Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques for Improvement Sustainability Engineering Processes Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Symmetry www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Dragan Pamučar, Željko Stević and Abbas Mardani Edited by Volume 2 Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques for Improvement Sustainability Engineering Processes Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques for Improvement Sustainability Engineering Processes Volume 1 Editors Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas Dragan Pamuˇ car ˇ Zeljko Stevi ́ c Abbas Mardani MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Manchester • Tokyo • Cluj • Tianjin Editors Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Lithuania Dragan Pamuˇ car University of Defence, Military academy, Department of Logistics Belgrade, Serbia ˇ Zeljko Stevi ́ c Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of East Sarajevo, Doboj, Bosnia and Herzegovina Republic of Srpsk Abbas Mardani Muma College of Business at University of South Florida (USF) Tampa, FL, USA Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994) (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry/special issues/Sustainability Engineering Processes). For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year , Article Number , Page Range. Volume 1 ISBN 978-3-03936-778-8 ( H bk) ISBN 978-3-03936-779-5 (PDF) Volume 1-2 ISBN 978-3-03936-794-8 ( H bk) ISBN 978-3-03936-795-5 (PDF) c © 2020 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Contents About the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Dragan Pamuˇ car, ˇ Zeljko Stevi ́ c and Abbas Mardani Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques for Improvement Sustainability Engineering Processes Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 986, doi:10.3390/sym12060986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Milan Randelovi ́ c, Slobodan Nedeljkovi ́ c, Mihailo Jovanovi ́ c, Milan ˇ Cabarkapa, Vladica Stojanovi ́ c, Aleksandar Aleksi ́ c and Dragan Randelovi ́ c Use of Determination of the Importance of Criteria in Business-Friendly Certification of Cities as Sustainable Local Economic Development Planning Tool Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 425, doi:10.3390/sym12030425 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Sarbast Moslem, Danish Farooq, Omid Ghorbanzadeh and Thomas Blaschke Application of the AHP-BWM Model for Evaluating Driver Behavior Factors Related to Road Safety: A Case Study for Budapest Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 243, doi:10.3390/sym12020243 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Vladimir Markovi ́ c, Ljubiˇ sa Staji ́ c, ˇ Zeljko Stevi ́ c, Goran Mitrovi ́ c, Boris Novarlic ́ and Zoran Radojiˇ cic ́ A Novel Integrated Subjective-Objective MCDM Model for Alternative Ranking in Order to Achieve Business Excellence and Sustainability Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 164, doi:10.3390/sym12010164 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Rokas Semenas and Romualdas Bausys Modelling of Autonomous Search and Rescue Missions by Interval-Valued Neutrosophic WASPAS Framework Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 162, doi:10.3390/sym12010162 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Robert Ojstersek and Borut Buchmeister The Impact of Manufacturing Flexibility and Multi-Criteria Optimization on the Sustainability of Manufacturing Systems Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 157, doi:10.3390/sym12010157 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Dmitri Muravev, Hao Hu, Hengshuo Zhou and Dragan Pamucar Location Optimization of CR Express International Logistics Centers Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 143, doi:10.3390/sym12010143 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Pratibha Rani, Kannan Govindan, Arunodaya Raj Mishra, Abbas Mardani, Melfi Alrasheedi and D. S. Hooda Unified Fuzzy Divergence Measures with Multi-Criteria Decision Making Problems for Sustainable Planning of an E-Waste Recycling Job Selection Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 90, doi:10.3390/sym12010090 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Sarfaraz Hashemkhani Zolfani, Reza Dehnavieh, Atousa Poursheikhali, Olegas Prentkovskis and Payam Khazaelpour Foresight Based on MADM-Based Scenarios’ Approach: A Case about Comprehensive Sustainable Health Financing Models Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 61, doi:10.3390/sym12010061 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 v Jarosław G ́ orecki Simulation-Based Positioning of Circular Economy Manager’s Skills in Construction Projects Reprinted from: Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 50, doi:10.3390/sym12010050 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 