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Uncertain linguistic terms with weakened hedges for multi-granular linguistic decision making with its application to evaluating communication technologies

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Abstract

Due to the complex application scenarios and different user requirements, it is usually difficult to evaluate communication technologies objectively and comprehensively. Compared with the traditional quantitative methods, multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) methods based on qualitative analysis can reflect the evaluation opinions of experts more comprehensively. To address the above difficult by utilizing the advantage of the MAGDM based on qualitative analysis, this paper proposes a new linguistic expression model called uncertain linguistic term with weakened hedge (ULTWH), which expresses decision information better and closer to the original terms of experts, and then the model is applied to solve MAGDM problems. An ULTWH is consisted of a linguistic term interval where the real value of a linguistic variable is most likely to appear, and a weakened hedge which is used to express the degree of uncertainty. In the paper, the order relations, operation rules and the aggregation operators for ULTWHs are formulated and presented. Then, a new multi-granular group decision making (GDM) method based on ULTWHs is developed. After that, the developed method is used to solve a specific problem of communication technology evaluation. Finally, a comparative analysis of several multi-granular GDM methods is made. Through comparison, it is shown that the proposed method has a wider range of applications and better interpretability.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71771155) and the Major Program of the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No. 17ZDA092).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, Jiangsu, China

    Chen Jin & Zeshui Xu

  2. Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, Sichuan, China

    Zeshui Xu

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Xiaojun Zeng

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  1. Chen Jin
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  2. Zeshui Xu
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  3. Xiaojun Zeng
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Correspondence to Zeshui Xu.

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Jin, C., Xu, Z. & Zeng, X. Uncertain linguistic terms with weakened hedges for multi-granular linguistic decision making with its application to evaluating communication technologies. Appl Intell 52, 16758–16774 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-021-03127-2

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