Probabilistic linguistic vector-term set and its application in group decision making with multi-granular linguistic information

With the rapid information explosion and sharing, recommender systems (RS) play an auxiliary role in assisting the Internet users to make decision especially in the e-service platform. Normally, the information in this process is related to opinions and preferences, which are usually expressed through a qualitative way such as linguistic evaluation terms (LETs). However, the LETs may come from different sources such as experts, users, etc., which makes the linguistic evaluation scales (LESs) used in this process probably be different due to their different backgrounds and levels of knowledge. The diversity and flexibility of these LESs determine the quality of information, and further affect the effectiveness of a RS. In this paper, we focus on improving the accuracy of the multi-granular linguistic recommender system by supporting customers to find out the most eligible items according their own preferences. We first propose the probabilistic linguistic vector-term sets (PLVTSs) to promote the application of multi-granular linguistic information. Based on the PLVTSs, we then develop a novel algorithm to tackle multi-attribute group decision making (MAGDM) problems with multiple LESs. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the PLVTSs is validated by an illustration of personalized hospital selection-recommender problem. Finally, we point out some possible research directions regrading to the PLVTSs. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.