ˇ Zivko Erceg, Vitomir Starˇ cevi ́ c, Dragan Pamuˇ car, Goran Mitrovi ́ c, ˇ Zeljko Stevic ́ and Srdan ˇ Zikic ́ A New Model for Stock Management in Order to Rationalize Costs: ABC-FUCOM-Interval Rough CoCoSo Model Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 1527, doi:10.3390/sym11121527 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Yuanyuan Zhou, Li Xu and Ghulam Muhammad Shaikh Evaluating and Prioritizing the Green Supply Chain Management Practices in Pakistan: Based on Delphi and Fuzzy AHP Approach Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 1346, doi:10.3390/sym11111346 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Novak Zagradjanin, Dragan Pamucar and Kosta Jovanovic Cloud-Based Multi-Robot Path Planning in Complex and Crowded Environment with Multi-Criteria Decision Making Using Full Consistency Method Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 1241, doi:10.3390/sym11101241 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Dragan Dordevi ́ c, Gordan Stoji ́ c, ˇ Zeljko Stevi ́ c, Dragan Pamuˇ car, Ana Vulevic ́ and Vesna Miˇ sic ́ A New Model for Defining the Criteria of Service Quality in Rail Transport: The Full Consistency Method Based on a Rough Power Heronian Aggregator Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 992, doi:10.3390/sym11080992 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Miroslavas Pavlovskis, Darius Migilinskas, Jurgita Antucheviciene and Vladislavas Kutut Ranking of Heritage Building Conversion Alternatives by Applying BIM and MCDM: A Case of Sapieha Palace in Vilnius Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 973, doi:10.3390/sym11080973 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Huafeng Quan, Shaobo Li, Hongjing Wei and Jianjun Hu Personalized Product Evaluation Based on GRA-TOPSIS and Kansei Engineering Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 867, doi:10.3390/sym11070867 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 Xingkui Li, Boliang Lin and Yinan Zhao Optimizing the Paths of Trains Formed at the Loading Area in a Multi-loop Rail Network Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 844, doi:10.3390/sym11070844 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 Surajit Dan, Mohuya B. Kar, Saibal Majumder, Bikashkoli Roy, Samarjit Kar and Dragan Pamucar Intuitionistic Type-2 Fuzzy Set and Its Properties Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 808, doi:10.3390/sym11060808 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 Zenonas Turskis, Jurgita Antucheviˇ cien ̇ e, Violeta Kerˇ sulien ̇ e and Gintaras Gaidukas Hybrid Group MCDM Model to Select the Most Effective Alternative of the Second Runway of the Airport Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 792, doi:10.3390/sym11060792 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399 Sneˇ zana Mladenovi ́ c, Stefan Zdravkovi ́ c, Slavko Veskovi ́ c, Sladana Jankovi ́ c, ˇ Zivota Dordevic ́ and Nataˇ sa Dali ́ c Development of a Novel Freight Railcar Load Planning and Monitoring System Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 756, doi:10.3390/sym11060756 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 vi Guangyao Dai, Chao Yang, Yingjie Liu, Tongbang Jiang and Gervas Batister Mgaya A Dynamic Multi-Reduction Algorithm for Brain Functional Connection Pathways Analysis Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 701, doi:10.3390/sym11050701 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445 R. Sivagami, K. S. Ravichandran, R. Krishankumar, V. Sangeetha, Samarjit Kar, Xiao-Zhi Gao and Dragan Pamucar A Scientific Decision Framework for Cloud Vendor Prioritization under Probabilistic Linguistic Term Set Context with Unknown/Partial Weight Information Reprinted from: Symmetry 2019 , 11 , 682, doi:10.3390/sym11050682 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459 vii About the Editors Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas Ph.D., DSc, is a Professor at the Department of Construction Management and Real Estate, Chief Research Fellow at the Laboratory of Operational Research, Research Institute of Sustainable Construction, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania. He received his Ph.D. in Building Structures (1973) and Dr Sc. (1987) in Building Technology and Management. He is a member of the Lithuanian and several foreign Academies of Sciences, Doctore Honoris Causa from Poznan, Saint Petersburg, and Kiev Universities, and the Honorary International Chair Professor in the National Taipei University of Technology. Awarded by the International Association of Grey System and Uncertain Analysis (GSUA) for his huge input in the field of Grey Systems, Zavadskas has been elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the International Association of Grey System and Uncertain Analysis, a part of IEEE (2016), awarded by “Neutrosophic