Research Article A Value and Ambiguity-Based Ranking Method of Trapezoidal Intuitionistic Fuzzy Numbers and Application to Decision Making

Copyright © 2014 Xiang-tian Zeng et al.This is an open access article distributed under theCreativeCommonsAttributionLicense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The aim of this paper is to develop amethod for ranking trapezoidal intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (TrIFNs) in the process of decision making in the intuitionistic fuzzy environment. Firstly, the concept of TrIFNs is introduced. Arithmetic operations and cut sets over TrIFNs are investigated. Then, the values and ambiguities of the membership degree and the nonmembership degree for TrIFNs are defined as well as the value-index and ambiguity-index. Finally, a value and ambiguity-based ranking method is developed and applied to solve multiattribute decision making problems in which the ratings of alternatives on attributes are expressed using TrIFNs. A numerical example is examined to demonstrate the implementation process and applicability of the method proposed in this paper. Furthermore, comparison analysis of the proposed method is conducted to show its advantages over other similar methods. 1