Yunna Wu

Multi-criteria decision-making on assessment of proposed tidal barrage schemes in terms of environmental impacts

For tidal range power plants to be sustainable, the environmental impacts caused by the implement of various tidal barrage schemes must be assessed before construction. However, several problems exist in the current researches: firstly, evaluation criteria of the tidal barrage schemes environmental impact assessment (EIA) are not adequate; secondly, uncertainty of criteria information fails to be processed properly; thirdly, correlation among criteria is unreasonably measured. Hence the contributions of this paper are as follows: firstly, an evaluation criteria system is established from three dimensions of hydrodynamic, biological and morphological aspects. Secondly, cloud model is applied to describe the uncertainty of criteria information. Thirdly, Choquet integral with respect to λ-fuzzy measure is introduced to measure the correlation among criteria. On the above bases, a multi-criteria decision-making decision framework for tidal barrage scheme EIA is established to select the optimal scheme. Finally, a case study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

A New Stochastic Dominance Degree Based on Almost Stochastic Dominance and Its Application in Decision Making

Traditional stochastic dominance rules are so strict and qualitative conditions that generally a stochastic dominance relation between two alternatives does not exist. To solve the problem, we firstly supplement the definitions of almost stochastic dominance (ASD). Then, we propose a new definition of stochastic dominance degree (SDD) that is based on the idea of ASD. The new definition takes both the objective mean and stakeholders’ subjective preference into account, and can measure both standard and almost stochastic dominance degree. The new definition contains four kinds of SDD corresponding to different stakeholders (rational investors, risk averters, risk seekers, and prospect investors). The operator in the definition can also be changed to fit in with different circumstances. On the basis of the new SDD definition, we present a method to solve stochastic multiple criteria decision-making problem. The numerical experiment shows that the new method could produce a more accurate result according to the utility situations of stakeholders. Moreover, even when it is difficult to elicit the group utility distribution of stakeholders, or when the group utility distribution is ambiguous, the method can still rank alternatives.

An innovative method for offshore wind farm site selection based on the interval number with probability distribution

ABSTRACT There is insufficient research relating to offshore wind farm site selection in China. The current methods for site selection have some defects. First, information loss is caused by two aspects: the implicit assumption that the probability distribution on the interval number is uniform; and ignoring the value of decision makers’ (DMs’) common opinion on the criteria information evaluation. Secondly, the difference in DMs’ utility function has failed to receive attention. An innovative method is proposed in this article to solve these drawbacks. First, a new form of interval number and its weighted operator are proposed to reflect the uncertainty and reduce information loss. Secondly, a new stochastic dominance degree is proposed to quantify the interval number with a probability distribution. Thirdly, a two-stage method integrating the weighted operator with stochastic dominance degree is proposed to evaluate the alternatives. Finally, a case from China proves the effectiveness of this method.