Science—International Association” for distinguished achievements in neutrosophics, and has been conferred an honorary membership (2016), and awarded the Thomson Reuters certificate as the most highly cited scientist (2014). A highly cited researcher in the field of Cross-Field (2018, 2019), Zavadskas is recognized for exceptional research performance demonstrated by the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science. Zavadskas’ main research interests include multi-criteria decision-making, operations research, decision support systems, and multiple-criteria optimization in construction technology and management. With over 517 publications in Clarivate Analytics Web of Science, h-index = 65, a number of monographs in Lithuanian, English, German, and Russian, Zavadskas is also Founding Editor-in-Chief of the journals Technological and Economic Development of Economy and Journal of Civil Engineering and Management , as well as Guest Editor of over 15 Special Issues related to decision-making in engineering and management. Dragan Pamuˇ car is an Associate Professor at University of Defence in Belgrade, Department of Logistics, Serbia. Dr. Pamucar received a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics with a specialization in Multi-criteria modeling and soft computing techniques from the University of Defence in Belgrade, Serbia in 2013 and an MSc degree from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering in Belgrade, 2009. His research interests are in the fields of Computational Intelligence, Multi-Criteria Decision-Making problems, Neuro-Fuzzy systems, Fuzzy, Rough and Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set Theory, and Neutrosophic Theory. Application areas include a wide range of logistics problems. Dr. Pamucar has authored/co-authored over 80 papers published in SCI-indexed international journals including Experts Systems with Applications, Applied Soft Computing, Soft Computing, Computational Intelligence, Computers & industrial Engineering Technical Gazette, Sustainability, Symmetry, Water, Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research, Operational Research, Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems, Land Use Policy, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, International Journal of Physical Sciences, Economic Computation and Economic Cybernetics Studies and Research, and many more. In the last three years, Prof. Pamucar was awarded as top and outstanding reviewer for numerous Elsevier journals, such as Sustainable Production and Consumption, Measurement, Egyptian Informatics Journal, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, and so on. ix ˇ Zeljko Stevi ́ c is an Assistant Professor at the University of East Sarajevo, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, Doboj. He received a Ph.D. in Transport and Traffic Engineering from the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Sciences, in 2018. His interests include logistics, supply chain management, transport, traffic engineering, soft computing, multi-criteria decision-making problems, rough set theory, sustainability, fuzzy set theory, and neutrosophic set theory. He has published over 120 papers in his areas of interest. He has contributed outstanding research to the mentioned fields. In all his research, he has provided very good application studies and practical contributions, solving different problems in transportation, logistics, supply chain management, traffic engineering, the economy, etc. His published studies are very well cited in other research, which can be seen in ResearchGate. He has an h-index of 18 in Google Scholar, 11 in Scopus, and 11 in WoS. Dr. Stevi ́ c has authored/co-authored papers published in refereed international journals including Applied Soft Computing, Neural Computing and Applications, Sustainability, Symmetry, Engineering Economics, Soft Computing, Transport, Scientometrics, Information, ECECSR, Technical Gazette, SIC, Mathematics (MDPI), and more. He is a member of the Program Committee for specific programs for the Republic of Srpska in Horizon 2020. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Operational Research in Engineering Sciences: Theory and Applications. Moreover, he is Guest Editor of the following journals: • Symmetry (SCI) IF2018=2.143—Special Issue “Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques for Improvement Sustainability Engineering Processes”; • Algorithms (WoS) Special Issue “Algorithms for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making”; • Sustainability (SCI) IF2018=2.592—Special Issue “Operational Research Tools for Solving Sustainable Engineering Problems”; • Logistics—Special Issue “Application of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods for Evaluation in Logistics and Supply Chain”. Awards: • November 2017: the best young researcher of 3rd