One of the most recent innovations in the field of fuzzy sets has been continuous intuitionistic fuzzy sets (CINFUSs), where membership and non-membership degrees are defined by nonlinear functions, as a direct extension of intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs). The membership and non-membership degrees of CINFUSs can account for uncertainty at every point since they are represented by continuous structures that change based on how the decision-maker responds to uncertainty. On the other hand, Pythagorean fuzzy sets (PFSs) allow for a more accurate representation of the data and a better way to handle uncertainty in decision issues by reflecting the hesitations of decision-makers over a larger range. Due to these superior advantages of CINFUSs and the fact that PFSs are more comprehensive than IFSs, in this study, continuous Pythagorean fuzzy sets (CPFUSs) have been aimed at introducing to define uncertainty more broadly and accurately by representing PFSs with a continuous structure as in IFSs. In this study, firstly, the basic principles and mathematical operators of CPFUSs have been developed and presented. Then, multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) models have been developed by considering different aggregation operators to indicate the feasibility and effectiveness of the continuous Pythagorean fuzzy (CPFU) extension. The developed CPFU-MADM models have been implemented to the solution of two different decision problems: green supplier selection and waste disposal site selection problems. In addition, sensitivity analyses have been conducted on criterion weights, expert weights and parameters in order to demonstrate the reliability and stability of the developed models. Furthermore, the validity and superiority of the developed models have been indicated by the comparative analysis conducted with IFSs and PFSs-based MADM models in the literature. MADM applications have shown that continuous Pythagorean fuzzy sets can successfully represent the expert decisions with different attitudes within the same model. It has been observed that the rankings of alternatives according to aggregation operators do not change even when there are differences in the score values of the alternatives.
Pub. online:29 Mar 2024Type:Research ArticleOpen Access
Journal:Informatica
Volume 35, Issue 2 (2024), pp. 311–339
Abstract
The extensions of ordinary fuzzy sets are problematic because they require decimal numbers for membership, non-membership and indecision degrees of an element from the experts, which cannot be easily determined. This will be more difficult when three or more digits’ membership degrees have to be assigned. Instead, proportional relations between the degrees of parameters of a fuzzy set extension will make it easier to determine the membership, non-membership, and indecision degrees. The objective of this paper is to present a simple but effective technique for determining these degrees with several decimal digits and to enable the expert to assign more stable values when asked at different time points. Some proportion-based models for the fuzzy sets extensions, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, Pythagorean fuzzy sets, picture fuzzy sets, and spherical fuzzy sets are proposed, including their arithmetic operations and aggregation operators. Proportional fuzzy sets require only the proportional relations between the parameters of the extensions of fuzzy sets. Their contribution is that these models will ease the use of fuzzy set extensions with the data better representing expert judgments. The imprecise definition of proportions is also incorporated into the given models. The application and comparative analyses result in that proportional fuzzy sets are easily applied to any problem and produce valid outcomes. Furthermore, proportional fuzzy sets clearly showed the role of the degree of indecision in the ranking of alternatives in binomial and trinomial fuzzy sets. In the considered car selection problem, it has been observed that there are minor changes in the ordering of intuitionistic and spherical fuzzy sets.