examples are carried out to show the efficiency of the proposed goal programming model and the algorithms.     

Deriving priority weights from intuitionistic multiplicative preference relations under group decision-making settings

The intuitionistic multiplicative preference relation (IMPR), which takes into account both the ratio degree to which an alternative is preferred to another and the ratio degree to which an alternative is non-preferred to another, is a useful tool for decision makers to elicit their preference information using Saaty’s 1–9 scale. In this paper, we focus on group decision making with IMPRs. First, we analyze the flaws of the consistency definition of an IMPR in previous work and then propose a new definition to overcome the flaws. On this basis, a linear programming-based algorithm is developed to check and improve the consistency of an IMPR. Second, we discuss the relationships between an IMPR and a normalized intuitionistic multiplicative weight vector and develop two approaches to group decision making based on complete and incomplete IMPRs, respectively. Based on the proposed algorithm and approaches, a general framework for group decision making with IMPRs is proposed. Finally, some numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the proposed approaches. The results show that the proposed approaches can deal with group decision-making problems with IMPRs effectively.     

决策偏好不确定条件下群体决策收敛一致性研究

决策个体之间交互影响是达成群体一致意见的重要因素。本文引入决策个体决策偏好的不确定性以及个体间不对称的影响权重,以此为基础建立群体决策动态观点演化模型,并进行matlab仿真。文中取决策个体的偏好不确定性为常数,作为决策个体对自身观点确定性的大致考量,并把群体中所有决策者的决策偏好不确定性分为相同和不相同两种情况来讨论。仿真实例证明:决策个体观点的不确定性是最终影响群体决策一致性的重要因素,当决策个体偏好不确定性较大时,决策群体更容易得到一致意见;当偏好不确定性较小时,决策群体难以达成一致意见,最终形成几个观点簇;在初始观点分布均匀的情况下,群体观点最终会演化出怎样的观点形态,是由群体中观点不确定性较小的群体所持有的观点决定的。研究内容有助于理解群体决策中一致观点的演化规律,能够为群体决策的引导策略提供参考和借鉴。     

ERP system selection using a simulation-based AHP approach: a case of Korean homeshopping company

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a critical investment that can significantly affect future competitiveness and performance of a company. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is often applied to select an ERP system since it is well suited to multiple criteria decision-making problems. This study presents a simulation-based AHP (SiAHP) method for group decision making and is applied to the real-world problem of selecting a suitable ERP system for a Korean homeshopping company. To enhance the fitness of a group AHP method and to facilitate the ERP system selection process, this paper proposes a simulation-based approach for building a group consensus instead of forming point estimates that are aggregated from individual preference judgments. To be specific, the proposed method is based on observations from empirically observed frequency distributions and does not use aggregation procedures, compared to typical group AHP for obtaining a group solution. This approach, reflecting the diversification of group members' opinions as they are, is conceived to be useful as a tool for obtaining insights into agreements and disagreements with respect to the alternatives among the individuals of a group. The real-world example demonstrates the feasibility of our proposed approach.     

不完全偏好信息下房地产投资的模糊优选

解决了不完全偏好信息下含有模糊决策元素的房地产投资方案的优选问题.分析形成了房地产投资方案的评价指标体系,并在Hamming距离与Euclidean距离测度的基础上,建立了不完全偏好信息下的模糊多属性决策模型,能处理决策元素为一般模糊数的决策问题,同时提供了所建非线性规划模型的交叉迭代解法.实际算例的比较结果表明,本文提出的决策模型及算法优于文献中关于偏好信息完全确知的经典模型与算法.     

A modified procedure for synthesising ratio judgements in the analytic hierarchy process

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been widely applied to solve problems arising in group decision making, by synthesising different or conflicting judgements. However, directly synthesising conflicting judgements by calculating the geometric mean of preference weights (ratios) in AHP may not reach consensus from all members in a decision making group, especially, when those members represent the stakeholders of the decision making problem. This study proposes a new method that uses the genetic algorithm and utility function to synthesise preference weights to prevent this fallacy occurring when implementing the classical AHP approach. Using the proposed method, the final decision can be achieved with only minimally-adjusted preference weights.     

基于决策者信任水平和组合赋权的不完全偏好复杂大群体应急决策方法

针对属性权重完全未知且专家偏好出现残缺值的复杂大群体应急决策问题,提出了一种新的决策方法。首先,设计了一套基于决策者信任水平的残缺值填充机制,对缺失的偏好信息进行补充。然后,将各方案的大群体偏好信息进行聚类,基于方案信息熵和群体偏好冲突水平构建组合赋权方法,对属性权重进行测算,进而得到各个方案的综合评价值。最后对该方法进行了实例验证,验证结果表明本文提出的方法具有良好的可行性和有效性。     

A distributed social choice protocol for combinatorial domains

In this paper, we study the problem of collective decision-making over combinatorial domains, where the set of possible alternatives is a Cartesian product of (finite) domain values for each of a given set of variables, and these variables are not preferentially independent. Due to the large alternative space, most common rules for social choice cannot be directly applied to compute a winner. In this paper, we introduce a distributed protocol for collective decision-making in combinatorial domains, which enjoys the following desirable properties: (i) the final decision chosen is guaranteed to be a Smith member; (ii) it enables distributed decision-making and works under incomplete information settings, i.e., the agents are not required to reveal their preferences explicitly; (iii) it significantly reduces the amount of dominance testings (individual outcome comparisons) that each agent needs to conduct, as well as the number of pairwise comparisons; (iv) it is sufficiently general and does not restrict the choice of preference representation languages.     

