Search Results (11)

As a knowledge-intensive activity, the Kansei engineering (KE) process encounters numerous challenges in the design knowledge flow, primarily due to issues related to information reliability, uncertainty, and subjectivity. Bridging this gap, this study introduces an advanced KE framework integrating a cloud model with Z-numbers (CMZ) and Bayesian elastic net regression (BENR). In stage-I of this KE, data mining techniques are employed to process online user reviews, coupled with a similarity analysis of affective word clusters to identify representative emotional descriptors. During stage-II, the CMZ algorithm refines K-means clustering outcomes for market-representative product forms, enabling precise feature characterization and experimental prototype development. Stage-III addresses linguistic uncertainties in affective modeling through CMZ-augmented semantic differential questionnaires, achieving a multi-granular representation of subjective evaluations. Subsequently, stage-IV employs BENR for automated hyperparameter optimization in design knowledge inference, eliminating manual intervention. The framework’s efficacy is empirically validated through a domestic cleaning robot case study, demonstrating superior performance in resolving multiple information processing challenges via comparative experiments. Results confirm that this KE framework significantly improves uncertainty management in design knowledge flow compared to conventional implementations. Furthermore, by leveraging the intrinsic symmetry of the normal cloud model with Z-numbers distributions and the balanced ℓ₁/ℓ₂ regularization of BENR, CMZ–BENR framework embodies the principle of structural harmony. Full article

The development of an energy transition policy that ensures a rational combination of the requirements of sustainable development and the country’s priorities is a key factor determining the success of its development. The complexity and importance of this task increase in the case of countries in which oil and natural gas export revenues play a key role in the formation of the budget and development of the country. In this paper, the solution to this problem is studied using the example of Azerbaijan. Considering that the task requires addressing the uncertainty and limitations of available information and statistical data, we used an approach based on the use of fuzzy scenarios and expert information. Scenarios have been described using linguistic variables and the formalism of Z-numbers. Z-numbers allow us to simultaneously formalize uncertainty and reliability in the information. Solving the problem involves integrating approximate methods of Z-reasoning and multi-criteria decision-making. This approach considers economic, social, environmental, and technological criteria and allows for the generation, analysis, and evaluation of transition scenarios. The results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology for constructing energy transition scenarios for countries producing and exporting oil and gas. The solution suggests a moderate increase in natural gas and hydropower production, along with a significant rise in solar and wind energy production. The results highlight the effectiveness of a rational combination of traditional and renewable energy sources during the transition period. The rule base developed in this article can be adapted to account for the priorities and constraints of a specific oil- and gas-producing and -exporting country, and the fuzzy scenarios approach can be successfully applied to address the transition challenge. Full article

Adaptive design focuses on creating flexible products that meet evolving demands and enhance sustainability. However, evaluating adaptive design concepts poses significant challenges due to the dynamic nature of product features over time and the inherent uncertainty in decision-makers’ (DMs’) evaluations. Most traditional frameworks rely on static models that fail to capture the temporal evolution of attributes and often overlook decision-makers’ (DMs’) confidence levels, resulting in incomplete or unreliable evaluations. To bridge these gaps, we propose the m-polar linguistic Z-number (mLZN) to address these issues. This framework uses the dynamic representation capabilities of m-polar fuzzy sets (mFSs) and the symmetrical structure of linguistic Z-numbers (LZNs), which effectively integrate linguistic evaluations with corresponding confidence levels, providing a balanced and robust approach to handling uncertainty. This approach models design characteristics across multiple periods while accounting for DMs’ confidence levels. Based on this framework, we develop mLZN weighted and geometric aggregation operators, computation rules, and ranking methods to support dynamic multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM). The proposed framework’s effectiveness is demonstrated through a case study on adaptive furniture design for children, which showcases its ability to dynamically evaluate key attributes, including safety, ease of use, fun, and comfort. Furthermore, we validate its robustness and feasibility through comprehensive sensitivity and comparative analyses. Full article

Decision makers (DMs) are often viewed as autonomous in the majority of multicriteria group decision making (MCGDM) situations, and their psychological behaviors are seldom taken into account. Once more, we are unable to prevent both positive and negative flows of varying alternative preferences due to the nature of attributes or criteria in complicated decision-making problems. However, DMs’ perspectives are likely to affect one another in complicated MCGDM issues, and they frequently use subjective limited rationality while making decisions. The multicriteria quantum decision theory-based group decision making integrating the TODIM-PROMETHEE II strategy under linguistic Z-numbers (LZNs) is designed to overcome the aforementioned problems. In our established technique, the PROMETHEE II controls the positive and negative flows of distinct alternative preferences, the TODIM method manages the experts’ personal regrets over a criterion, and the quantum probability theory (QPT) addresses human cognition and behavior. Because LZNs can convey linguistic judgment and trustworthiness, we provide expert LZNs for their viewpoints in this work. We determine the criterion weights for each expert after first obtaining their respective expert weights. Second, to represent the limited rational behaviors of the DMs, the TODIM-PROMETHEE II approach is introduced. It is employed to determine each alternative’s dominance in both positive and negative flows. Third, a framework for quantum possibilistic aggregation is developed to investigate the effects of interference between the views of DMs. The views of DMs are seen in this procedure as synchronously occurring wave functions that affect the overall outcome by interfering with one another. The model’s efficacy is then assessed by a selection of renewable energy case studies, sensitive analysis, comparative analysis, and debate. Full article

