Double parameters TOPSIS for multi-attribute linguistic group decision making based on the intuitionistic Z-linguistic variables

Multi-attribute linguistic group decision making (MALGDM) is one of the most widespread and important human activities. Therefore, it is extremely significant to study the efficient methods to address linguistic information. Extended by classical fuzzy number, Z-number can describe both restraints and reliability, which has more capacity to represent human knowledge. In this paper, we will propose the intuitionistic Z-linguistic set (IZLS) combined the intuitionistic uncertain linguistic set (IULS) with Z-number. We further introduce the operational rules, new score and accuracy functions of it. Then, the Minkowski distance between two intuitionistic Z-linguistic variables is proposed with the attribute's weight obtained by the priority relationship among different categories. Finally, we propose an extended TOPSIS method with double parameters which consider both preference of alternatives and optimism of decision makers (DMs). Case study on investment strategy and medical diagnosis are presented to show the applicability of the proposed approach and some comparisons are conducted to illustrate its superiorities. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.