As the Chinese economy becomes stronger and stronger, there is increasing interest by some countries to adopt the Chinese approach to grow. The outstanding Chinese growth can be partly attributed to the education quality that is obtainable from the universities in China. The need to evaluate the reputation of Chinese universities is essential. In this paper, a hierarchical model for evaluating universities is proposed. Also, the Integral Linear Programming with Grey Possibility (ILP-GP) method is presented, which does not require the assumption of 0.5 for the grey distinguishing coefficient (ζ=0.5) in Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). In this paper, a numerical example for evaluating the reputation of five universities based on the sample data from 1,565 students in Shaanxi Province, China, is presented, and the most reputable university in this research is consistent with rankings in the literature.

Selection of the most appropriate contractor for the installation of solar panels is essential to maximizing the benefit of this renewable, sustainable energy source. Solar energy is one of the 100% renewable energy sources, but implementation may not be very simple and cost-effective. A key phase in the implementation of renewable energy is the evaluation of contractors for the installation of solar panels, which is addressed as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. A new hybrid method is proposed that combines the stepwise weight analysis ratio assessment (SWARA) and full consistent method (FUCOM) weights that are represented as grey numbers used with traditional grey relational analysis (GRA) and evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) methods. The ranking of contractors by both methods is the same, which confirmed the results presented in this research. The use of the grey SWARA-FUCOM weighting method combined with the GRA and EDAS methods increased the decision-makers’ (DMs) confidence in awarding the installation of the solar panel energy system to the top-ranked contractor.

No abstract

As West Africa investments grow, the decision in which country to begin investment is of great importance to investors. The complexity of the criteria involved draws us to use a Multicriteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approach to address this problem. In this paper, we use grey numbers in representing ranges of data and propose Grey Weighted Sum Model (GWSM) for evaluating and ranking of alternatives. Sensitivity analysis is carried out considering wide ranges of uncertainties to verify the changes that can affect the results. The Gambia is ranked the best country in West Africa. The GWSM is highly recommended for long-term investors because GWSM considers the uncertainty of a business environment over a period of years. Finally, GWSM can be used in conjunction with various weighting techniques putting the preferences of the investors into consideration.

This paper focuses on a new model to reach the existence of equilibrium in a pure exchange economy with fuzzy preferences (PXE-FP). The proposed model integrates exchange, consumption and the agent’s fuzzy preference in the consumption set. We set up a new fuzzy binary relation on the consumption set to evaluate the fuzzy preferences. Also, we prove that there exists a continuous fuzzy order-preserving function in the consumption set under certain conditions. The existence of a fuzzy competitive equilibrium for the PXE-FP is confirmed through a new result on the existence of fuzzy Nash equilibrium for fuzzy non-cooperative games. The payoffs of all strategy profiles for any agent are fuzzy numbers in fuzzy non-cooperative games. Finally, we show that the fuzzy competitive equilibrium could be characterized as a solution to an associated quasi-variational inequality, giving rise to an equilibrium solution.

This article addresses the problem of subcontractor selection in an uncertain decision-making environment by proposing a new hybrid method and improving a classical multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) method. First, the proposed hybrid method combines subjective and objective weighting methods to estimate the weights of criteria that are represented as grey numbers. The subjective weighting method is the PA weighting method. The objective weighting method is the rank order centroid with slacks (ROCS) weighting method used to compensate for the limitation of the rank order centroid weighting method. Second, grey relational analysis (GRA) is improved by introducing both positive and negative reference (PNR) alternatives instead of a single reference alternative as in the classical GRA. Subsequently, the proposed hybrid grey-point allocation-ROCS weighting method and the GRA-PNR evaluation method are applied to select the most suitable subcontractor for the supply of heliostats for photothermal power station construction. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to verify the robustness of the results. Finally, the technique for order preferences by similarity to an ideal solution with grey values, simple additive weighting with grey relations, and additive ratio assessment with grey criteria scores is applied to validate the participation of the selected subcontractor in the project.Index Terms-Grey relational analysis (GRA), grey system theory (GST), multicriteria decision-making (MCDM), photothermal power station, rank order centroid (ROC), subcontractor selection. I. INTRODUCTIONT HE seventh sustainable development goal is to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all [1]. Although meeting the demand for energy is not an easy requirement, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is now Manuscript

Given the current trade friction between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China, the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) may slow down in some areas in both countries, and there is a need for organizations to understand more of the factors that affect the adaptability of inter-organization information systems (AIOISs) in order to support the 17th Sustainable Development Goal. This research proposes a new model for the adaptability of IOISs based on organizational identity. The hypotheses for this research were deduced from the literature in order to identify and extract the factors for adaptability and partnership. Subsequently, a conceptual model has been developed and empirically tested using the data from 259 samples. The exploratory and confirmatory analysis showed that organizational learning mechanisms (OLM) and knowledge sharing (KS) have a significant positive effect on the identity of multi-organization alliances (IMOAs), and on the adaptability of IOISs, as well as indirectly affecting the adaptability of IOISs through the mediating role of the identity of the multi-organization alliance. In addition, organizational collaboration (OC), commitment, and trust have a significant positive effect on the identity of a multi-organization alliance, whereas there is no direct relationship between organizational collaboration, commitment, trust, and the adaptability of the IOIS. Lastly, the mediating roles of IMOA on AIOIS are supported.

Evaluating the reputation of higher institutions is important as a benchmark for the continuous development of universities. In multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), the estimation of the criteria weight is significant in improving the accuracy of the evaluation results. However, criteria weights assigned by decision makers (DMs) can be inaccurate when not measured from the orientations from which the DMs pursue their decision goals. This paper combines the grey system theory (GST) and regulatory focus theory (RFT) in estimating the weights of criteria by measuring the promotional and prevention focus orientations of the DMs and representing it as grey numbers. In this paper, we showed not all weight measurements from the DMs are symmetrical. In essence, to improve the accuracy of the MCDM weights, the grey regulatory focus theory (GRFT) weighting method is proposed to estimate the weights of an MCDM problem as well as aggregating the weights of the group DMs, thereby overcoming the limitation of a single orientation measurement. Furthermore, the GRFT weighting method is applied in ranking four universities in Xi’an city of China from a sample data from 1,200 students. The most reputable university is consistent with the other ranking indexes in the literature.