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The probabilistic linguistic term set (PLTS), composed by linguistic terms and their probabilities, is effective to represent uncertain evaluations. Considering that interval probability is more powerful than the precise form in describing uncertainty, this study introduces the PLTS with interval probabilities. Based on belief and plausibility measures, in this article, we discuss how to translate complex qualitative evaluations, which may be composed by both interval probabilities and interval linguistic terms, to the PLTS with interval probabilities. Utility-based translation approaches are proposed, which further shows the ability of the PLTS with interval probabilities in representing quantitative information. In addition, a probabilistic linguistic dominance method is developed to compare PLTSs. Integrating optimization models with the Dempster–Shafer theory, we present an aggregation method to estimate the maximum and minimum PLTSs obtained from the combination. Furthermore, a multicriteria decision-making method is introduced considering both the comprehensive evaluations of alternatives and the ability to achieve the tolerance and expectation values of criteria. The applicability of the proposed approach is illustrated by a case study of shelter selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In public health systems around the world, there are not enough medical resources to provide elective (e.g., scheduled or non-emergency) services for all patients immediately. One feasible solution is to prioritize patients by taking into account a variety of factors, such as disease severity, waiting time, and disease types. This is a typical Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem. To solve this problem, in this paper, we first conduct an investigation on the admission process, and obtain 16 indicators affecting patients' admission, which form a criteria system. Since there is much vague and uncertain information which can be depicted by the hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set effectively for these indicators, we then apply a powerful MCDM method, named the hesitant fuzzy linguistic ORESTE, to prioritize the elective surgery patient admission in a Chinese public tertiary hospital, the West China Hospital. Robust results are obtained by performing a sensitivity analysis with six scenarios. We also compare the results with those derived by other HFL-MCDM methods. It is illustrated that the hesitant fuzzy linguistic ORESTE can help hospitals flexibly manage the patient admissions. Highlights • A criteria system for assessing patients' priorities is constructed. • Hesitant fuzzy linguistic ORESTE method is applied to rank patients. • Sensitivity analyses and comparative analyses are given to illustrate the method. • A flexible bed management strategy is provided by adjusting thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set (HFLTS) is an effective tool to express the experts’ subjective evaluations in the processes of decision making. To solve the problem with both qualitative and quantitative criteria in the context of HFLTSs and the crisp weights of criteria being unknown, this paper proposes a new multicriteria decision making method. First, formulas are developed to convert the quantitative data into the hesitant fuzzy linguistic elements. Then, motivated by the ORESTE method, we develop a new global preference score function to aggregate the criterion weights and criterion values, both of which are expressed as hesitant fuzzy linguistic elements. To get the real relation between alternatives, three preference intensity formulas are proposed and a hesitant fuzzy linguistic indifference threshold is introduced. We establish a conflict test framework after detailed research on the threshold values. On these bases, a new hesitant fuzzy linguistic ORESTE method is developed and the calculation process of this method is described. A case study on supplier selection is then presented to illustrate the method. Finally, some comparative analyses with other methods are conducted to show the practicability and reliability of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The probabilistic linguistic term set (PLTS) is a powerful technique in representing linguistic evaluations of individuals or groups in the process of decision making. The aim of this paper is to propose a strongly robust method to solve multiexperts multicriteria decision making problems with linguistic evaluations. To enrich the computation and to improve the measures of PLTS, we first define an expectation function of it. In addition, we advance three kinds of probabilistic linguistic distance measures reflecting on the difference of linguistic terms and probabilities at the same time to make up for the defects of the existing distance measures, and then propose the similarity and correlation measures. Integrating the subjective opinions with the correlation coefficients between criteria, we put forward a combined weight determining method. The robustness of the ranking method, MULTIMOORA, is enhanced by the improved Borda rule. Based on these research findings, a probabilistic linguistic MULTIMOORA method is proposed. Finally, the developed method is applied to an empirical example concerning the selection of shared karaoke television brands. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by some comparative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality function deployment (QFD) is an effective tool to translate the customer requirements (CRs) to the design requirements (DRs) of a product. The process of selecting the optimal innovative product design to maximize customer satisfaction is full of uncertainty and fuzziness regarding to the users’ preferences, the relationships between CRs and DRs and the merits of product designs. This study proposes a multi-expert multi-criteria decision making method to solve the innovative product design selection problem by developing an enhanced QFD method combined with the complicated fuzzy linguistic representation model, the probabilistic linguistic term set (PLTS), and the ranking method, ORESTE. Firstly, we propose a probability aggregation method to integrate the individuals’ subjective evaluations into group ones expressed as PLTSs. On this basis, we extend