Hesitant Fuzzy Thermodynamic Method for Emergency Decision Making Based on Prospect Theory

Area of Science:

• Decision Sciences
• Operations Research
• Risk Management

Background:

• Emergency situations are characterized by time sensitivity and incomplete information, complicating decision-making.
• Existing methods may not fully capture expert uncertainty or psychological factors in high-stakes scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a comprehensive emergency decision-making method.
• To incorporate expert hesitancy and psychological behaviors into the decision process.
• To enhance the evaluation of decision-making quality and quantity.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing hesitant fuzzy elements to model uncertainty and expert hesitancy.
• Integrating negative exponential function from prospect theory to represent expert psychological behavior.
• Transforming hesitant fuzzy decision matrices into hesitant fuzzy prospect decision matrices (HFPDM).
• Applying thermodynamic concepts (energy and entropy) to define decision-making parameters.

Main Results:

• A novel procedure for emergency decision making was developed and validated through experiments.
• The method effectively integrates expert psychology and uncertainty.
• A case study on a real-world industrial accident demonstrated the method's effectiveness and practicality.

Conclusions:

• The proposed method provides a robust framework for emergency decision making.
• It accurately reflects the complexities of emergency situations and expert cognition.
• The approach is effective and practical for real-world emergency management scenarios.