Sifeng Liu

Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics · Institute for Grey Systems Studies

Purpose—The purpose of this study is to advance a novel evaluation index system and evaluation approach for ability of older adults in China. Design/methodology/approach—We constructed a comprehensive older adult ability evaluation index system with 4 primary indicators and 17 secondary indicators. Grey clustering analysis and entropy weight method...

It is important to detect the internal operating regularity in system developing with poor information. To identify the real relationship among multi factors, we propose a grey relational analysis (GRA) method inspired by the characteristics of sequences variation. The proposed model considers the changes of fluctuating sequences like cross-sequenc...

Different preferences of the indicators would be showed in some situations. However, the preferences are not considered into the traditional possibility functions, which are always assumed to be the linear functions. It might not be proper to analyze all kinds of indicators with the traditional possibility functions. Therefore, the universal possib...

Grey relation analysis model is used to analyze the degree to which a factor affects the system. Negative grey relation model measures the relationship between reverse sequences. Considering the proximity of local changes and the trend of sequence development, the paper defines the relative change within the time domain and oscillation change betwe...

Purpose: China's population aging is gradually deepening and needs to be actively addressed. The purpose of this paper is to construct a novel model for analyzing the population aging. Design/methodology/approach: To analyze the aging status of a region, this study has considered three major indicators: total population, aged population and the pro...

System resilience characterizes the capability of maintaining the required functionality under disruptions, which is of great significance in evaluating the productivity and safety of complex engineered systems. Although most studies conduct resilience assessment from qualitative and quantitative perspectives, system functionality that reflects fun...

In the era of Big Data, decision-making has become more complex and more uncertain. Faced with this situation, fuzzy linguistic approach may be an information representation model that is closer to natural language and people’s cognition habits than exact numerical models. Although Big Data has a large amount of data, the useful information is inco...

This article investigates the optimal ordering policies of spare parts for preventive replacement of a single component deteriorating system in this article. The operational system suffers from a deterioration process and is also subject to random shocks during its service, where discrete shocks are categorized into fatal ones and nonfatal ones. To...

This article mainly investigates a proactive replacement policy for a stochastically deteriorating system concurrently subject to two types of shocks. First, the closed-form representation of system reliability function suffering from both a degradation process and environmental shocks is derived based on the degradation-threshold-failure (DTS) mod...

Population aging is a major social problem that China is facing. Scientific prediction and correct analysis of population aging are important for resource allocation, policy formulation, and service provision. To this end, this paper proposes a population prediction framework based on grey models to predict and analyze regional differences in China...

Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is one of the most influential reliability analysis techniques and has been widely used in a variety of fields. Due to differences in knowledge and experiences, the subjective assessment information provided by experts may be multigranular unbalanced linguistic terms. Furthermore, existing FMEA methods built...

The effectiveness evaluation of GEO satellite communication constellation not only characterizes the communication capability of the constellation but also provides a basis for optimizing the constellation structure. Whether due to information poverty or the complexity of the system, the impact of uncertain information on the effectiveness evaluati...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to summarize the advances in grey system theory research and various application achievements in science and engineering. At the same time, it commemorates the 40th anniversary of the birth of grey system theory and the 10th anniversary of Grey Systems–Theory and Application. Design/methodology/approach Firstly...

Purpose The year 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the grey system theory (GST), which has been widely applied in the engineering field. This paper aims to systematically identify the achievements, hotspots, knowledge structure and emerging trends in this field. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometrics analysis was conduct...

As a universal phenomenon, conflicts exist widely in various fields such as politics, economic life, military, and culture. Group decision-making techniques that effectively identify and resolve conflict during the decision-making process will result in stronger group consensus, while existing studies rarely discuss the multi-criteria large-scale g...

For plenty of existing maintenance policies in literature, it is always assumed that the spare unit for replacement is available at any time if needed, while this perquisite may be unrealistic or even impossible. In this paper, we investigate an ordering and replacement modeling framework for a deteriorating repairable system with two failure types...

