Informatica

From the perspective of multiple attribute decision analysis, the evaluation of decision alternatives should be based on the performance scores determined with respect to more than one attribute. Fuzzy logic concepts can equip the evaluation process with different scales of linguistic terms to let the decision-makers point out their ideas and preferences. A more recent one of fuzzy sets is the picture fuzzy set which covers three separately allocable elements: positive, neutral, and negative membership degrees. The novel and distinctive element included by a picture fuzzy set is the refusal degree which is equal to the difference between 1 and the sum of the other three. In this study, we aim to contribute to the literature of the picture fuzzy sets by (i) proposing two novel entropy measures that can be used in objective attribute weighting and (ii) developing a novel picture fuzzy version of CODAS (COmbinative Distance-based ASsessment) method which is empowered with entropy-based attribute weighting. The applicability of the method is shown in a green supplier selection problem. To clarify the differences of the proposed method, a comparative analysis is provided by considering traditional CODAS, spherical fuzzy CODAS, and spherical fuzzy TOPSIS with different entropy-based scenarios.

The main objective of the present paper is to report two studies on mathematical and computational techniques used to model the behaviour of the aorta in the human cardiovascular system. In this paper, an account of the design and implementation of two distinct models is presented: a Windkessel model and an agent-based model. Windkessel model represents the left heart and arterial system of the cardiovascular system in the physiological domain. The agent-based model offers a simplified account of arterial behaviour by randomly generating arterial parameter values. This study has described the mechanism how and when the left heart contracts and pumps the blood out of the aorta, and it has taken the Windkessel model one step further. The results of this study show that the dynamics of the aorta can be explored in each modelling approaches as proposed and implemented by our research group. It is thought that this study will contribute to the literature in terms of development of the Windkessel model by considering its timing and redesigning it with digital electronics perspective.

Policy-makers are often hesitant to invest in unproven solutions because of a lack of the decision-making framework for managing innovations as a portfolio of investments that balances risk and return, especially in the field of developing new technologies. This study provides a new portfolio matrix for decision making of policy-makers to identify IoT applications in the agriculture sector for future investment based on two dimensions of sustainable development as a return and IoT challenge as a risk using a novel MADM approach. To this end, the identified applications of IoT in the agriculture sector fall into eight areas using the meta-synthesis method. The authors extracted a set of criteria from the literature. Later, the fuzzy Delphi method helped finalise it. The authors extended the SWARA method with interval-valued triangular fuzzy numbers (IVTFN SWARA) and used it to the weighting of the characteristics. Then, the alternatives were rated using the Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) method based on interval-valued triangular fuzzy numbers (IVTFN ARAS). Finally, decision-makers evaluated the results of ratings based on two dimensions of sustainability and IoT challenge by developing a framework for decision-making. Results of this paper show that policy-makers can manage IOT innovations in a disciplined way that balances risk and return by a portfolio approach, simultaneously the proposed framework can be used to determine and prioritise the areas of IoT application in the agriculture sector.

Quality function deployment (QFD) is an effective product development and management tool, which has been broadly applied in various industries to develop and improve products or services. Nonetheless, when used in real situations, the traditional QFD method shows some important weaknesses, especially in describing experts’ opinions, weighting customer requirements, and ranking engineering characteristics. In this study, a new QFD approach integrating linguistic Z-numbers and evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) method is proposed to determine the prioritization of engineering characteristics. Specially, linguistic Z-numbers are adopted to deal with the vague evaluation information provided by experts on the relationships among customer requirements and engineering characteristics. Then, the EDAS method is extended to estimate the final priority ratings of engineering characteristics. Additionally, stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) method is employed to derive the relative weights of customer requirements. Finally, a practical case of Panda shared car design is introduced and a comparison is conducted to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed QFD approach. The results show that the proposed linguistic Z-EDAS method can not only represent experts’ interrelation evaluation information flexibly, but also produce a more reasonable and reliable prioritization of engineering characteristics in QFD.

