International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems

Volume 12, Issue 2, 2019, Pages 984 - 997

Heterogeneous Interrelationships among Attributes in Multi-Attribute Decision-Making: An Empirical Analysis

Authors
Zhen-Song Chen1, 2, Xuan Zhang1, *, Rosa M. Rodríguez3, Xian-Jia Wang4, Kwai-Sang Chin5
1School of Civil Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
2School of Data Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
3Department of Computer Science, University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain
4Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
5Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
*Corresponding author. Email: xuanzhang@whu.edu.cn
Corresponding Author
Xuan Zhang
Received 25 July 2019, Accepted 25 August 2019, Available Online 23 September 2019.
DOI
10.2991/ijcis.d.190827.001How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Heterogeneous interrelationships; Generalized extended Bonferroni mean; Simple additive weighting; Preference modeling; Multi-attribute decision function
Abstract

Tremendous effort has been exerted over the past few decades to construct multi-attribute decision functions with the capacity to model heterogeneous interrelationships among attributes. In this paper, we report an empirical study aiming to test whether or not considering interrelationships among attributes can benefit the representation of real preferences in multi-attribute ranking tasks. The generalized extended Bonferroni mean (GEBM) has recently been advocated as a promising and efficient tool for modeling heterogeneous interrelationships among attributes. We compare the GEBM with one of its most widely adopted competitors, simple additive weighting (SAW), in terms of their fitting quality when applied to preference elicitation. The attribute performances are manifested uniformly with the use of three widely-adopted utility measurements. Subsequently afterwards, the maximum split approach to establish the constraint objective function in regression for both the GEBM and the SAW to test whether or not all constraints resulting from the subject’s ranking can be fulfilled. On this bases, the number of fully or partly fitted subjects, consistency for subjects according to the better fitting model, and reliability of attribute weights learned by either the GEBM or the SAW are empirically examined in a bid to demonstrate the quantitative construction of fitting quality measurement. With the established fitting quality measurement, the necessity of taking heterogeneous interrelationships among attributes into account when constructing multi-attribute decision functions to represent real preferences can be analyzed. The main conclusion from the empirical study suggests that the relative performance of the two aggregation paradigms examined here depends on which fitting quality measurements are adopted. Researchers enthusiastic to discover the heterogeneous interrelationships among attributes when constructing multi-attribute decision functions might find the present results relevant when modeling actual preferences, and consequently this work should serve as a useful reference for enterprises and service providers seeking to strategically drive customer purchasing decisions.

Copyright
© 2019 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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Journal
International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems
Volume-Issue
12 - 2
Pages
984 - 997
Publication Date
2019/09/23
ISSN (Online)
1875-6883
ISSN (Print)
1875-6891
DOI
10.2991/ijcis.d.190827.001How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2019 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Cite this article

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Zhen-Song Chen
AU  - Xuan Zhang
AU  - Rosa M. Rodríguez
AU  - Xian-Jia Wang
AU  - Kwai-Sang Chin
PY  - 2019
DA  - 2019/09/23
TI  - Heterogeneous Interrelationships among Attributes in Multi-Attribute Decision-Making: An Empirical Analysis
JO  - International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems
SP  - 984
EP  - 997
VL  - 12
IS  - 2
SN  - 1875-6883
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/ijcis.d.190827.001
DO  - 10.2991/ijcis.d.190827.001
ID  - Chen2019
ER  -