The ambient air quality is a complex dynamical system that is shocked by a number of subsystems, such as government policies, industry regulation adjustment and internationalization. To identify the drivers for ambient air quality, a grey spatial extension relational analysis model is proposed. Firstly, a spatial extension method for one-dimensiona...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of quality prediction in the equipment production process and provide a method to deal with abnormal data and solve the problem of data fluctuation. Design/methodology/approach The analytic hierarchy process-process failure mode and effect analysis (AHP-PFMEA) structure tree is established...

People will always consciously or unconsciously compare their cost or benefits of actions with those of others and make judgments about fairness. Aiming at consensus reaching process where decision makers have fairness concern behaviors, this paper proposes a limited cost consensus model with fairness concern. To do this, we define the fairness uti...

The purpose of this current research is to schedule generalized periodic replacement policies for a single unit system executing random working jobs. The system is subject to two types of failures when it has failed, including a minor failure (Type I failure), which can be thoroughly removed by the minimal repair and a catastrophic failure (Type II...

Multistate networks composed of many independent components are susceptible to natural disasters and intentional attacks. Resilience is described as the capability of keeping and enhancing the required functionality under disruptions, which is of great importance to design and analyze multistate networks. While the resilience engineering community...

Service networks consisting of components and links are regarded as significant infrastructures to provide all kinds of services for users. They are supposed to select the best route for service requests in case of time-varying demand and different service patterns. In addition, it is necessary to choose appropriate routing metrics so as to satisfy...

LEO satellite communication network has a large number of satellites distributed in low orbits, which leads to multiple coverage of many areas on the ground. It is hard work to describe and evaluate the reliability of LEO satellite communication network. To solve this problem, the reliability of all-user terminals in LEO satellite communication net...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to advance a novel grey variable dual precision rough set model for grey concept. Design/methodology/approach – To obtain the approximation of a grey object, the authors first define the concepts of grey rough membership degree and grey degree of approximation on the basic thinking logic of variable precision...

As a universal phenomenon, conflicts exist widely in various walks of life, such as politics, economic lives, military operations, and cultural exchanges. In order to sove more complex and uncertain-conflict problems than what is possible within the confinement of current knowledge, this paper proposes a three-way conflict analysis model and confli...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a new approach for equipment states prediction and provide a method for early warning of possible trouble states. Design/methodology/approach A new two-stage multi-level equipment state classification system was proposed to forecast equipment operation status. The first stage involves predicting the...

The decision rules based on rough set theory under the condition of small sample are greatly affected by the chance error of the initial data, and individual data samples are difficult to reflect the true knowledge relationship. To solve the problem of unknown reliability of rough set decision rules under the condition of small sample, concepts suc...

Group consensus decision-making refers to achieving a consensus result accepted by more decision makers with a certain stability. The consensus stability is mainly affected by game conflicts among decision makers. Therefore, considering super conflict analysis as the ideological basis and the minimum cost consensus model as the method basis, this p...

Three-way decision provides a new research perspective for solving multi-criteria decision-making problems. Under grey environment and grey decision idea, this paper proposes a novel grey multi-criteria three-way decisions model based on grey incidence analysis and TOPSIS. The model realizes the effective fusion of three-way decision and grey syste...

Satellite networks with the advantage of fast transmission and global coverage are treated as significant infrastructures. They can provide a variety of services, especially those concerned real-time requirements, such as voice communication in which information is bound to be delivered within the specified time. In order to facilitate the smooth i...

Satellite networks are regarded as significant communication infrastructures to provide high-quality services. With global coverage and flexible deployment, they are able to transfer data swiftly and reliably over long distances. Smooth communication in case of attacks and damage has been paid more attention in recent years. However, little researc...

The construction of more nursing homes has become one of the most needed pension services in China, and the issue of site selection is one of the most important steps in their construction. The problem of site selection for nursing homes is a complex system engineering problem that involves not only economic interests but also social interests. Due...

Agent technique is applied to deal with varying demands and satellites are specifically modelled as agents with autonomy and responsiveness. While most studies introduce efficient agent-based satellite networks, the efficiency of satellite operation that reflects network performance needs to be quantified. Moreover, it is still difficult to configu...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the spectral characteristics of moving average operator and to propose a novel time-frequency hybrid sequence operator. Design/methodology/approach Firstly, the complex data is converted into frequency domain data by Fourier transform. An appropriate frequency domain operator is constructed to elimin...