Code repositories contain valuable information, which can be extracted, processed and synthesized into valuable information. It enabled developers to improve maintenance, increase code quality and understand software evolution, among other insights. Certain research has been made during the last years in this field. This paper presents a systematic mapping study to find, evaluate and investigate the mechanisms, methods and techniques used for the analysis of information from code repositories that allow the understanding of the evolution of software. Through this mapping study, we have identified the main information used as input for the analysis of code repositories (commit data and source code), as well as the most common methods and techniques of analysis (empirical/experimental and automatic). We believe the conducted research is useful for developers working on software development projects and seeking to improve maintenance and understand the evolution of software through the use and analysis of code repositories.

Consensus creation is a complex challenge in decision making for conflicting or quasi-conflicting evaluator groups. The problem is even more difficult to solve, if one or more respondents are non-expert and provide uncertain or hesitant responses in a survey. This paper presents a methodological approach, the Interval-valued Spherical Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process, with the objective to handle both types of problems simultaneously; considering hesitant scoring and synthesizing different stakeholder group opinions by a mathematical procedure. Interval-valued spherical fuzzy sets are superior to the other extensions with a more flexible characterization of membership function. Interval-valued spherical fuzzy sets are employed for incorporating decision makers’ judgements about the membership functions of a fuzzy set into the model with an interval instead of a single point. In the paper, Interval-valued spherical fuzzy AHP method has been applied to public transportation problem. Public transport development is an appropriate case study to introduce the new model and analyse the results due to the involvement of three classically conflicting stakeholder groups: passengers, non-passenger citizens and the representatives of the local municipality. Data from a real-world survey conducted recently in the Turkish big city, Mersin, help in understanding the new concept. As comparison, all likenesses and differences of the outputs have been pointed out in the reflection with the picture fuzzy AHP computation of the same data. The results are demonstrated and analysed in detail and the step-by-step description of the procedure might foment other applications of the model.

As an extension of intuitionistic fuzzy sets, picture fuzzy sets can deal with vague, uncertain, incomplete and inconsistent information. The similarity measure is an important technique to distinguish two objects. In this study, a similarity measure between picture fuzzy sets based on relationship matrix is proposed. The new similarity measure satisfies the axiomatic definition of similarity measure. It can be testified from a numerical experiment that the new similarity measure is more effective. Finally, we apply the proposed similarity measure to multiple-attribute decision making.

This work compares different algorithms to replace the genetic optimizer used in a recent methodology for creating realistic and computationally efficient neuron models. That method focuses on single-neuron processing and has been applied to cerebellar granule cells. It relies on the adaptive-exponential integrate-and-fire (AdEx) model, which must be adjusted with experimental data. The alternatives considered are: i) a memetic extension of the original genetic method, ii) Differential Evolution, iii) Teaching-Learning-Based Optimization, and iv) a local optimizer within a multi-start procedure. All of them ultimately outperform the original method, and the last two do it in all the scenarios considered.

Picture fuzzy sets (PFSs) utilize the positive, neutral, negative and refusal membership degrees to describe the behaviours of decision-makers in more detail. In this article, we expound the application of extended TODIM based on cumulative prospect theory under picture fuzzy multiple attribute group decision making (MAGDM). In addition, we adopt Information Entropy, which is used to ascertain the weighting vector of attributes to improve the availability of the TODIM method. At last, we exercise the improved TODIM into a numerical case for super market location and testify the effectiveness of this new method by comparing its results with other methods’ results.

A p-rung orthopair fuzzy set (p-ROFS) describes a generalization of intuitionistic fuzzy set and Pythagorean fuzzy set in the case where we face a larger representation space of acceptable membership grades, and moreover, it gives a decision maker more flexibility in expressing his/her real preferences. Under the p-rung orthopair fuzzy environment, we are going to propose a novel and parametrized score function of p-ROFSs by incorporating the idea of weighted average of the degree of membership and non-membership functions. In view of this fact, this study is further undertaken to investigate and present different properties of the proposed score function for p-ROFSs. Moreover, we indicate that this ranking technique reduces some of the drawbacks of the existing ones. Eventually, we develop an approach based on the above-mentioned ranking technique to deal with multiple criteria decision making problems with p-rung orthopair fuzzy information.