An Offshore Wind–Wave Energy Station Location Analysis by a Novel Behavioral Dual-Side Spherical Fuzzy Approach: The Case Study of Vietnam

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study developed a multimethod MCDM approach for identifying the best location(s) for the construction of offshore wind/wave facilities. My comments and concerns are listed below.

Abstract

1. "for that purpose" should be changed to "for this purpose"
2. The abstract should be shortened to less than 180 words. You may consider shortening the explanations of the method.
3. In the keywords, data envelopment analysis should be added before DEA.

Introduction

1. A new section, namely the relevant literature, should be added to support the claimed research gap in more detail. This section should exhaust ALL the published works on offshore location selection.
2. Table 1 should be moved to the newly added section.
3. How "offshore wind projects, either in the early stages or already in operation, are mostly nearshore wind power projects" can result in an academic research GAP?!
4. The introduction section should be extended: please make sure to have the following order of PARAGRAPHS: background, problem statement, the review of the relevant works that addressed the problem (broad review of different methods), critical review of the MOST relevant research works to highlight the RESEARCH GAP, a clear statement of your contribution(s), and the organization of your manuscript.
5. The authors should emphasize the reason for and advantages of combining DEA and DEMATEL and also mention if this combination has been tested before

Methodology

1. In the methodology section, you should cite several studies that used DEA for such purposes.
2. All the technical terms should be defined before being used. For example, decision makers’ psychosocial behavior
3. DEMATEL cannot be used for weighting criteria!!! some studies have done this before in non-reputed journals, but it's a serious flaw. DEMATEL determines the interrelationship between the criteria and the extent to which they influence each other. Other methods like AHP, ANP, and MACBETH are usually used for weighting. To solve the weighting issue, I'd recommend the authors extend their analysis to DEMATEL-based ANP for identifying weights; otherwise, using DEMATEL for findings weights is not correct.
4. Figure 1 must show the interactions between the computational elements, like the inputs and output.

Case study

1. You should justify your selection of the case study with statistical data.
2. How the candidate locations are identified? please explain in detail.
3. Who are the respondees? you should elaborate on it
4. Managerial implications should be extended. You may also consider discussing the academic implications of your method.

Conclusions. This section must be self-sufficient, meaning that, the potential readers should be able to understand the major points without a need to go through the article. Please include the following paragraphs: (1) background, problem statement, and your contributions. (2) the major findings and implications. (3) The limitations and suggestions for future studies. You may provide more suggestions here.

Overall, my major concerns are (1) lack of contribution (simple use of two different methods cannot be considered a significant contribution especially if they are used sequentially). (2) methodology flaw

Author Response

Thanks for your valuable comments.
Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is very well written. I strongly recommended it for publication. But I have some following observations:

(1) Author should describe why they use the said MCDM method rather than another method. 

(2) Sensitivity analysis is not clear. After taking more numerical find most sensitive factors. 

(3) Add a pseudocode of the method. Explain how you solve the numerical 

(4) The data source should be highlighted.

(5) Add limitations of the study as a different subsection. 

(6) Figure 5 and 7 are very unclear and difficult to view. Explain with high-resolution figure. 

(7) Add some recent papers from high impact factor journals. 

 

Author Response

Thanks for your valuable comments.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors must carefully edit all the text. I edited only the abstract.

 

decision-making

--> in all the text the authors must use the same style: decision-making

Their efficiency is significantly influenced by decisions about installation location.

--> Decisions about installation location significantly influence their efficiency.

The aims of this study are to examine and determine the highly efficient and sustainable locations based on quantitative indicators and qualitative criteria.

-->This study examines and determines highly efficient and sustainable locations based on quantitative indicators and qualitative criteria.

 In the first stage, the behavioral data envelopment analysis (B-DEA) model, which is constructed based on prospect theory, is applied to analyze locations according to quantitative indicators under decision makers’ psychological behavior consideration.

-->In the first stage, the behavioral Data Envelopment Analysis (B-DEA) model, constructed based on prospect theory, is applied to analyze locations according to quantitative indicators under decision makers’ psychological behavior consideration.

In the second stage, a spherical fuzzy extension of the integration method composed by DEMATEL (Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory) method and EDAS method (Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution) is used to evaluate the locations.

-->In the second stage, a spherical fuzzy extension of the integration composed of the DEMATEL (Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory) and the EDAS (Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution) methods helped to evaluate the locations.

For validation, the findings are then compared with current development projects, plans, and policies in Vietnam.

--> The research compared findings with current development projects, plans, and policies in Vietnam for validation.

From that visualization, recommendations for appropriate WWS locations are provided.

-->The research provides recommendations for appropriate WWS locations from that visualization.

; data envelopment analysis;

--> ; Data Envelopment Analysis;

2. Methodology

According to Karabasevic et al. (2016), the selection of project implementation sites highly depends on the available project implementation team (Karabasevic et al., 2016) and available contractors (Stanukic et al., 2017), and feasible technologies (Zavadskas et al., 2013). 

Karabasevic, D., Zavadskas, E. K., Turskis, Z., & Stanujkic, D. (2016). The framework for the selection of personnel based on the SWARA and ARAS methods under uncertainties. Informatica, 27(1), 49-65. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/Informatica.2016.76

Stanujkic, D., Zavadskas, E. K., Ghorabaee, M. K., & Turskis, Z. (2017). An extension of the EDAS method based on the use of interval grey numbers. Studies in Informatics and Control, 26(1), 5-12.

Zavadskas, E. K., Antucheviciene, J., Šaparauskas, J., & Turskis, Z. (2013). Multi-criteria assessment of facades’ alternatives: peculiarities of ranking methodology. Procedia Engineering, 57, 107-112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2013.04.016 

 

Besides the DEA method, different MCDM methods could be helpful. For example, Peldschus et al. (2010) used the Game Theory to assess the construction site.

Peldschus, F., Zavadskas, E. K., Turskis, Z., & Tamosaitiene, J. (2010). Sustainable Assessment of Construction Site by Applying Game. Inzinerine Ekonomika–Engineering Economics, 21(3), 223–237.

 

Moreover, which alternative is proper to determine local and international scopes and aims in a dynamically changing business environment (Zavadskas et al., 2017) must protect nature and cultural heritage (Turskis et al., 2013), requirements to turn to the green energy.

Zavadskas, E. K., Turskis, Z., Vilutienė, T., & Lepkova, N. (2017). Integrated group fuzzy multi-criteria model: Case of facilities management strategy selection. Expert Systems with Applications, 82, 317-331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2017.03.072

Turskis, Z., Zavadskas, E. K., & Kutut, V. (2013). A model based on ARAS-G and AHP methods for multiple criteria prioritizing of heritage value. International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making, 12(01), 45-73. https://doi.org/10.1142/S021962201350003X

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments.
Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Several of my comments are, unfortunately, are not addressed.

I do not agree with this statement: "The ratio of the prominence of a particular criterion to the total prominence represents the importance of that criterion in the system. " for the following reason. Prominence shows how much a criterion/factor influences the rest of the criteria/factors in the decision network. A factor can be very significant (i.e., get a high importance weight/coefficient) but dispatch little impact on the rest of the factors and/or receive a negligible impact.

I would like to remind the authors that my suggestions are meant for improving this research work to an acceptable quality level.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments.

We did our best to address your comments. We chose DEMATEL because of its ability to determine interrelationship between criteria. Besides, this method is also widely used in determining weights. We agree with your concerns but the weights determined by the DEMATEL method are acceptable according to the review studies.

Once again we thank you for your valuable comments.