The study introduces the concept of risk-averse optimal position of the delivery window (RA-OPDW) into a cost-based delivery performance model. The penalty costs for early and late deliveries have attracted much attention in the background of supply delivery performance. However, minimizing the expected penalty has a critical disadvantage that it i...

For a complex system consisting of multiple components, it is often unrealistic that one type of environmental shocks affects all the components at the same time. Correspondingly, random shocks are categorized into several distinct sets according to their functions, attributes or sizes. This study develops generalized reliability models for multi-c...

This paper is aimed at scheduling optimal preventive replacement policies for a single unit system which is subject to stochastic deterioration and concurrently suffers from external shocks. Different from existing literature, two types of shocks are taken into account according to the effectiveness upon arrival of a random shock, in which Type Ⅰ s...

Purpose In the current study, two grey prediction models, Even GM (1, 1) and Non-homogeneous discrete grey model (NDGM), and ARIMA models are deployed to forecast cocoa bean production of the six major cocoa-producing countries. Furthermore, relying on Relative Growth Rate (RGR) and Doubling Time (D t ), production growth is analyzed. Design/metho...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the grey decision model and distance measuring method of general grey number. Design/methodology/approach First, intuitionistic grey number (IGN) set and an IGN are defined by grey number probability function. Second, each interval grey number in general grey number is represented by an IGN and convert...

Purpose – Tourism industry is a highly complex system surrounded by many uncertainties because of its innumerable connections with other supporting systems. Considering tourism, a grey system, the current study proposes optimistic–pessimistic method (OPM). This technique can aid in improving forecast accuracy of four tourism-related indicators, inb...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to survey and express the advantages and disadvantages of the existing approaches for solving grey linear programming in decision-making problems. Design/methodology/approach After presenting the concepts of grey systems and grey numbers, this paper surveys existing approaches for solving grey linear programmin...

Telehealth, as an indispensable means of technical support in the Healthy China Strategy, currently has less than 20 percent adoption rate in China despite a great deal of government policies and investments. In the current study, to analyse the influencing factors behind doctors’ and patients’ adoption of telehealth, an asymmetric dynamic evolutio...

A single component nonrepairable system suffering from both an internal stochastic degradation process and external random shocks is investigated in this paper. More specifically, the Wiener process with a positive drift coefficient is introduced to describe the gradual deterioration and the arrival number of external shocks is counted with a nonho...

The Distinguishing Coefficient (ξ) is an important parameter of Grey Relational Analysis (GRA), a flagship multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model of Grey System Theory, an intelligent and multifaceted field developed by Chinese scientists in 1980s. However, the scholars widely assume ξ = 0.5. The current study questions this practice. Also, so...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the mechanism and filter efficacy of accumulation generation operator (AGO)/inverse accumulation generation operator (IAGO) in the frequency domain. Design/methodology/approach The AGO/IAGO in time domain will be transferred to the frequency domain by the Fourier transform. Based on the consistency o...

This paper explores how the product’s intrinsic capacity to resist the exposed failure processes ages with operation. Ageing effects on continuous degradation and random shock are specified respectively.The degradation process is modeled by a Gamma process with a monotonically increasing shape function of which increase rate is determined by the ag...

The study introduces a novel, convenient and dimensionless model of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), hereby referred to as Grey Absolute Decision Analysis (GADA) method. The foundation of the GADA method rests upon the Absolute Grey Relational Analysis (Absolute GRA) model and the system that the method follows to produce GADA Indexes and GAD...

In the LEO satellite communication network, delay is not fixed but varying in a regular manner. Moreover, traditional routing planning algorithms lose sight of delay variation and need intensive computation. These have led to incomprehensive performance assessment of the satellite network and large resource occupancy. Effective routing scheme with...

This paper explores how the ageing process affects the two dependent and competing failure processes in the context of multi-state systems with multiple components. Ageing process is assumed to result in the decline of the product's intrinsic capacity to resist the exposed stresses. The state residence time is explicitly modeled with the considerat...