cycle (doctoral) studies (Festival of Science 2017). • January 2018: medal of merit for people in the field of education and science. • September 2019: Top Peer Reviewer in the Global Peer Review Awards 2019 (Publons). Abbas Mardani , Ph.D., Informetrics Research Group and Faculty of Business Administration; Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam. Abbas has published more than 130 articles in high-quality journals. He is Editor and Guest Editor of several journals, including the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management; Applied Soft Computing, Technological and Economic Development of Economy, Technological Forecasting and Social Change; Computer and Industrial Engineering; Journal of Enterprise Information Management; International Journal of Fuzzy Systems; Symmetry; Energies; Soft Computing Letters, etc. in Elsevier, Springer, Emerald, and MDPI. Abbas’ H-indexes in Scopus and Google Scholar are 18 and 22 respectively. His research interests include quality management, sustainable development, fuzzy sets, decision-making, TQM, SCM, sustainability, service quality, and optimization. x symmetry S S Editorial Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques for Improvement Sustainability Engineering Processes Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas 1 , Dragan Pamuˇ car 2 , Željko Stevi ́ c 3, * and Abbas Mardani 4,5 1 Department of Construction Management and Real Estate, Laboratory of Operational Research, Research Institute of Sustainable Construction, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, LT-10223 Vilnius, Lithuania; edmundas.zavadskas@vgtu.lt 2 Department of logistics, Military academy, University of Defence, Belgrade, Pavla Juriši ́ ca Šturma 33, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia; dragan.pamucar@va.mod.gov.rs 3 Faculty of Transport and Tra ffi c Engineering, University of East Sarajevo, Vojvode Miši ́ ca 52, 74000 Doboj, Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina 4 Informetrics Research Group, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 758307, Vietnam 5 Faculty of Business Administration, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 758307, Vietnam; abbas.mardani@tdtu.edu.vn * Correspondence: zeljkostevic88@yahoo.com or zeljko.stevic@sf.ues.rs.ba Received: 25 May 2020; Accepted: 25 May 2020; Published: 9 June 2020 Abstract: The success of any activity and process depends fundamentally on the possibility of balancing (symmetry) needs and their satisfaction. That is, the ability to properly define a set of success indicators. The application of the developed new multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods can be eliminated or decreased by decision-makers’ subjectivity, which leads to consistency or symmetry in the weight values of the criteria. In this Special Issue, 40 research papers and one review study co-authored by 137 researchers from 23 di ff erent countries explore aspects of multi-criteria modeling and optimization in crisp or uncertain environments. The papers proposing new approaches and elaborate case studies in the following areas of applications: MCDM optimization in sustainable engineering, environmental sustainability in engineering processes, sustainable multi-criteria production and logistics processes planning, integrated approach for modeling processes in engineering, new trends in the multi-criteria evaluation of sustainable processes, multi-criteria decision-making in strategic management based on sustainable criteria. Keywords: multi-criteria decision-making; sustainability; engineering; optimization 1. Introduction Decision making on complex engineering problems including individual process decisions requires an appropriate and reliable decision support system. Fuzzy set theory, rough set theory and neutrosophic set theory which belong to MCDM techniques are very useful for modeling complex engineering problems with imprecise, ambiguous or vague data. Sustainability in engineering is one of the most discussed topics in recent years and represents one of the key factors in engineering sustainable development and optimization. Sustainable multidisciplinary approaches based on MCDM techniques enable easier process technology in the future. Engineering is the application of scientific and mathematical principles for practical objectives such as the processes, manufacture, design and operation of products, while accounting for constraints invoked by environmental, economic and social factors. There are various factors needing to be considered in order to address engineering sustainability, which is critical for overall the sustainability of human development and activity. In these regards, in recent decades, decision-making theory has been a subject of intense research activities due to its wide applications in di ff erent areas, such as Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 