Interval-valued linguistic neutrosophic sets (IVLNSs), Z-numbers, and the trapezium cloud model are powerful tools for expressing uncertainty and randomness. This paper aims to combine these methodologies. First, we review relevant concepts and operators, introducing a novel combination of IVLNSs and Z-numbers, which establishes a new form of expression. Subsequently, we propose the Z-interval-valued linguistic neutrosophic set-trapezium–trapezium cloud (Z-IVLNS-TTC) model, designed to minimize information loss and distortion during quantification. A novel method for calculating the objective weight vector is then developed using multi-objective programming (MOP). Drawing inspiration from the TOPSIS method, we propose a new approach for calculating the distance between Z-IVLNS-TTCs based on the p-norm. Finally, a group decision-making problem is presented to demonstrate the practical application of the proposed method. To validate the effectiveness and feasibility of the method, sensitivity analysis and comparisons with existing approaches are conducted. Full article

This systematic literature review aims to evaluate and synthesize the effectiveness of various embedding techniques—word embeddings, contextual word embeddings, and context-aware embeddings—in addressing Meaning Conflation Deficiency (MCD). Using the PRISMA framework, this study assesses the current state of research and provides insights into the impact of these techniques on resolving meaning conflation issues. After a thorough literature search, 403 articles on the subject were found. A thorough screening and selection process resulted in the inclusion of 25 studies in the meta-analysis. The evaluation adhered to the PRISMA principles, guaranteeing a methodical and lucid process. To estimate effect sizes and evaluate heterogeneity and publication bias among the chosen papers, meta-analytic approaches were utilized such as the tau-squared (τ²) which represents a statistical parameter used in random-effects, H-squared (H²) is a statistic used to measure heterogeneity, and I-squared (I²) quantify the degree of heterogeneity. The meta-analysis demonstrated a high degree of variation in effect sizes among the studies, with a τ² value of 8.8724. The significant degree of heterogeneity was further emphasized by the H² score of 8.10 and the I² value of 87.65%. A trim and fill analysis with a beta value of 5.95, a standard error of 4.767, a Z-value (or Z-score) of 1.25 which is a statistical term used to express the number of standard deviations a data point deviates from the established mean, and a p-value (probability value) of 0.2 was performed to account for publication bias which is one statistical tool that can be used to assess the importance of hypothesis test results. The results point to a sizable impact size, but the estimates are highly unclear, as evidenced by the huge standard error and non-significant p-value. The review concludes that although contextually aware embeddings have promise in treating Meaning Conflation Deficiency, there is a great deal of variability and uncertainty in the available data. The varied findings among studies are highlighted by the large τ², I², and H² values, and the trim and fill analysis show that changes in publication bias do not alter the impact size’s non-significance. To generate more trustworthy insights, future research should concentrate on enhancing methodological consistency, investigating other embedding strategies, and extending analysis across various languages and contexts. Even though the results demonstrate a significant impact size in addressing MCD through sophisticated word embedding techniques, like context-aware embeddings, there is still a great deal of variability and uncertainty because of various factors, including the different languages studied, the sizes of the corpuses, and the embedding techniques used. These differences show how future research methods must be standardized to guarantee that study results can be compared to one another. The results emphasize how crucial it is to extend the linguistic scope to more morphologically rich and low-resource languages, where MCD is especially difficult. The creation of language-specific models for low-resource languages is one way to increase performance and consistency across Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications in a practical sense. By taking these actions, we can advance our understanding of MCD more thoroughly, which will ultimately improve the performance of NLP systems in a variety of language circumstances. Full article

