Assessing cloud QoS predictions using OWA in neural network methods.

Quality of Service (QoS) is the key parameter to measure the overall performance of service-oriented applications. In a myriad of web services, the QoS data has multiple highly sparse and enormous dimensions. It is a great challenge to reduce computational complexity by reducing data dimensions without losing information to predict QoS for future intervals. This paper uses an Induced Ordered Weighted Average (IOWA) layer in the prediction layer to lessen the size of a dataset and analyse the prediction accuracy of cloud QoS data. The approach enables stakeholders to manage extensive QoS data better and handle complex nonlinear predictions. The paper evaluates the cloud QoS prediction using an IOWA operator with nine neural network methods-Cascade-forward backpropagation, Elman backpropagation, Feedforward backpropagation, Generalised regression, NARX, Layer recurrent, LSTM, GRU and LSTM-GRU. The paper compares results using RMSE, MAE, and MAPE to measure prediction accuracy as a benchmark. A total of 2016 QoS data are extracted from Amazon EC2 US-West instance to predict future 96 intervals. The analysis results show that the approach significantly decreases the data size by 66%, from 2016 to 672 records with improved or equal accuracy. The case study demonstrates the approach's effectiveness while handling complexity, reducing data dimension with better prediction accuracy.

Onsite/offsite social commerce adoption for SMEs using fuzzy linguistic decision making in complex framework.

There has been a growing social commerce adoption trend among SMEs for few years. However, it is often a challenging strategic task for SMEs to choose the right type of social commerce. SMEs usually have a limited budget, technical skills and resources and want to maximise productivity with those limited resources. There is much literature that discusses the social commerce adoption strategy for SMEs. However, there is no work to enable SMEs to choose social commerce-onsite/offsite or hybrid strategy. Moreover, very few studies allow the decision-makers to handle uncertain, complex nonlinear relationships of social commerce adoption factors. The paper proposes a fuzzy linguistic multi-criteria group decision-making in a complex framework for onsite, offsite social commerce adoption to address the problem. The proposed approach uses a novel hybrid approach by combining FAHP, FOWA and selection criteria of the technological-organisation-environment (TOE) framework. Unlike previous methods, the proposed approach uses the decision maker's attitudinal characteristics and recommends intelligently using the OWA operator. The approach further demonstrates the decision behaviour of the decision-makers with Fuzzy Minimum (FMin), Fuzzy Maximum (FMax), Laplace criteria, Hurwicz criteria, FWA, FOWA and FPOWA. The framework enables the SMEs to choose the right type of social commerce considering TOE factors that help them build a stronger relationship with current and potential customers. The approach's applicability is demonstrated using a case study of three SMEs seeking to adopt a social commerce type. The analysis results indicate the proposed approach's effectiveness in handling uncertain, complex nonlinear decisions in social commerce adoption.

Half a century of computer methods and programs in biomedicine: A bibliometric analysis from 1970 to 2017.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine (CMPB) is a leading international journal that presents developments about computing methods and their application in biomedical research. The journal published its first issue in 1970. In 2020, the journal celebrates the 50th anniversary. Motivated by this event, this article presents a bibliometric analysis of the publications of the journal during this period (1970-2017). METHODS: The objective is to identify the leading trends occurring in the journal by analysing the most cited papers, keywords, authors, institutions and countries. For doing so, the study uses the Web of Science Core Collection database. Additionally, the work presents a graphical mapping of the bibliographic information by using the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software. This is done to analyze bibliographic coupling, co-citation and co-occurrence of keywords. RESULTS: CMPB is identified as a leading and core journal for biomedical researchers. The journal is strongly connected to IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering and IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. Paper from Wang, Jacques, Zheng (published in 1995) is its most cited document. The top author in this journal is James Geoffrey Chase and the top contributing institution is Uppsala U (Sweden). Most of the papers in CMPB are from the USA followed by the UK and Italy. China and Taiwan are the only Asian countries to appear in the top 10 publishing in CMPB. A keyword co-occurrences analysis revealed strong co-occurrences for classification, picture archiving and communication system (PACS), heart rate variability, survival analysis and simulation. Keywords analysis for the last decade revealed that machine learning for a variety of healthcare problems (including image processing and analysis) dominated other research fields in CMPB. CONCLUSIONS: It can be concluded that CMPB is a world-renowned publication outlet for biomedical researchers which has been growing in a number of publications since 1970. The analysis also conclude that the journal is very international with publications from all over the world although today European countries are the most productive ones.

Methodology and model-based DSS to managing the reallocation of inventory to orders in LHP situations. Application to the ceramics sector.

