Helping to Choose a Robust Alternative: A Sensitivity Analysis and a Software Tool for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making

IF 2.3 4区 计算机科学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Expert Systems Pub Date : 2025-03-05 DOI:10.1111/exsy.70031
Pavel Novoa-Hernández, David A. Pelta, Carlos Cruz Corona
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) often involves evaluating or ranking alternatives on multiple attributes, a process that is far from trivial due to flexible preferences and uncertainty in the criteria importance. The recently proposed Weightless, Interval-Based Approach (WIBA) tackles these issues by relying on an ordering of the criteria (according to their relevance) instead of explicit weights and using interval scores to evaluate alternatives. Although originally proposed for selecting solutions of interest in the context of multi-objective and many objective optimization problems, it can be adapted to rank such solutions. However, the robustness of WIBA rankings has not been studied, and sensitivity analysis approaches based on perturbations of the weights cannot be applied. Furthermore, there is no friendly environment for exploring WIBA properties. This paper addresses these gaps by (1) introducing a novel local sensitivity analysis technique to explore how small perturbations in the order of criteria affect rankings, and (2) presenting WIBApp, a freely available visual software tool that implements WIBA features, including the proposed sensitivity analysis. Using a case study on the selection of technical universities, the paper first illustrates WIBA's flexibility and utility in real-world decision scenarios, enabling decision makers to effectively deal with uncertainty and complexity, and second shows how WIBApp simplifies data management, enhances analysis and facilitates comparisons among rankings. By advancing the theoretical foundations of WIBA and providing a practical implementation, this work contributes to providing decision makers with a robust framework for handling multi-criteria problems, enhancing the reliability of rankings and supporting informed decisions.

帮助选择一个健壮的替代方案:多标准决策的敏感性分析和软件工具
多标准决策(MCDM)通常涉及对多个属性的备选方案进行评估或排序,由于偏好的灵活性和标准重要性的不确定性,这一过程远非微不足道。最近提出的无权重、基于区间的方法(WIBA)解决了这些问题,它依赖于标准的排序(根据它们的相关性),而不是明确的权重,并使用区间分数来评估备选方案。虽然最初是为了在多目标和多目标优化问题的背景下选择感兴趣的解而提出的,但它可以适应于对这些解进行排序。然而,WIBA排名的鲁棒性尚未得到研究,基于权重扰动的敏感性分析方法也无法应用。此外,没有适合探索WIBA属性的环境。本文通过(1)引入一种新的局部灵敏度分析技术来探索标准顺序中的小扰动如何影响排名,以及(2)提出WIBApp,一种免费的可视化软件工具,实现了WIBA功能,包括提出的灵敏度分析,从而解决了这些差距。通过对技术大学选择的案例研究,本文首先说明了WIBA在现实决策场景中的灵活性和实用性,使决策者能够有效地处理不确定性和复杂性,其次展示了WIBApp如何简化数据管理,增强分析并促进排名之间的比较。通过推进WIBA的理论基础并提供实际实现,这项工作有助于为决策者提供一个强大的框架来处理多标准问题,提高排名的可靠性并支持明智的决策。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Expert Systems
Expert Systems 工程技术-计算机:理论方法
CiteScore
7.40
自引率
6.10%
发文量
266
审稿时长
24 months
期刊介绍: Expert Systems: The Journal of Knowledge Engineering publishes papers dealing with all aspects of knowledge engineering, including individual methods and techniques in knowledge acquisition and representation, and their application in the construction of systems – including expert systems – based thereon. Detailed scientific evaluation is an essential part of any paper. As well as traditional application areas, such as Software and Requirements Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction, and Artificial Intelligence, we are aiming at the new and growing markets for these technologies, such as Business, Economy, Market Research, and Medical and Health Care. The shift towards this new focus will be marked by a series of special issues covering hot and emergent topics.
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