986; doi:10.3390 / sym12060986 www.mdpi.com / journal / symmetry 1 Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 986 sustainable engineering and environmental sustainability. The decision-making theory approach has become an important means of providing real-time solutions to uncertainty problems, especially for sustainable engineering and environmental sustainability problems in engineering processes. This Special Issue have stimulated both theoretical and applied research in the related fields of sustainability engineering processes. It is certainly impossible to provide in this short editorial a more comprehensive description for all articles in this Special Issue. However, we can with sure say that e ff ort in compiling these articles have enriched our readers and inspire researchers with regard to the seemingly common, but actually important issue of decision-making and fuzzy decision-making approaches for sustainable engineering processes. 2. Contributions The Special Issue collects 40 original research papers and one review paper written by Guest Editors. The papers contribute to various fields above mentioned. A lot of the research have proposed new methodologies treating uncertainty. The topics of the Special Issue attracted attention of a wide scientific community: 137 researches from 23 countries contributed to the Issue. Distribution of authors according to countries is shown in Figure 1. 1 2 11 1 21 1 1 2 17 6 18 5 1 9 1 1 29 4 1 3 1 1 1 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Figure 1. Number of authors from di ff erent countries. The largest number of authors were from Serbia (29 authors). China has 21 authors, while 18 researches come from Lithuania and 17 from India. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Poland contributed almost equally, with 11 and 9 authors, respectively. Next came Iran, with six authors, while five contributors were Malaysia, four from Slovenia and three from Taiwan. Two authors come from Hungary and two from Austria. Authors from the following eleven countries contributed with one paper: Australia, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, UAE, USA and Vietnam. It is important note that one researcher contributes with di ff erent a ffi liations from two di ff erent countries. He has published three di ff erent papers. Distribution of papers according to authors’ a ffi liations is presented in Table 1. Authors and co-authors from Lithuania contributed 12 papers, five papers without international collaboration [1–5] and seven papers with international cooperation: Bosnia and Herzegovina–Lithuania– 2 Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 986 Serbia–Malaysia [ 6 ], Lithuania–Bosnia and Herzegovina–Serbia [ 7 ], Iran–Lithuania [ 8 ], China– Lithuania [ 9 ], Malaysia–Lithuania [ 10 ], Serbia–South Africa–Lithuania–Bosnia and Herzegovina [ 11 ] and Chile–Iran–Lithuania–Australia [ 12 ]. Authors from China contributed in total eight papers, four without international collaboration [ 13 – 16 ] and four more in international cooperation: [ 9 ], China–USA [ 17 ], China–Pakistan [ 18 ] and Russia–China–Serbia [ 19 ]. Authors from Poland contributed four papers, but only to a national cooperation [ 20 – 23 ]. Researchers from Serbia have published 15 papers: three without international cooperation [ 24 – 26 ], four with authors from Bosnia and Herzegovina [ 27 – 30 ], three with authors from India [ 31 – 33 ], mentioned [ 6 , 7 , 11 , 19 ], India–Finland–Serbia [ 34 ]. Authors from India have published seven papers. Apart from mentioned [ 31 – 34 ] they have cooperated as follow: India–UAE [ 35 ], Chile–India [ 36 ] and India– Denmark–Vietnam–Saudi Arabia [ 37 ]. Authors from Slovenia and Taiwan contributed without international cooperation, two papers from Slovenia [ 38 , 39 ] and one from Taiwan [ 40 ]. In addition, one study is result of cooperation authors between Hungary and Austria [ 41 ]. Two papers come from Malaysia and Chile, while the authors from the following countries contributed per one study in collaboration aforementioned: UAE, Iran, Chile, South Africa, Finland, USA, Pakistan, Australia, Denmark, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Table 1. Publications by country. Countries Number of Papers Lithuania 5 China 4 Poland 4 Serbia–Bosnia and Herzegovina 4 Serbia 3 India–Serbia 3 Slovenia 2 Bosnia and Herzegovina–Lithuania–Serbia–Malaysia 1 Lithuania–Bosnia and Herzegovina–Serbia 1 India–UAE 1 Iran–Lithuania 1 Chile–India 1 China–Lithuania 1 Malaysia–Lithuania 1 Serbia–South Africa–Lithuania–Bosnia and Herzegovina 1 Taiwan 1 India–Finland–Serbia 1 China–USA 1 China–Pakistan 1 Chile–Iran–Lithuania–Australia 1 India–Denmark–Vietnam–Saudi Arabia 1 Russia–China–Serbia 1 Hungary–Austria 1 3. Conclusions Guest Editors are very happy that the Special Issue on multi-criteria decision-making techniques for improvement sustainability engineering processes has interested researchers from Europe, Asia and America; papers involving 137 researchers from 23 countries were published. The Special Issue showed that MCDM techniques are an important tool for solving various problems in the field of sustainability engineering processes. Decision making in real systems requires flexible decisions and respect for the mutual influence between the attributes of the decision. Therefore, the authors, have shown the importance of aggregation operators for information fusion in MCDM problems. 