A New Approach for Fairness Increment of Consensus-driven Group Recommender Systems Based on Choquet Integral

It has been witnessed in recent years for the rising of Group recommender systems (GRSs) in most e-commerce and tourism applications like Booking.com, Traveloka.com, Amazon, etc. One of the most concerned problems in GRSs is to guarantee the fairness between users in a group so-called the consensus-driven group recommender system. This paper proposes a new flexible alternative that embeds a fuzzy measure to aggregation operators of consensus process to improve fairness of group recommendation and deals with group member interaction. Choquet integral is used to build a fuzzy measure based on group member interactions and to seek a better fairness recommendation. The empirical results on the benchmark datasets show the incremental advances of the proposal for dealing with group member interactions and the issue of fairness in Consensus-driven GRS.

Associated probabilities aggregations in multistage investment decision-making

PurposeThe attributes that influence the selection of applicants and the relevant crediting decisions are naturally distinguished by interactions and interdependencies. A new method of possibilistic discrimination analysis (MPDA) was developed for the second stage to address this phenomenon. The method generates positive and negative discrimination measures for each alternative applicant in relation to a particular attribute. The obtained discrimination pair reflects the interaction of attributes and represents intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IFNs). For the aggregation of applicant's discrimination intuitionistic fuzzy assessments (with respect to attributes), new intuitionistic aggregation operators, such as AsP-IFOWA and AsP-IFOWG, are defined and studied. The new operators are certain extensions of the well-known Choquet integral and Yager OWA operators. The extensions, in contrast to the Choquet aggregation, take into account all possible interactions of the attributes by introducing associated probabilities of a fuzzy measure.Design/methodology/approachFor optimal planning of investments distribution and decreasing of credit risks, it is crucial to have selected projects ranked within deeply detailed investment model. To achieve this, a new approach developed in this article involves three stages. The first stage is to reduce a possibly large number of applicants for credit, and here, the method of expertons is used. At the second stage, a model of improved decisions is built, which reduces the risks of decision making. In this model, as it is in multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) + multi-objective decision-making (MODM), expert evaluations are presented in terms of utility, gain, and more. At the third stage, the authors construct the bi-criteria discrete intuitionistic fuzzy optimization problem for making the most profitable investment portfolio with new criterion: 1) Maximization of total ranking index of selected applicants' group and classical criterion and 2) Maximization of total profit of selected applicants' group.FindingsThe example gives the Pareto fronts obtained by both new operators, the Choquet integral and Yager OWA operators also well-known TOPSIS approach, for selecting applicants and awarding credits. For a fuzzy measure, the possibility measure defined on the expert evaluations of attributes is taken.Originality/valueThe comparative analysis identifies the applicants who will receive the funding sequentially based on crediting resources and their requirements. It has become apparent that the use of the new criterion has given more credibility to applicants in making optimal credit decisions in the environment of extended new operators, where the phenomenon of interaction of all attributes was also taken into account.

Associated Probabilities in Interactive MADM under Discrimination q-Rung Picture Linguistic Environment

In some multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) models studying attributes’ interactive phenomena is very important for the minimizing decision risks. Usually, the Choquet integral type aggregations are considered in such problems. However, the Choquet integral aggregations do not consider all attributes’ interactions; therefore, in many cases, when these interactions are revealed in less degree, they do not perceive these interactions and their utility in MADM problems is less useful. For the decision of this problem, we create the Choquet integral-based new aggregation operators’ family which considers all pair interactions between attributes. The problem under the discrimination q-rung picture linguistic and q-rung orthopair fuzzy environments is considered. Construction of a 2-order additive fuzzy measure (TOAFM) involves pair interaction indices and importance values of attributes of a MADM model. Based on the attributes’ pair interactions for the identification of associated probabilities of a 2-order additive fuzzy measure, the Shapley entropy maximum principle is used. The associated probabilities q-rung picture linguistic weighted averaging (APs-q-RPLWA) and the associated probabilities q-rung picture linguistic weighted geometric (APs-q-RPLWG) aggregation operators are constructed with respect to TOAFM. For an uncertainty pole of experts’ evaluations on attributes regarding the possible alternatives, the associated probabilities of a fuzzy measure are used. The second pole of experts’ evaluations as arguments of the aggregation operators by discrimination q-rung picture linguistic values is presented. Discrimination q-rung picture linguistic evaluations specify the attribute’s dominant, neutral and non-dominant impacts on the selection of concrete alternative from all alternatives. Constructed operators consider the all relatedness between attributes in any consonant attribute structure. Main properties on the rightness of extensions are showed: APs-q-RPLWA and APs-q-RPLWG operators match with q-rung picture linguistic Choquet integral averaging and geometric operators for the lower and upper capacities of order two. The conjugation among the constructed operators is also considered. Connections between the new operators and the compositions of dual triangular norms (Tp,Spq) and (Tmin,Smax) are also constructed. Constructed operators are used in evaluation of a selection reliability index (SRI) of candidate service centers in the facility location selection problem, when small degree interactions are observed between attributes. In example MADM, the difference in optimal solutions is observed between the Choquet integral aggregation operators and their new extensions. The difference, however, is due to the need to use indices of all interactions between attributes.

