A Multi‐attribute Reliability Allocation Method Considering Uncertain Preferences

Compared with the large number of research papers dealing with the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators, the research on relative quantifiers has been relatively sparse so far. With the quantifier guided aggregation method of OWA operators and the generating function representation of regular increasing monotone (RIM) quantifiers, a parameterized RIM quantifier family with the maximum entropy principle is proposed. This quantifier family can be regarded as the continuous case of the commonly used maximum entropy OWA (MEOWA) operator. Like the MEOWA operator, the RIM quantifier with maximum entropy generating function also possesses some interesting properties. One of them is that the aggregation value for any aggregated set always monotonically increases with the orness level. This can be used to represent the decision maker's preference information, but with free dimension.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) model has been applied for evaluating bank branches and recognizing efficient and inefficient branches can help bank managers to provide appropriate strategies to improve the inefficient branches' performance. Conventional DEA models are based on the ‘black box’ approach. However, the process of providing services in banks is made up of interactive and interdependent processes. Additionally, some managers tend to incorporate their preferences in evaluation process. In this paper, best worst method (BWM) is used for incorporating decision maker (DM) preferences in two‐stage DEA model. First, BWM model is applied to obtain the weights of inputs, intermediate measures and outputs based on DM's judgement. Second, generated weights are imposed on two‐stage DEA model as additional constraints and a novel bi‐objective BWM‐two stage DEA model is introduced. Finally, the proposed bi‐objective BWM‐two stage DEA model is solved using min‐max approach. To illustrate the capability of proposed model, 45 Agricultural Bank (Agribank) branches in West Azerbaijan province of Iran are evaluated. The branches' processes are considered as two stages ‘production’ and ‘profitability’ and efficiency of branches are calculated in each stage. According to the efficiencies of each sub‐stage, branches are divided to four groups and recommendations are made for each group.

The decision maker's preference information on the importance and interaction of decision criteria can be explicitly described by the probabilistic interaction indices in the framework of the capacity based multicriteria decision analysis. In this paper, we first investigate some properties of the probabilistic interaction indices of the empty set, and propose the maximum and minimum empty set interaction principles based capacity identification methods, which can be considered as the comprehensive interaction trend preference information oriented capacity identification methods. Then, by introducing the deviation variables, the goal constraints, as well as the goal objective function, we give a new and more flexible approach to representing the decision maker's explicit preference information on the kind and degree of the interaction of any given combination of decision criteria as well as on the degree of the importance of any decision criterion, and construct the nonempty set interaction indices based capacity identification method, which can be considered as the detailed explicit preference information oriented identification method. Finally, two illustrative examples are respectively given to show the feasibility and applicability of the two kinds of methods. In addition, the comparison analysis between these two kinds of methods and some existing capacity identification methods are also mentioned.

Interval numbers multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) is an important branch of uncertainty decision theory, and the decision result largely depends on the selection of the aggregation operator. In this paper, we analyze the ordered weighted average (OWA) operator, which is an averaging aggregation operator. The OWA operator provides an aggregation method between the minimum and maximum operators. Moreover, we further analyze some of extensions about OWA operator, and pay special attention to the Bonferroni means and OWA (BON-OWA) operator. Note that the BON-OWA operator only aggregate the input arguments which are exact numbers. Under normal circumstances, decision makers is difficult to provide a clear evaluation value for attribute and most of them are described by vague information. When the decision information is an interval numbers, the BON-OWA operator cannot describe decision result accurately. Under these environments, we proposed the interval numbers BON-OWA (IBr,q-OWA) operator to deal with the vague decision information in this paper. Then we consider their main properties, such as idempotence, monotonicity, and boundedness and prove them. Besides, a wide range of special aggregation operators are found in changing parameter values, such as the square mean and max operator, and so on. We also compare the ranking method of the interval numbers based on Boolean matrix. As a result, the combination of IBr,q-OWA operator makes the decision result more scientific. Finally, a new approach for decision-making problem is developed based on the IBr,q-OWA operator, which shows the effectiveness in practical examples.

Determination of the weights of an ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator is a vital constituent of the operator's aggregation procedure. Consequently, several weight generation techniques have evolved in the literature. Here, using inverse hypergeometric distribution, we use a novel parametric function to generate the weight vector of an OWA operator. The proposed inverse hypergeometric OWA (InHyp-OWA) operator generates a unique weight vector for every choice of its parameter. Also, using the proposed weight function, OWA weight vectors can be generated without solving any complicated optimization problem. An important property of InHyp-OWA operator is that for a given parameter value, its orness value remains constant, regardless of the number of objectives aggregated. Hence, InHyp-OWA operator is a new member of the family of OWA operators with constant orness. This class of OWA operators can utilize a prejudiced preference to determine the corresponding weight vector. The proposed approach provides a number of advantages over existing weight generating methods for OWA operators. One of the remarkable advantages of the InHyp-OWA operator is the fact that it generates weight vectors with strictly monotonic components. It also generalizes the well-known Borda-Kendall OWA operator.

