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Under the double pressure of global energy consumption and climate change, nuclear power has become a low-carbon alternative energy source that could transform the energy structure of the globe. In the nuclear power industry, selecting suitable suppliers plays a significant role in improving the overall performance of nuclear power projects. Along with this symmetrical impact, this paper aims to develop a multistage decision-support framework to determine the optimal nuclear power equipment supplier, which is constructed in the context of Z-number information. Concretely, the Analytic Network Process (ANP) and Tomada de Decisão Iterativa Multicritério (TODIM) are extended by Z-numbers symmetrically—namely, Z-ANP and Z-TODIM. Z-ANP is first applied to analyze the symmetrical interdependence of criteria, so as to accurately determine the criterion weights. Further, the ranking of alternatives is obtained by Z-TODIM, which sufficiently considers the risk preference and psychological states of decision-makers. Finally, a practical case of nuclear-grade cable procurement in the Karachi 2-3 international nuclear power project is performed to illustrate the practicality of the proposed method, and its robustness and superiority are proven by comparing it with current representative approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study introduces simplified neutrosophic linguistic numbers (SNLNs) to describe online consumer reviews in an appropriate manner. Considering the defects of studies on SNLNs in handling linguistic information, the cloud model is used to convert linguistic terms in SNLNs to three numerical characteristics. Then, a novel simplified neutrosophic cloud (SNC) concept is presented, and its operations and distance are defined. Next, a series of simplified neutrosophic cloud aggregation operators are investigated, including the simplified neutrosophic clouds Maclaurin symmetric mean (SNCMSM) operator, weighted SNCMSM operator, and generalized weighted SNCMSM operator. Subsequently, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model is constructed based on the proposed aggregation operators. Finally, a hotel selection problem is presented to verify the effectiveness and validity of our developed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]