An Integrated Decision-Making Method Based on Neutrosophic Numbers for Investigating Factors of Coastal Erosion

Abstract

The recent boom of various integrated decision-making methods has attracted many researchers to the field. The recent integrated Analytic Network Process and Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (ANP–DEMATEL) methods were developed based on crisp numbers and fuzzy numbers. However, these numbers are incapable of dealing with the indeterminant and inconsistent information that exists in real-life problems. This paper proposes improvements to the integrated ANP–DEMATEL method by bringing together the neutrosophic numbers, the ANP method, and the DEMATEL method, which are later abbreviated to NS-DANP. The proposed NS-DANP method can handle the indeterminacy elements in the decision-making environment, as the single-valued neutrosophic numbers are used in the decision analysis. This proposed NS-DANP modification method includes linguistic variables representing the single-valued neutrosophic numbers (SVNNs), and also introduces the single-valued neutrosophic weighted averaging (SVNWA) aggregation operator to aggregate the decision makers’ judgments instead of the typical averaging method. The applicability of the proposed method is illustrated by a case study of the coastal erosion problem along the Peninsular Malaysia coastline, where 12 factors were considered. Three experts of coastal erosion from different organizations were invited to elicit their linguistic judgments on the cause–effect of the coastal erosion. The seven-step decision approach was developed to acquire the weightage of each coastal erosion factor. The outcome of this study reveals that coastal development is the riskiest factor toward coastal erosion. The weight of factors and the cause–effect diagram could be very helpful for government and stakeholders to project a better mitigation plan for the coastal erosion problem. Comparative analysis is also provided to check the feasibility of the proposed method.

Single-Valued Neutrosophic DEMATEL for Segregating Types of Criteria: A Case of Subcontractors’ Selection

“…is step would avoid the invalidity of finding multiplicative inverse of matrix in DEMATEL. Detailed discussion of validity of multiplicative inverse matrix can be retrieved from Awang et al [31]. Different from most of the DEMATEL-based methods where the last computational step is drawing a causal-effect diagram, this proposed method extends with another step to establish four types of criteria.…”

Exploring the Key Factors for Preventing Public Health Crises Under Incomplete Information

“…The neutrosophic set is an extension of these powerful techniques, which considers a truth-membership, an indeterminacy-membership and a falsity-membership at the same time [ 25 , 32 , 33 ]. In addition to effectively resolving the ambiguity of natural semantic expression, it can also deal with incomplete, uncertain and inconsistent information.…”

“…The problem is very complicated and contains many unknowns and uncertainties. Therefore, for the analysis, we combine the neutrosophic set with the DEMATEL method to improve the efficiency of the evaluation process and reduce the interference of inconsistent information [ 32 ]. Few studies on public health emergencies have used the neutrosophic DEMATEL method to assess the causality of preventive elements.…”

A Hybrid MCDM Model to Select Optimal Hosts of Variety Shows in the Social Media Era

“…It has been successfully utilized in many fields [12]. Awang et al [13] also pointed out that DEMATEL is the best way to clarify the interrelationships of criteria. Third, ANP does not own strict hierarchical relationships.…”