Search results for "Fuzzy Sets Theory"

Strategic analysis of transit service quality using fuzzy AHP methodology

2013

Customer satisfaction analyses are deeply based on customers' judgments and as consequence, they can be characterized by a certain degree of uncertainty generally ascribed to coexistence of three relevant aspects: vagueness, imprecision and subjectivity. In the present paper, a methodology able to handle such uncertainty, based on the ServQual discrepancy paradigm and that uses in combined manner the AHP method and the Fuzzy Sets Theory is proposed in order to overcome limitations of the traditional service evaluation approaches. Subsequently, by considering the Italian public transit service sector, a service quality analysis is conducted and the overall transit service quality structure i…

Benchmarking of airports service quality by a new fuzzy MCDM approach

2015

Recent approaches to the service quality evaluation problem are focused on the employment of multi-criteria decisionmaking (MCDM) procedures, since processes related to service quality evaluation presentmeaningful communality elements to MCDM ones. Based on such assumption, in the present paper a new fuzzy MCDMapproach is developed tocomparatively evaluate passenger service quality of the international airports inSicily (Italy). In particular, by incorporating the respondents confidence level and degree of optimism on fuzzy assessments, quality scores of main airport service criteria are estimated, whereas ELECTRE multi criteria decision support methodis proposed to point out theservices qu…

A very brief history of soft computing: Fuzzy Sets, artificial Neural Networks and Evolutionary Computation

2013

This paper gives a brief presentation of history of Soft Computing considered as a mix of three scientific disciplines that arose in the mid of the 20th century: Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Neural Networks, and Evolutionary Computation. The paper shows the genesis and the historical development of the three disciplines and also their meeting in a coalition in the 1990s.

Kazem Sadegh-Zadeh's lifework on philosophy of medicine

2013

Fuzziness: Came for the View, Stayed for the Same

2013

The first time I came across Fuzzy Sets, my first point of contact with Soft Computing, I was a young and inexperienced student of Computer Science in my hometown University. I had just completed the first semester, and as an aside of an image processing curriculum a loud-spoken, very kinetic lecturer spent a couple of hours introducing us to the mysteries of the idea of degree and Fuzzy arithmetic. The whole thing had a sort of secret sect bent, something like the secret tools that the powers to be don’t want you to know and use – a probably unwitting attitude I have seen many times in the community and that has harmed more than helped, but that on an unexperienced and young student as mys…

A knowledge-based exploratory framework to study quality of Italian mobile telecommunication services

2017

A novel two-step knowledge-based exploratory framework is proposed in this paper for studying quality of Italian Mobile Telecommunication Services (MTSs). Particularly, the Delphi technique is initially considered to finalize an overall quality structure of MTSs features, indicators and drivers, herein described on the basis of a comprehensive review of the fundamental references for the field, and also to select the key elements with reference to the Italian context. At the second step, selected key elements are prioritized via the Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) method according to viewpoints of the fundamental stakeholders for the sector. Furthermore, possible uncertainty and ambigui…

A fuzzy ServQual based method for reliable measurements of education quality in Italian higher education area

2013

In recent years, the attention that the European Community has focused on the education sector has produced a new university commitment addressed to quality aspects for all education related services. In fact, a quality oriented service requires excellence in the design and planning of service activities, as well as during its delivering and also for the adopted service performance evaluation method. However, considering that service performance evaluations are deeply based on stakeholders' judgments, they can be characterized by possible uncertainties related to incompleteness for partial ignorance, imprecision for subjectivity and even vagueness. Therefore, under these conditions, unrelia…

A fuzzy framework to evaluate service quality in the healthcare industry: An empirical case of public hospital service evaluation in Sicily

2016

A novel fuzzy framework is considered to analyze healthcare service quality.The fundamental quality structure of healthcare service delivered in Sicily is described.The public healthcare in Sicily (Italy) is strategically analyzed.Strategic stakeholders' oriented implications for healthcare improvements are given. A novel fuzzy evaluation framework is applied in this study to evaluate service quality in the public healthcare sector. In particular, the proposed framework is based on the ServQual disconfirmation paradigm and incorporates the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to elicit reliable estimations of service quality expectations. Moreover, degrees of uncertainty, subjectivity an…

Fuzzy ServPerf model combined with ELECTRE III to comparatively evaluate service quality of international airports in Sicily

2015

In this paper a new approach was proposed so as to comparatively evaluate the quality of service alternatives. In particular, a fuzzy extension of the ServPerf service conceptual model was considered to estimate quality scores of fundamental service criteria, whereas the non-compensative multi-criteria decision-making ELECTRE III method was employed to point out the quality ranking of service alternatives on the basis of which the comparative service quality analysis was performed. In order to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an empirical study concerning service quality evaluation of the three international airports in Sicily (Italy) was conducted with detailed proposals fo…

A Combined Fuzzy-SEM Evaluation Approach to Identify the Key Drivers of the Academic Library Service Quality in the Digital Technology Era: An Empiri…

2017

A conceptual model of the Academic Library (AL) service quality is hypothesized in the present article, and then validated and analyzed by a novel evaluation approach. Specifically, the conceptual model integrates the fundamental attributes of the canonical AL service together with those more relevant of the new and widely considered AL Electronic Service (e-services). As concerns the evaluation approach, it incorporates the Fuzzy Sets Theory (FST) so as to deal with the students’ uncertainty over their own judgments on the AL service quality and a Structural Equation Model (SEM) to validate the conceptual model and to determine the key drivers of the AL service quality. The effectiveness o…