Materials with intrinsic self-healing phenomenon possess the ability to heal in response to external random shocks. Introducing a recovery factor to quantitatively measure the damage self-recovery efficiency, this paper designs a self-healing mechanism corresponding to both damage load and shock arrival numbers for a parallel redundant system consi...

To analyze the dependent failures in the early stage of system development, this paper considers the potential propagated failures in the reliability allocation process. Factors which can be used to not only measure the component importance but also to reflect the influence brought by propagated failures are proposed. Specifically, cooperative game...

Utilizing a system of holistic thinking, this chapter, which is mainly based on (Forrest et al. 2018), identifies the primary factors that contribute to the innovativeness of a manufacturing firm and distinguishes the secondary factors which follow the primary ones. These primary factors are discerned out of the 20 plus internal factors that are re...

To make this book self-contained, this chapter introduces the basics of systems science necessary for the reader to understand all the conclusions developed in the rest of the book. This chapter is organized as follows: Section 2.1 introduces the reader to the concept of systems and its related history. Section 2.2 studies the basics of the systemi...

This chapter, which is mainly based on (Forrest et al. 2017b), studies the dynamics of a coordinate monopoly with m incumbent risk-neutral firms regarding how these firms compete by adjusting prices and when new competition(s) will enter the market with expectations of making more profits than any of the incumbents. Major findings include (1) how r...

This chapter, which is based on (Forrest et al. 2017), investigates market entry of small firms and market characteristics that motivate such firms to penetrate markets. By emphasizing firm scales, this chapter provides a dynamic picture of entrant-incumbent relations and conditions on how, when, and where small entrants will penetrate markets. Con...

Based on the exponentially growing literature in recent years on international trade and firm performance, this chapter presents a general theory for this area based on systemic logic and game theory. Based on two theorems on the dynamics of the domestic market established in the previous chapters, we pay attention to results on exports to either l...

Being able to obtain a self-sustained momentum of economic growth has been the dream of many developing countries in the past 100 plus years. However, the mainstream economics has not been able to figure out preciously what a nation needs to do to detonate its desired economic takeoff. Based on the recent research development in the area of develop...

This chapter presents game theoretical models useful for studying the interactive, competitive plays and relevant decision-making regarding the dumping and antidumping actions between an importing nation and an exporting nation. The latter considers potentially dumping its product in the domestic market of the former, while the former attempts to p...

This chapter, based on Forrest and Tallapally’s work (2018), presents a main result on how for any company its base of loyal customers diminishes with increase in the number of competing firms. On top of this result, the rest of the chapter provides deductive explanations for:

This chapter, mainly based on Forrest and Nightingale (2017), establishes a specific set of procedural steps for any firm to transit smoothly and successfully into the era of fast strategic changes while the firm’s once sustainable competitive advantages have become transient. To accomplish this goal, this chapter bases its reasoning on the establi...

This chapter describes the challenge this book will address that faces decision-making managers and entrepreneurs and explains why there is an urgent need to resolve related issues in order to meet the challenge. After this challenge is clearly presented, this chapter turns its attention to illustrate why systems science and systems methodologies a...

The aim of this chapter, which is mainly based on Forrest et al. (2018), is a comprehensive analysis of the 16 strategy-related factors, which have been empirically classified in the literature, to identify the ones that symbolize the main determinants of a firm’s innovativeness versus the secondary ones. The chapter constructs a general systemic t...

This book develops a general theory of managerial decision making on the basis of a few elementary postulates. It employs logic as the method of reasoning, systems science in general and the systemic YoYo Model in particular, as the intuitive playground. By doing so, the authors take individually background-based guesswork out of processes of decis...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose new importance measures for degrading components based on Shapley value, which can provide answers about how important players are to the whole cooperative game and what payoff each player can reasonably expect. Design/methodology/approach The proposed importance measure characterizes how a specific...

In this article, common cause failure, which has contributed more and more failures of complex systems, is integrated to the reliability allocation process. Factors that are used to weight the components are proposed as failure severity, improvement effort, coupling strength, and fragility. Failure severity in the context of common cause failure (C...