The high number of ontologies available on the web to date makes it increasingly difficult to select appropriate ontologies for reuse. Many studies have attempted to provide support for ontology selection and ranking; however, the existing studies provide support for ontology ranking from an objective perspective as opposed to a subjective perspective. They do not take into account the qualitative aspects of ontologies. Furthermore, the existing methods have a limited focus on group environments. In this paper, a multi-criteria decision-making approach is presented for ontology ranking with the development of an enhanced model combining the ELECTRE II model with the Z-Probabilistic Linguistic Term Set (ZPLTS). The ZPLTS-ELECTRE II model enables decision-makers to model ontology ranking problems using both numerical and linguistic data. Furthermore, the newly proposed model provides support for ontology ranking in group settings, with an emphasis on modeling the differing levels of credibility of decision-makers using the ZPLTS, which allows decision-makers to not only specify their opinion but also specify their level of credibility. The model was applied to rank a set of mental health ontologies obtained from the BioPortal repository. The results showed that the method was able to rank the ontologies successfully. The results were further compared with the traditional ELECTRE II and the PLTS ELECTRE II methods, displaying superior modeling capabilities. This paper demonstrated the effectiveness of the newly proposed ZPLTS-ELECTRE II model for ontology ranking in a real-world context, but the method is not constrained to the ontology ranking domain; rather, it may be applied to other real-world decision problems as well. Full article

In concept design, effective decision making and management of schemes can shorten the design cycle and improve product quality. The decision maker (DM)’s confidence is one of the critical factors affecting the conceptual design evaluation. Although many studies use quantitative linguistic evaluation for design scheme decision-making, which improves product conceptual design decision-making efficiency and effectiveness, few studies consider the confidence level of a decision. A conceptual design evaluation method based on Z-numbers is proposed to solve this problem, considering the customer requirements and the DM’s confidence. Firstly, the evaluation criteria are determined by analyzing customer requirements; then, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process in the Z-numbers environment (Z-AHP) is used to determine the criteria weight; Finally, the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method in the Z-numbers environment (Z-TOPSIS) is used to evaluate the design schemes to obtain the optimal scheme. The proposed method is applied to the selection of the design scheme of the waste containers in the kitchen. The results show that considering the DM’s self-confidence can achieve a more reasonable and practical evaluation of the conceptual design scheme, and it is easier to obtain the best scheme. Full article

With the development of the urbanization process, the demand for water resources has increased significantly, but the pollution of water resources has caused serious problems. These changes pose a potential threat to water resource carrying capacity in many regions. However, how to determine the areas of highest risk in water resource carrying capacity is an urgent problem which remains to be solved. Resounding to these circumstances, this study establishes a TODIM-PROMETHEE Ⅱ (An acronym in Portuguese for interactive and multiple attribute decision making- preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation Ⅱ) based decision support framework to address this issue for the regions of intensive governance, thereby providing support. In this framework, a novel theoretical concept, namely probabilistic linguistic Z-numbers, is proposed to describe group decision information. The related knowledge of probabilistic linguistic Z-numbers is developed, including a comparison method, distance, and operational rules. Subsequently, a case study involving the evaluation of water resource carrying capacity is conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the decision support model, followed by sensitivity analysis, comparison analysis, and discussion. The findings demonstrate that the constructed framework demonstrates great performance to address this issue. Full article

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a useful design quality control tool in service enterprises and manufacturing enterprises. However, there are several issues in extant QFD frameworks, that is, in three aspects: description of evaluation information, weight determination of expert team members (TMs), and weight identification of customer requirements (CRs). In order to address these issues, a novel QFD framework is first proposed utilizing linguistic Z-numbers (LZNs) with integrated subjective and objective weights of TMs and CRs. The LZNs can represent uncertain information and the reliability of information in a specific way while the fuzzy numbers cannot. Moreover, the order relation analysis (G1) method and improved maximum consensus (MC) method are developed to get the subjective and objective weights of TMs, respectively. Further, the step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) method and statistical distance (SD) method are studied to acquire combined weights of CRs. Next, the proposed QFD framework is applied to a case of logistics service provider, which illustrates the availability and utility of the framework. Then, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to prove the reliability of the framework. Finally, two comparative analyses are performed to declare the advantages of the framework. Results indicate the proposed QFD framework is better than existing models. Full article

To date, no smoking cessation programs are available for Arab American (ARA) men, who are a vulnerable population with high rates of smoking. Thus, the primary aim of this one group pre-test/post-test study was to assess the effectiveness of Sehatack—a culturally and linguistically tailored smoking cessation program for ARA men. The study sample was 79 ARA men with a mean age of 43 years who smoked between 5 and 40 cigarettes (mean = 19.75, SD = 9.1) per day (98.7%). All of the participants reported more interest in smoking cessation post-intervention and many of the participants in the baseline (38.5%) and post-intervention phases (47.7%) wanted to quit smoking ”very much”. For daily smokers who completed the smoking cessation program, the median number of cigarettes smoked daily was significantly lower than those in the post-intervention phase (Z = −6.915, p < 0.001). Results of this preliminary study indicate that: (a) Sehatack may be a promising way for ARA men to quit smoking, and (b) culturally relevant smoking cessation counselors can be trained to recruit and retain ARA smokers in an intensive group smoking cessation program. Strengths of this study were community engagement and rapport between three faith organizations and the University of Florida College of Nursing. However, a larger trial is needed to address study limitations and to confirm benefits in this population. Full article