Paper Info
Title
A fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making framework for evaluating health-care waste disposal alternatives
Abstract
Nowadays, as in all other organizations, the amount of waste generated in the health-care institutions is rising due to their extent of service. Medical waste management is a common problem of developing countries including Turkey, which are becoming increasingly conscious that health-care wastes require special treatment. Accordingly, one of the most important problems encountered in Istanbul, the most crowded metropolis of Turkey, is the disposal of health-care waste (HCW) from health-care institutions. Evaluating HCW disposal alternatives, which considers the need to trade-off multiple conflicting criteria with the involvement of a group of experts, is a highly important multi-criteria group decision making problem. The inherent imprecision and vagueness in criteria values concerning HCW disposal alternatives justify the use of fuzzy set theory. This paper presents a fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making framework based on the principles of fuzzy measure and fuzzy integral for evaluating HCW treatment alternatives for Istanbul. In group decision making problems, aggregation of expert opinions is essential for properly conducting the evaluation process. In this study, the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator is used to aggregate decision makers' opinions. Economic, technical, environmental and social criteria and their related sub-criteria are employed to assess HCW treatment alternatives, namely ''incineration'', ''steam sterilization'', ''microwave'', and ''landfill''. A comparative analysis is presented using another classical operator to aggregate decision makers' preferences.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1016/j.eswa.2011.03.019
Expert Syst. Appl.
Keywords
Field
DocType
group decision making,health-care institution,health-care waste,aggregate decision maker,group decision,health-care waste management,hcw treatment alternative,hcw disposal alternative,health-care waste disposal alternative,important multi-criteria group decision,fuzzy set theory,fuzzy multi-criteria group decision,fuzzy measure,owa,fuzzy integral,multi-criteria decision making,waste management,decision maker,sterilization,comparative analysis,health care,developing country
Health care,Vagueness,Computer science,Fuzzy logic,Developing country,Fuzzy set,Risk analysis (engineering),Artificial intelligence,Machine learning,Management science,Group decision-making
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
38
9
Expert Systems With Applications
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
15
0.64
9
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Mehtap Dursun11215.93
E. Ertugrul Karsak230016.84
Melis Almula Karadayi3171.01