the QFD into the probabilistic linguistic context to get the DRs’ fuzzy weights. Then, based on a new distance measure between PLTSs, a probabilistic linguistic global preference score function and three kinds of probabilistic linguistic preference intensity formulas are proposed. Furthermore, we develop a PL-ORESTE method to obtain the preference, indifference and incomparability relations between the alternatives. For the facility of application, we develop the procedure of the QFD-based PL-ORESTE method. Given that the “shared cars” is a new industry appeared in Chinese market, we finally illustrate the applicability of the proposed method by a case study concerning the selection of innovative designs of Panda shared cars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that the uncertain linguistic variable (or interval linguistic term) has some limitations in calculation, we extend it to the continuous interval-valued linguistic term set (CIVLTS), which is equivalent to the virtual term set but has its own semantics. It has the advantages of both the uncertain linguistic variable and the virtual term set but overcomes their defenses. It not only can interpret more complex assessments by continuous terms, but also is effective in aggregating the group opinions. We propose some methods to aggregate the individual decision matrices represented by CIVLTSs to the collective matrix. The extended Gaussian distribution-based weighting method is proposed to derive the weights for aggregating the large group opinions. Furthermore, the general ranking method ORESTE, is extended to the CIVL environment and is named as the CIVL-ORESTE method. The proposed method is excellent by no requirements of crisp criterion weights and the objective thresholds. A case study of selecting the optimal innovative sharing bike design for the "Mobike" sharing bikes is operated to show the practicability of the CIVL-ORESTE method. Finally, we compare the CIVL-ORESTE method with other ranking methods to illustrate the reliability of our method and its advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language is a preferred way for evaluators to express their opinions. As an important part of qualitative decision making, computing with words mainly focuses on transferring linguistic information to numerical values for operations. A significant challenge is how to model the meaning of linguistic information given by evaluators. This study aims to explore the principle of an evaluator to judge alternatives over different kinds of criteria and establish linguistic scale functions to simulate the personalized semantics of linguistic terms. In addition a dual linguistic scale in the form of linguistic terms and numerical meanings is developed to represent decision information. We then develop a method called the dual linguistic scale-based digitization and exploitation method to deduce the ranking of alternatives for multiple criteria decision-making problems, which considers the personalized cognition of evaluators and the personalized requirements of decision-makers for the trade-offs between criteria A case study concerning the scrap steel remanufacturing is conducted to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method. The results demonstrate that linguistic computational models have an influence on the ranking results of alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occurred on May 12, 2008, the Wenchuan earthquake in China has received worldwide attention for its incredible destructive power. In June of the same year, the State Council issued a draft regulation on post-quake restoration and reconstruction. To find the effect of post-earthquake reconstruction, this paper measures the residents' life satisfaction in Wenchuan by multiple criteria decision-making methods under probabilistic linguistic environment. Based on field surveys and domains of life satisfaction, an indicator system is proposed as a framework to collect resident's evaluations. To retain as much original information as possible, an effective weighting method with probabilistic linguistic information is developed to deduce the indicator's importance. It extends the logarithm-multiplicative analytic hierarchy process to handle the probabilistic linguistic evaluations and derive the criteria weights in interval forms. In this way, the inherent uncertainty of the evaluations on the importance of life satisfaction indicators can be reflected. Furthermore, a novel outranking method named the probabilistic linguistic gain and lost dominance score method, is used to obtain the overall life satisfaction degrees of the residents in Wenchuan. We apply this method to measure the life satisfaction degrees of residents in two areas. The calculation results show that the life satisfaction degrees of the residents in the earthquake-hit area are higher than those of the residents in the non-earthquake area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative ability plays a critical role in the sustainable development of universities. Although the assessment of universities' innovative ability is a significant undertaking, it is difficult work. This challenge can be addressed as a typical multiple attribute decision making (MADM) problem, in which multiple attributes should be considered with different levels of importance. This paper aims to propose an integrated MADM method to solve this issue. To do so, we first introduce the least square method with the hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set to determine the subjective attribute weights. Considering that the selected attributes are not always in conflict with each other due to the complexity of objective things, we further present a correlation coefficient‐based method to calculate another kind of attribute weight. The final weights are the combined form of these two types of attribute weights. In addition, we enhance the robust ranking method, MULTIMOORA, with the Borda rule to calculate the utility values of universities and derive their rankings. Finally, after establishing an index system, the assessment of the innovative ability of 26 world‐class construction universities in China is conducted by using the proposed method. The advantages and disadvantages of the assessed universities are analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]