A Non-Numeric Approach to Multi-Criteria/Multi-Expert Aggregation Based on Approximate Reasoning

We describe a technique that can be used for the fusion of multiple sources of information as well as for the evaluation and selection of alternatives under multi-criteria. Three important properties contribute to the uniqueness of the technique introduced. The first is the ability to do all necessary operations and aggregations with information that is of a nonnumeric linguistic nature. This facility greatly reduces the burden on the providers of information, the experts. A second characterizing feature is the ability assign, again linguistically, differing importances to the criteria or in the case of information fusion to the individual sources of information. A third significant feature of the approach is its ability to be used as method to find a consensus of the opinion of multiple experts on the i�stle of concern. The techniques used in this approach are base on ideas developed from the theory of approximate reasoning. We illustrate the approach with a problem of project selection.