Search

This paper presents the results of a citation analysis focusing on the universities and countries represented by publications in 22 highly oriented fuzzy research journals using bibliometric techniques. Bibliometric studies have recently gained significant relevance, this fact is mainly due to the flexibility and dynamism that new information technologies provide. In our case, the structured gathered materials are thoroughly refined and offer a wide view of the influence that the selected journals have on territories and institutions around the globe. The results show the clear influence of countries located in the Asian continent and the high impact of institutions in Spain, the United States of America and China. This study sheds light on the visualization of the citation scope of these highly oriented fuzzy research journals with the aim of finding possible common ground for synergy and collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft consensus is a relevant topic in group decision making problems. Soft consensus measures are utilized to reflect the different agreement degrees between the experts leading the consensus reaching process. This may determine the final decision and the time needed to reach it. The concept of coincidence has led to two main approaches to calculating the soft consensus measures, namely, concordance among expert preferences and concordance among individual solutions. In the first approach the coincidence is obtained by evaluating the similarity among the expert preferences, while in the second one the concordance is derived from the measurement of the similarity among the solutions proposed by these experts. This paper performs a comparative study of consensus approaches based on both coincidence approaches. We obtain significant differences between both approaches by comparing several distance functions for measuring expert preferences and a consensus measure over the set of alternatives for measuring the solutions provided by experts. To do so, we use the nonparametric Wilcoxon signed-ranks test. Finally, these outcomes are analyzed using Friedman mean ranks in order to obtain a quantitative classification of the considered measurements according to the convergence criterion considered in the consensus reaching process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-programmed decision-making is an activity that requires a number of methods to try to capture the rational behaviour of an aspirant in situations of uncertainty. Thus, there is a varied list of attributes, methods, and mechanisms that are intended to describe the way in which aspirants can be profiled. However, this modelling proves to be complex if it is approached in scenarios based on game mechanics from gamification. For this reason, the following article aims to contribute to the processes of selection of personnel delimited only to the making of non-programmed decisions, through the implementation of game mechanics. In order to model this selection, the purpose of the following study is to carry out the formulation of inference rules based on fuzzy logic in order to capture the tacit transfer of certain types of information in personnel selection processes and to determine aspects that allow the shaping of aspirants. Finally, the results and conclusions obtained are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food manufacturing industries have poor occupational safety and health (OSH) performance in many countries. The situation in Saudi Arabia is unknown due to absence of previous studies on the OSH performance of food industry. The current revised Labor Law is expected to dramatically increase workplace inspections by governmental inspectors. Therefore, both the industry and the OSH inspection authority needs to develop an effective decision making approach for improving the performance of companies. The objective of this study is to use quantitative and qualitative data for the assessment of OSH performance and develop a more reliable assessment approach. For the evaluation of OSH performance of food companies, a set of main and sub-criteria were determined. The quantitative assessments were carried out in accordance with national compliance requirements using a 5-point Likert scale approach. For the qualitative assessment, fuzzy linguistic terms were employed to measure the degree of satisfaction of main and sub-criteria. Two methods; the fuzzy decision tree approach and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) were used for the evaluation and the competitiveness of companies. The fuzzy decision tree approach was used for criteria weight determination, however, the fuzzy TOPSIS approach revealed the best practices regarding OSH for benchmarking, and governmental authorities for managing the regulatory inspections conducted to follow up compliances. Hence, the presented approach was used to rank 21 food enterprises, and it was found that company (x7) is the best in all criteria. The key difference between this company and the other companies is that it showed consistent performance in all criteria, while in the others were found in performance fluctuations and deficiency in some sub-criteria. On the other hand, the quantitative assessment showed that most companies with good score are technically good which indicates that the technologies used are fairly up-to-date which generate less occupational hazards. This leads to the conclusion that the OSH problems in the Saudi food industries are mainly due to managerial deficiencies rather than being financial. The ranking can be used by the food industries for also benchmarking their performance within the context of the food industry sector. The overall aim is to identify the best industrial practices and identify the priorities to help the official bodies for a more effective inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group decision making is part of every organizational life. It is a type of participatory process in which multiple decision makers acting collectively, analyze problems, consider and evaluate several alternatives, and select from among the alternatives a solution. In such a situation, an important issue is the level of agreement or consensus achieved among the group of decision makers before obtaining the solution. In the beginning, consensus was meant as a full and unanimous agreement. Regrettably, this stringent concept of consensus in many cases is a utopia. As a result, and from a pragmatic point of view, it makes more sense to speak about a degree of consensus and, here, the theory of fuzzy sets has delivered new tools for the analysis of such imprecise phenomena like consensus. Given the significance of reaching an accepted solution by all the decision makers, consensus is a major aim of group decision making problems and, in such a way, it has obtained a great attention in the literature. However, there still exist several dares which have to be tackled by the researchers. The purpose of this paper is to bring out several issues that represent challenges that have to be faced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]