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The recent boom of decision-making under uncertain information has attracted many researchers to the field of integrating various types of sets with decision-making methods. In this paper, a combined decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) with single-valued neutrosophic sets is proposed to solve the decision problem. This new model combines the advantages of multiplicative inverse of decision matrix in DEMATEL and neutrosophic numbers in linguistic variables, which can find the interrelationship among factors of decision problem. Differently from the typical multiplicative inverse of DEMATEL, which directly used inverse of matrix using real numbers, this method introduces the concept of inverse of matrix using the proposed left–right neutrosophic numbers. This step will enhance the validity of multiplicative inverse of decision matrix in the DEMATEL with neutrosophic numbers. The proposed neutrosophic DEMATEL is also be compared with the DEMATEL and fuzzy DEMATEL. This paper includes a case study that demonstrates the applicability of the neutrosophic DEMATEL in establishing the relationship among influential factors of coastal erosion. Extensive empirical studies using 12 factors of coastal erosion were presented to study the benefits of the proposed method. The result unveils the cause-and-effect relationships among the factors, where seven factors are identified as cause factors and five factors are grouped as effect factors. It is discovered that the factor 'imbalance sediment supply' gives a significant influence to coastal erosion. It is also shown that the degree of importance of the factors is almost consistent with the other two methods despite differences in type of numbers used in defining linguistic variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entropy measure is an important tool in measuring uncertain information and plays a vital role in solving Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). At present, various entropy measures in literature are developed to measure the degree of fuzziness. However, they could not be used to deal with interval neutrosophic vague set (INVS) environment. In this study, two kinds of entropy measures are proposed as the extension of the entropy measure of single valued neutrosophic set (SVNS). First, we construct the axiomatic definition of INVS and propose a new formula for the entropy measure of INVS. Based on this measure, we develop two multi criteria decision making methods. Subsequently, an illustrative example of investment problems under INVS is given to demonstrate the proposed entropy measures. Finally, a comparative analysis is presented to illustrate the rationality and effectiveness of the proposed entropy measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]