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Consistency-index-driven group decision making under the environment of triangular fuzzy numbers

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Abstract

Group decision making (GDM) under a fuzzy environment is one of the research focuses recently. Triangular fuzzy number can be used as an effective tool to capture the vagueness encountered by decision makers (DMs). In this study, a novel GDM model is proposed when triangular fuzzy multiplicative reciprocal matrices (TFMRMs) are adopted to express the opinions of DMs. A generalized consistency index is constructed to quantify the inconsistency degree of TFMRMs, which reflects the basic idea of fuzzy set theory that everything has some elasticity. The interesting properties of the new consistency index are studied, and acceptable consistency of TFMRMs is discussed. Then, based on the proposed consistency index, an operator is proposed to aggregate the individual TFMRMs. The properties of the collective TFMRM are further investigated. Finally, a new algorithm for solving a GDM problem with TFMRMs is elaborated on. Numerical results are reported to illustrate the advantages and novelty of the proposed consistency-index-driven GDM model.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the constructive suggestions for improving the paper. The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71871072, 71571054), the Guangxi Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 2016GXNSFFA380004), 2017 Guangxi high school innovation team and outstanding scholars plan, and the Innovation Project of Guangxi Graduate Education (No. YCSW2020039).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics and Information Science, Guangxi University, Nanning, Guangxi, 530004, P.R. China

    Fang Liu, Caixia Huang & Tong Liu

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  1. Fang Liu
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  2. Caixia Huang
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  3. Tong Liu
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Correspondence to Fang Liu.

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Liu, F., Huang, C. & Liu, T. Consistency-index-driven group decision making under the environment of triangular fuzzy numbers. Soft Comput 25, 2069–2083 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-020-05278-9

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