An integrated model-based interactive approach to FMAGDM with incomplete preference information

Incomplete fuzzy preference relations, incomplete multiplicative preference relations, and incomplete linguistic preference relations are very useful to express decision makers’ incomplete preferences over attributes or alternatives in the process of decision making under fuzzy environments. The aim of this paper is to investigate fuzzy multiple attribute group decision making problems where the attribute values are represented in intuitionistic fuzzy numbers and the information on attribute weights is provided by decision makers by means of one or some of the different preference structures, including weak ranking, strict ranking, difference ranking, multiple ranking, interval numbers, incomplete fuzzy preference relations, incomplete multiplicative preference relations, and incomplete linguistic preference relations. We transform all individual intuitionistic fuzzy decision matrices into the interval decision matrices and construct their expected decision matrices, and then aggregate all these expected decision matrices into a collective one. We establish an integrated model by unifying the collective decision matrix and all the given different structures of incomplete weight preference information, and develop an integrated model-based approach to interacting with the decision makers so as to adjust all the inconsistent incomplete fuzzy preference relations, inconsistent incomplete linguistic preference relations and inconsistent incomplete multiplicative preference relations into the ones with acceptable consistency. The developed approach can derive the attribute weights and the ranking of the alternatives directly from the integrated model, and thus it has the following prominent characteristics: (1) it does not need to construct the complete fuzzy preference relations, complete linguistic preference relations and complete multiplicative preference relations from the incomplete fuzzy preference relations, incomplete linguistic preference relations and incomplete multiplicative preference relations, respectively; (2) it does not need to unify the different structures of incomplete preferences, and thus can simplify the calculation and avoid distorting the given preference information; and (3) it can sufficiently reflect and adjust the subjective desirability of decision makers in the process of interaction. A practical example is also provided to illustrate the developed approach.     

Modeling subjective evaluation for fuzzy group multicriteria decision making

This paper presents a new fuzzy multicriteria decision making (MCDM) approach for evaluating decision alternatives involving subjective judgements made by a group of decision makers. A pairwise comparison process is used to help individual decision makers make comparative judgements, and a linguistic rating method is used for making absolute judgements. A hierarchical weighting method is developed to assess the weights of a large number of evaluation criteria by pairwise comparisons. To reflect the inherent imprecision of subjective judgements, individual assessments are aggregated as a group assessment using triangular fuzzy numbers. To obtain a cardinal preference value for each decision alternative, a new fuzzy MCDM algorithm is developed by extending the concept of the degree of optimality to incorporate criteria weights in the distance measurement. An empirical study of aircraft selection is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the approach.     

基于属性关联的不完全风险偏好信息大群体应急决策方法

针对特大突发事件应急决策中大群体专家存在偏好信息不完全的问题,本文提出一种新的不完全风险性信息大群体应急决策方法。首先,利用最优离散拟合方法对决策者的风险偏好因子进行测度并据此对专家聚类;其次,根据不完全偏好矩阵进行属性关联测度,提出了基于风险偏好和属性关联的新的补值模型,得到完全偏好信息矩阵;然后,运用主成分分析方法提取属性主成分,并结合属性权重进行信息集结和方案择优;最后,通过台风“天鸽”事件验证所提方法的可行性和有效性。     

A least deviation method for priority derivation in group decision making with incomplete reciprocal preference relations

In this paper, based on the transfer relationship between reciprocal preference relation and multiplicative preference relation, we proposed a least deviation method (LDM) to obtain a priority vector for group decision making (GDM) problems where decision-makers' (DMs') assessments on alternatives are furnished as incomplete reciprocal preference relations with missing values. Relevant theorems are investigated and a convergent iterative algorithm about LDM is developed. Using three numerical examples, the LDM is compared with the other prioritization methods based on two performance evaluation criteria: maximum deviation and maximum absolute deviation. Statistical comparative study, complexity of computation of different algorithms, and comparative analyses are provided to show its advantages over existing approaches.     

