Interactive multi-criteria group decision-making with probabilistic linguistic information for emergency assistance of COVID-19

This paper develops a new method for interactive multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) with probabilistic linguistic information and applies to the emergency assistance area selection of COVID-19 for Wuhan. First, a new possibility degree for PLTSs is defined and a new possibility degree algorithm is devised to rank a series of probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs). Second, some new operational laws of PLTSs based on the Archimedean copulas and co-copulas are defined. A generalized probabilistic linguistic Choquet (GPLC) operator and a generalized probabilistic linguistic hybrid Choquet (GPLHC) operator are developed and their desirable properties are discussed in details. Third, a tri-objective nonlinear programming model is constructed to determine the weights of DMs. This model is transformed into a linear programming model to solve. The fuzzy measures of criterion subsets are derived objectively by establishing a goal programming model. Fourth, using the probabilistic linguistic Gumbel weighted average (PLGWA) operator, the collective normalized decision matrix is obtained by aggregating all individual normalized decision matrices. The overall evaluation values of alternatives are derived by the probabilistic linguistic Gumbel hybrid Choquet (PLGHC) operator. The ranking order of alternatives is generated. Finally, an emergency assistance example is illustrated to validate the proposed method of this paper.