3 Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 986 Through 40 published papers, the authors have shown the possibilities of applying multicriteria techniques for processing information represented by crisp values, as well as various theories of uncertainty. Uncertainty theories applied in this special edition include traditional fuzzy sets, intuitionistic type-2 fuzzy sets, q-rung orthopair fuzzy sets, q-rung interval-valued orthopair fuzzy sets, rough sets and rough numbers, probabilistic linguistic term sets and neutrosophic sets. The application areas of the proposed MCDM techniques mainly covered production / manufacturing engineering, logistics and transportation and construction engineering and management. 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This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http: // creativecommons.org / licenses / by / 4.0 / ). 6 symmetry S S Article Use of Determination of the Importance of Criteria in Business-Friendly Certification of Cities as Sustainable Local Economic Development Planning Tool Milan Ran đ elovi ́ c 1 , Slobodan Nedeljkovi ́ c 2 , Mihailo Jovanovi ́ c 3 , Milan ˇ Cabarkapa 4 , Vladica Stojanovi ́ c 5 , Aleksandar Aleksi ́ c 6 and Dragan Ran đ elovi ́ c 6, * 1 Science Technology Park Niš, 18000 Niš, Serbia; milan.randjelovic@ntp.rs 2 Ministry of Interior, Government of the Republic of Serbia, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia; slobodan.nedeljkovic@mup.gov.rs 3 O ffi ce for Information Technologies and e-Government, Government of the Republic of Serbia, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia; mihailo.jovanovic@gov.rs 4 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia; cabmilan@etf.rs 5 University of Criminal Investigation and Police Studies, 11080 Zemun, Serbia; vladica.stojanovic@kpa.edu.rs 6 Faculty of Diplomacy and Security, University Union-Nikola Tesla Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia; aleksandar.aleksic@fdb.edu.rs * Correspondence: ganacd11@gmail.com; Tel.: + 38-160-466-6486 Received: 30 December 2019; Accepted: 17 February 2020; Published: 6 March 2020 Abstract: One of the essential activities for sustainable local economic development is continuous improvement of business environment which can be carried out through the business-friendly certification as objective benchmarking process, which is influenced by many factors - criteria that could be analyzed using multi-criteria decision-making methods. Determining criteria weights is the most important task regarding these methods for which a number of methodologies based on di ff erent approaches were developed. These methodologies could be generally divided into two groups: subjective and objective. Shortly, these methodologies quantify given preferences using knowledge of experts if they are subjective or using calculations from available data if they are objective. Methodologies from these two groups give di ff erent results in a wide range of values. Therefore, it is useful to create composite indicators using aggregation of both approaches in order to reduce the influence of their bad individual characteristics and, therefore, achieve a balanced symmetrical approach. The purpose of this paper is constructing one e ffi cient model that solves a problem of the planning of sustainable local economic development in the Republic of Serbia. Our approach uses the aggregation of the entropy method, as one objective approach, and the analytical hierarchy process, as a subjective approach, in executing business-friendly certification process. The implementation of the proposed approach has been demonstrated as a part of a business-to-government (B2G) platform called “Multi-Criteria Support System for Analysis of the Local Economic Environment” in the City of Niš. Keywords: entropy; AHP; aggregation; economic development; business-friendly certification; sustainable development 1. Introduction Business Friendly Certification (BFC) of local self-government units (LSGU) is a process that introduces standards for e ffi cient and transparent governance and allows evaluation of the quality and relevance of services and information for investors and entrepreneurs. This process should be used Symmetry 2020 , 12 , 425; doi:10.3390 / sym12030425 www.mdpi.com / journal / symmetry 7