Purpose The rise in malaria deaths discloses a decline of global malaria eradication that shows that control measures and fund distribution have missed its right of way. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study and evaluate the impact and control of malaria on the independent states of the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) region over the time peri...

Purpose Ranking and comparing grey numbers represent a very important decision-making procedure in any given grey environment. The purpose of this paper is to study the existing approaches of ordering interval grey numbers in the context of decision making by surveying existing definitions. Design/methodology/approach Different methods developed f...

The current study introduces a new technique for the analysis of uncertain systems and uncertain processes in geothermics/earth sciences. The method is the second synthetic grey relational analysis (SSGRA) model, which incorporated the advantages of both Deng's GRA model and the bidirectional absolute GRA model. The SSGRA model has been earlier suc...

The current study extends the existing Absolute Grey Relational Analysis (Absolute GRA) model, also called Absolute Degree Grey Incidence Analysis (ADGIA) model. By working on the limitations of the existing Absolute GRA model, the proposed model, named Bidirectional Absolute GRA (BAGRA) model, is better equipped to handle uncertain systems being r...

In the original publication of the article, the following minor errors had occurred. The corrected text has been provided in Correction. Original article can be read at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-017-2586-5

Linear programming is being widely applied in various fields e.g., management sciences, operations research, economics and engineering. In real-world settings, the input data of linear programming models entail many uncertainties. Overlooking these uncertainties may lead to erroneous decision making. In the problems surrounding uncertainty and inco...

For the repairable multi-state component, reliability indexes are analyzed based on a homogenous Continuous Time Markov Chain (CTMC). If the component can work well when its repair time is sufficiently short, a threshold value for maintenance is introduced. When the fault interval is less than threshold time, the fault effect is considered neglecte...

Universal generating function (UGF) technology is the basic approach to reliability evaluation of multi-state systems. For products with high reliability and long lifetime in practical engineering, their system structure is usually uncertain and the external working condition is extremely complex. Thus, accurate failure or degradation data of compo...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance a new grey risky multi-attribute decision-making (RMADM) method from the perspective of regret aversion, which is based on the general grey numbers (GGNs) taking the form of kernel and degree of greyness. Design/methodology/approach First, the normalised grey decision-making matrix is obtained on t...

PURPOSE: The study aims to evaluate the comprehensive relationship between patient satisfaction and five dimensions of health care service quality in Pakistani public/private health care sectors, using a novel grey relational analysis (GRA) models and the Hurwicz criteria of decision making under uncertainty. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY: Data were collecte...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the modelling mechanisms of several grey incidence analysis models with great influence, including Deng’s grey incidence model, absolute degree of grey incidence model, slope degree of incidence model, similitude degree of incidence model and closeness degree of incidence model; then analyse the proble...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between outpatient satisfaction and the five constructs of healthcare projects’ service quality in Pakistan using Deng’s grey incidence analysis (GIA) model, absolute degree GIA model (ADGIA), a novel second synthetic degree GIA (SSDGIA) model and two approaches of decision-making un...

The essence of multi-state system performance degradation is a process of deteriorating state transition. On the basis of hidden Markov model and graphic evaluation and review technique network, this article proposes a new reliability assessment method called hidden graphic evaluation and review technique network model for multi-state system. Speci...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for solving multi-objective linear programming (MOLP) with interval coefficients using positioned programming and interactive fuzzy programming approaches. Design/methodology/approach – In the proposed algorithm, first, lower and upper bounds of each objective function in its feasible regio...

The study aims to forecast the research output of four selected countries (USA, China, India and Pakistan) using two models of Grey System Theory—Even Model GM (1, 1) and Nonhomogeneous Discrete Grey Model (NDGM). The study also conducts publication growth analysis using Synthetic Relative Growth Rate (RGR) and the Synthetic Doubling Time (Dt). The...

This study investigates a due date quoting problem for a project with stochastic duration, taking the decision-maker’s risk attitude into consideration. The project profit is defined as the difference between the price and the cost that is comprised of production cost and earliness–tardiness penalties. In this situation, the due date determination...