Profit distribution of IPD projects using fuzzy alliance

PurposeThis paper examines the profit distribution of engineering projects in the integrated project delivery (IPD) mode. IPD is a new delivery method that can ameliorate many of the disadvantages of traditional delivery methods and improve project results. In the implementation of IPD, the profit distribution is key for ensuring the success of IPD projects.Design/methodology/approachThis paper described a new method for characterizing profit distribution in the IPD mode. The payment function and Shapley value of the cooperative fuzzy game of fuzzy alliance were defined by considering the Choquet integral of the fuzzy measure. The participation of each player was considered, and the influence of participation on the profit distribution was discussed. Lastly, changes in the profit distribution of core participants under different alliance combinations were studied.FindingsA case from a report of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) was used to verify the fuzzy alliance model. There was a significant correlation between the degree of participation of the owner, architect and builder and the profit distribution among these three participants.Research limitations/implicationsThe theoretical research in this paper has some limitations. Initially, this paper selects a case with only three key participants in order to simplify the research. When there are many core participants, how to establish the alliance in the IPD mode and how to establish the corresponding profit distribution model, further work is certainly required to disentangle these complexities in models. Second, in this case, BIM technology has little impact on the income of the whole project. Therefore, this paper does not consider the impact of BIM technology on the marginal effect of the IPD project. Third, the contract type in the case is a custom tri-party based on IFOA. There is no classified discussion of the impact of different contracts on the profit distribute in the paper.Practical implicationsBased on the in-depth study of cooperative game with alliance structure, this paper promotes the classic cooperative game with alliance structure. The authors define the payoff function of fuzzy cooperative games by Choquet integral of fuzzy measure, and introduce the idea into the field of IPD. It aims at extending the solution to a cooperative game without a core. It can be obtained through a simple calculation. In the IPD alliance, the fuzziness and uncertainty of the participation degree of each participant will affect the profit of the whole project. The authors find that the higher the participation rate of players, the more profit each participant has. The greater the influence weight of the designer on the alliance, the lower the influence weight of the contractor on the alliance, the lower the participation of the contractor and the designer, and the lower the income distribution value of the three core participants. It shows a monotonous decline status.Social implicationsFor any construction enterprise, it can make more profits if it joins the grand alliance. In the IPD alliance, each participant can maximize their own interests, which can also promote the enthusiasm of construction enterprises to participate in the alliance and increase the application of IPD mode in AEC industry. This research method provides a new fast, effective, and more realistic solution method for cooperative countermeasures. It can be further extended to other cooperative game fields and advance a new research perspective and solution for the distribution of cooperative interests.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is the development of a fuzzy alliance model that provides a tool for measuring the profit distribution in IPD. This is the first quantitative model to connect the degree of participation with the profit distribution in IPD using fuzzy alliance.

A 2-order Additive Fuzzy Measure Identification Method Based on Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Interaction Degree and Its Application in Credit Assessment

In order to solve the problem that it is difficult to quantitatively evaluate the interactivity between attributes in the identification process of 2-order additive fuzzy measure, this work uses the hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set (HFLTS) to describe and deal with the interactivity between attributes. Firstly, the interactivity between attributes is defined by the supermodular game theory, and a linguistic term set is then established to characterize the interactivity between attributes. Secondly, under the linguistic term set, according to the above definition, the experts employ the linguistic expressions generated by the context-free grammar to evaluate the interactivity between attributes, and the opinions of all experts are then aggregated by using the defined hesitant fuzzy linguistic weighted power average operator (HFLWPA). Thirdly, based on the standard Euclidean distance formula of the hesitant fuzzy linguistic elements (HFLEs), the hesitant fuzzy linguistic interaction degree (HFLID) between attributes is defined and calculated by constructing a piecewise function. Finally, a 2-order additive fuzzy measure identification method based on HFLID is further proposed. Based on the proposed method, using the Choquet fuzzy integral as nonlinear integration operator, a multi-attribute decision making (MADM) process is presented. Taking the credit assessment of the big data listed companies in China as an application example, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the analysis results of application example.

Wind Farm Location Special Optimization Based on Grid GIS and Choquet Fuzzy Integral Method in Dalian City, China

Selecting an appropriate wind farm location must be specific to a particular administrative region, which involves restrictions balance and trade-offs. Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) and GIS are widely used in wind energy planning, but have failed to achieve the selection of an optimal location and make it difficult to establish a set of independent factors. Fuzzy measurement is an effective method to evaluate intermediate synthesis and calculates the factor weight through fuzzy integrals. In this paper, optimal wind farm location is analyzed through coupling Grid GIS technique with λ fuzzy measure. Dalian City is selected as the study area for proving the feasibility of the proposed method. Typography, meteorological, transmission facilities, biological passage, and infrastructure are taken into the index system. All the indexes are specialized into victor grid cells which are taken as the base wind farm location alternative unit. The results indicate that the Grid GIS based λ fuzzy measure and Choquet fuzzy integral method could effectively deal with the special optimization problem and reflect optimal wind farm locations.