To address problems with multiple conflicting objective functions while incorporating preference information from a decision maker (a domain expert), interactive evolutionary multiobjective optimization methods have been proposed and widely adopted. To systematically assess the performance of these methods, it is desirable to have indicators that not only rely on the Pareto dominance relation, where solutions with better objective function values are preferred, but also take the decision maker's preferences into account. In this way, indicator values can meaningfully reflect the decision maker's preferences and the quality of the solutions obtained. In this paper, we propose the first performance indicator that incorporates preference information in the form of two reference points, specifically, an aspiration point, consisting of aspiration levels that represent the decision maker's full satisfaction, and a reservation point, consisting of reservation levels that represent dissatisfaction. The new indicator, termed D-PHI, translates information about reservation and aspiration points into a transformed hypervolume measure that assesses the performance of a solution set. We introduce D-PHI with an extended set of guidelines for preference-based performance evaluation, discuss its theoretical properties, and demonstrate its behavior through empirical examples. Moreover, we define a complementary indicator (CI) based on a so-called achievement scalarizing function. CI offers additional insight into whether aspiration and reservation levels have been achieved, and its usefulness is demonstrated through examples.

Yager's ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator has been widely used in soft decision making to aggregate experts' individual opinions or preferences for achieving an overall decision.The traditional Yager's OWA operator focuses exclusively on the aggregation of crisp numbers.However, human experts usually tend to express their opinions or preferences in a very natural way via linguistic terms.Type-2 fuzzy sets provide an efficient way of knowledge representation for modeling linguistic terms.In order to aggregate linguistic opinions via OWA mechanism, we propose a new type of OWA operator, termed type-2 OWA operator, to aggregate the linguistic opinions or preferences in human decision making modeled by type-2 fuzzy sets.A Direct Approach to aggregating interval type-2 fuzzy sets by type-2 OWA operator is suggested in this paper.Some examples are provided to delineate the proposed technique.

The result of aggregation performed by the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator heavily depends upon the weighting vector used. A number of methods have been presented for obtaining the associated weights. In this paper, we present analytic forms of OWA operator weighting functions, each of which has properties of rank-based weights and a constant level of orness, irrespective of the number of objectives considered. These analytic forms provide significant advantages for generating the OWA weights over previously reported methods. First, the OWA weights can be efficiently generated by using proposed weighting functions without solving a complicated mathematical program. Moreover, convex combinations of these specific OWA operators can be used to generate the OWA operators with any predefined values of orness once specific values of orness are a priori stated by the decision maker. Those weights have a property of constant level of orness as well. Finally, the OWA weights generated at a predefined value of orness make almost no numerical difference with maximum entropy OWA weights in terms of dispersion.

Consider a finite set of alternatives under risk which have multiple attributes. MARPI is an interactive computer-based procedure to find an efficient choice in the sense of linear expected utility. The choice is based on incomplete information about the decision maker's preferences which is elicited and processed in a sequential way. The information includes qualitative properties of the multivariate utility function such as monotonicity, risk aversion, and separability. Further, in case of an additively separable utility function, bounds on the scaling constants are elicited, and preferences (not necessarily indifferences) between sure amounts and lotteries are asked from the decision maker. The lotteries are Bernoulli lotteries generated by MARPI using special strategies. At every stage of the procedure the efficient set of alternatives is determined with respect to the information elicited so far.

The most important thing in using the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator which can easily describe the mental model of an Decision Maker (DM), is to characterize OWA weights. Determination of OWA weights cannot provide a characterization by itself. If we want to generalization and reusability of the OWA weights to aggregate various sized objects, we have to be determine more general form. In this paper, we propose a new approach for learning a stress function, which can be characterized as a DM strategy of OWA operator. For this aim the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for similarity probability density functions is used.

Some properties and representation methods for Ordered Weighted Averaging operators

A novel interactive preferential evolutionary method for controller tuning in chemical processes

Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) operators are a family of aggregation functions for data fusion. If the data are real numbers, then OWA operators can be characterized either as a special kind of discrete Choquet integral or simply as an arithmetic mean of the given values previously ordered. This paper analyzes the possible generalizations of these characterizations when OWA operators are defined on a complete lattice. In addition, the set of all n-ary OWA operators is studied as a sublattice of the lattice of all the n-ary aggregation functions defined on a distributive lattice.

Environmental indices (EI) constitute a common communication tool that is often used to describe the overall status of environmental systems (air, water and soil). EI development entails the use of mathematical operators to aggregate various non-commensurate input parameters in a logical manner. The ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator is a general mean type operator that provides flexibility in the aggregation process such that the aggregated value is bounded between minimum and maximum values of the input parameters. This flexibility of the OWA operator is realized through the concept of orness, which is a surrogate for decision maker’s attitude. The type of input parameters also affects the choice of aggregation operators. If the input parameters are linguistic or fuzzy, the aggregation through OWA operators is not possible, and the use of fuzzy arithmetic is warranted. The concept of fuzzy number OWA (FN-OWA) operators is explored to handle situations in which one or more input parameter has fuzzy (or linguistic) values. The proposed approach is demonstrated using data provided in an earlier study by Swamee and Tyagi (ASCE J Environ Eng 126(5):451–455, 2000) for establishing water quality indices. Multiple hypothetical scenarios are also generated to highlight the utility and sensitivity of the proposed approach.

The objective of the paper is to present an extension of the ordered weighted average (OWA) operator, probability OWA (POWA) operator, distance measures and Pythagorean membership grades. These new operators are called the Pythagorean membership grade OWA distance (PMGOD) operator and the probabilistic Pythagorean membership grade OWA distance (PPMGOD) operator. This extension includes in one formulation the ability to measure the ideal vs. real situation of the distance operators, the weighting vector and reordering step of the OWA operator and the way in which it includes uncertainty based on the satisfaction of the criteria of the Pythagorean membership degree. These propositions are applied to new business ventures in the city of Colombia, where the decision maker can express his/her concerns about the uncertainty and probabilities of the current business environment and, thus, generate a better decision-making process.