基于OWGA算子的偏好信息集结法及其在群决策中的应用

研究了决策者的偏好信息以不同形式给出的群决策问题。首先，利用不同偏好信息之间的转换公式，将偏好次序型、效用值型、互反判断矩阵型三种偏好信息一致化为模糊互补判断矩阵型的偏好信息；其次。利用加权几何平均（OWGA）算子对一致化后的决策信息进行集结。再对方案的加权几何平均优势度进行综合集结，并以此进行方案的排序，提出了基于OWGA算子的群决策方法，该方法具有操作简便和计算量少的特点。最后。通过实例说明方法的可行性和实用性。     

基于决策者风险偏好大数据分析的大群体应急决策方法

针对重大突发事件应急决策大群体成员的风险偏好复杂难测问题,提出了一种新的基于决策者风险偏好大数据分析的大群体应急决策方法。首先专家群体对突发事件进行快速响应,生成若干应急预案及其风险属性信息;其次,社会公众通过网络等渠道参与到应急决策中来并形成决策大群体,给出不同预案的偏好值;然后,利用证据推理算法得出公众对各预案的风险效用值,将预案风险效用值与预案偏好值加权组合,得到各个预案的大群体决策者的风险偏好值;最后,基于风险偏好值,利用大数据分析技术对大群体的风险偏好进行聚类识别,从中筛选出风险中立者组成新的应急决策群体,再次聚类得出应急决策群体的成员组成结构,以此为基础计算决策者权重和应急预案的最终效用值,得应急预案排序结果。最后通过算例分析验证了方法的有效性和可行性。     

A Procedure for Decision Making Based on Incomplete Fuzzy Preference Relation

In this paper, we investigate the decision making problem based on fuzzy preference relation with incomplete information. We first introduce incomplete fuzzy preference relation and present some of its desirable properties. We then develop a system of equations. Based on this system of equations, we propose a procedure for decision making based on incomplete fuzzy preference relation, and finally, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the proposed procedure.     

Linguistic group decision-making: opinion aggregation and measures of consensus

Group decision-making is a crucial activity, necessary in many aspects of our civilization. In many cases, due to inherent complexity, experts cannot express their opinion or preferences using exact numbers, thus resorting to a qualitative preference such as linguistic labels. Another complicating factor is the fact that very seldom all individuals in a group share the same opinion about the alternatives. This creates the need to aggregate all the differing individual opinions into a group opinion. Moreover, it is desirable to be able to assess the level of agreement among the experts; termed consensus. This paper presents a methodology for aggregating experts’ judgements, presented as linguistic labels, into a group opinion with a measure of the group consensus. The aggregation model allows weighted experts to express a degree of optimism or upward bias in their opinions. Then the paper presents two models of calculating the consensus based on the individual expert opinions and the group aggregated opinion.     

不同直觉偏好信息下的多属性决策方法

研究了属性值为实数且决策者对属性的偏好信息以直觉判断矩阵或残缺直觉判断矩阵给出的模糊多属性决策问题.首先介绍了直觉判断矩阵、一致性直觉判断矩阵、残缺直觉判断矩阵、一致性残缺直觉判断矩阵等概念,而后分别考虑关于直觉判断矩阵和残缺直觉判断矩阵的多属性决策问题,接着建立了基于直觉判断矩阵和残缺直觉判断矩阵的多属性群决策模型,通过求解这些模型获得属性的权重.进而给出了不同直觉偏好信息下的多属性决策方法.最后通过一个例子说明了该方法的可行性和实用性.     

社会网络环境下基于“信任—知识”模型的风险性大群体应急决策方法

针对大群体应急决策专家之间信任关系及其传递引发的决策风险,以及由于大群体中个体偏好差异较大导致生成独立聚集等问题。首先,提出一个“信任—知识模型”对决策专家之间的信任关系进行集成和传递,并根据决策专家的信任风险偏好得出决策专家之间的信任知识度网络;其次,利用Louvain算法对信任知识度网络进行聚类,高效快速的获得若干个聚集,并用社会网络分析技术确定每个决策者和聚集的权重;然后对每个聚集中的决策者偏好进行集结,并综合决策者给出的信息对备选决策方案进行排序。最后,通过案例分析和对比验证了所提方法的合理性与有效性。     

Multivariate Gaussian criteria in SMAA

We consider stochastic multicriteria decision-making problems with multiple decision makers. In such problems, the uncertainty or inaccuracy of the criteria measurements and the partial or missing preference information can be represented through probability distributions. In many real-life problems the uncertainties of criteria measurements may be dependent. However, it is often difficult to quantify these dependencies. Also, most of the existing methods are unable to handle such dependency information.In this paper, we develop a method for handling dependent uncertainties in stochastic multicriteria group decision-making problems. We measure the criteria, their uncertainties and dependencies using a stochastic simulation model. The model is based on decision variables and stochastic parameters with given distributions. Based on the simulation results, we determine for the criteria measurements a joint probability distribution that quantifies the uncertainties and their dependencies. We then use the SMAA-2 stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis method for comparing the alternatives based on the criteria distributions. We demonstrate the use of the method in the context of a strategic decision support model for a retailer operating in the liberated European electricity market.