Lack of homogeneity in the product (LHP) is a problem when customers require homogeneous units of a single product. In such cases, the optimal allocation of inventory to orders becomes much more complex. Furthermore, in an MTS environment, an optimal initial allocation may become less than ideal over time, due to different circumstances. This problem occurs in the ceramics sector, where the final product varies in tone and calibre. This paper proposes a methodology for the reallocation of inventory to orders in LHP situation (MERIO-LHP) and a model-based decision-support system (DSS) to support the methodology, which enables an optimal reallocation of inventory to order lines to be carried out in real businesses environments in which LHP is inherent. The proposed methodology and model-based DSS were validated by applying it to a real case at a ceramics company. The analysis of the results indicates that considerable improvements can be obtained with regard to the quantity of orders fulfilled and sales turnover.

A Bibliometric History of the Journal of Psychology Between 1936 and 2015.

The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied is a leading international journal in psychology dating back to 1935. This study examines its publications since its creation utilizing a bibliometric analysis. The primary objective is to provide a complete overview of the key factors affecting the journal. This analysis includes such key issues as the publication and citation structure of the journal, its most cited articles, and the leading authors, institutions, and countries referenced in the journal. The work uses the Scopus database to classify the bibliographic material. Additionally, the analysis provides a graphical mapping of the bibliographic data by using visualization of similarities viewer software. This software uses several bibliometric techniques including co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-occurrence of keywords. The Journal of Psychology is strongly connected to most of the current leading journals in psychology, and currently has a 5-year impact factor of 1.77 (Thomson Reuters, 2015 Journal Citation Reports).

Application of Fuzzy Set/Qualitative Comparative Analysis to Public Participation Projects in Support of the EU Water Framework Directive.

This study analyzes the level of satisfaction of stakeholders in the public participation process (PPP) of water resources management, which is mandatory according to the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). The methodology uses a fuzzy set/qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), which allows the identification of a combination of factors that lead to the outcome that is stakeholders' satisfaction. It allows dealing with uncertain environments due to the heterogeneous nature of stakeholders and factors. The considered causes range from environmental objectives pursued, actual capacity of efficiently carrying out those objectives, socioeconomic development of the region, level of involvement and means of participation of the stakeholders engaged in the PPP, and alternative policies and measures that should be performed. Results support the argument that different causal paths explain the stakeholders' satisfaction. The methodology may help in the implementation of the WFD and conflict resolution since it leads to greater fairness, social equity, and consensus among stakeholders.

Influential journals in health research: a bibliometric study.

BACKGROUND: There is a wide range of intellectual work written about health research, which has been shaped by the evolution of diseases. This study aims to identify the leading journals over the last 25 years (1990-2014) according to a wide range of bibliometric indicators. METHODS: The study develops a bibliometric overview of all the journals that are currently indexed in Web of Science (WoS) database in any of the four categories connected to health research. The work classifies health research in nine subfields: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Health Management and Economics, Health Promotion and Health Behavior, Epidemiology, Health Policy and Services, Medicine, Health Informatics, Engineering and Technology, and Primary Care. RESULTS: The results indicate a wide dispersion between categories being the American Journal of Epidemiology, Environmental Health Perspectives, American Journal of Public Health, and Social Science & Medicine, the journals that have received the highest number of citations over the last 25 years. According to other indicators such as the h-index and the citations per paper, some other journals such as the Annual Review of Public Health and Medical Care, obtain better results which show the wide diversity and profiles of outlets available in the scientific community. The results are grouped and studied according to the nine subfields in order to identify the leading journals in each specific sub discipline of health. CONCLUSIONS: The work identifies the leading journals in health research through a bibliometric approach. The analysis shows a deep overview of the results of health journals. It is worth noting that many journals have entered the WoS database during the last years, in many cases to fill some specific niche that has emerged in the literature, although the most popular ones have been in the database for a long time.

Induced unbalanced linguistic ordered weighted average and its application in multiperson decision making.

Linguistic variables are very useful to evaluate alternatives in decision making problems because they provide a vocabulary in natural language rather than numbers. Some aggregation operators for linguistic variables force the use of a symmetric and uniformly distributed set of terms. The need to relax these conditions has recently been posited. This paper presents the induced unbalanced linguistic ordered weighted average (IULOWA) operator. This operator can deal with a set of unbalanced linguistic terms that are represented using fuzzy sets. We propose a new order-inducing criterion based on the specificity and fuzziness of the linguistic terms. Different relevancies are given to the fuzzy values according to their uncertainty degree. To illustrate the behaviour of the precision-based IULOWA operator, we present an environmental assessment case study in which a multiperson multicriteria decision making model is applied.