A Comprehensive Star Rating Approach for Cruise Ships Based on Interactive Group Decision Making with Personalized Individual Semantics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The submitted manuscript titled "A comprehensive star rating approach for cruise ships based on interactive

group decision making with personalized individual semantics" exhibits the following deficiencies:

(1) Superficial literature reviews.

(2) The presented methodology, although quite cumbersome in terms of computation, seems to be interesting. However, the study lacks justification for the choice of methods. Why did the authors choose TOPSIS among so many MCDA methods? Moreover, is the classic TOPSIS approach proper? Perhaps, taking into account the nature of the study, it would be worth considering other methods of normalization.

(3) The subsections 3.1-3.3 should be precisely revised, for example, what is the S_{\bar} in eg. (1). All used symbols need to be explained.

(4) In the conclusion part, the Authors should describe how better the approach is in comparison to other methods. Maybe some comparison with others is possible.

(5) Maybe the sensitivity analyses of applied algorithms are possible.

(6) English should be revised to avoid mistakes.

 

Author Response

See the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

For Journal: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

For Manuscript: jmse-1699198

Entitled: A comprehensive star rating approach for cruise ships based on interactive group decision making with personalized individual semantics

 

Comments:

This study links TOPSIS with cruise-ship star rating. A rating index system containing the so-named ‘4 parts’ is proposed. This is accompanied by a weight calculation approach that constitutes of PIS to deal with different experts’ linguistic scales while their linguistic information is expressed. The weights are then applied to the modified TOPSIS process (the weight of the j-th criterion is multiplied while calculating the Euclidean distances from the alternative to positive/negative ideals) for alternative ranking.

  A decision problem of 10 cruise ships was solved. The opinion investigation queried 5 experts. The methodological part of this study is qualified for publication in this journal, if the proposed method is novel (while I believe at least the method is proposed subject to the application context of the problem and applied to the decision problem for the first time). However, I have the following comments:

1. • For explaining the TOPSIS method, use the system “P(+) and P(-)” (“(.)” means upper placing), instead of “P(*) and P(-)”. The ‘*’ usually means the best attainable solution in other MCDM texts, especially in MODM, despite that such a convention has followed some original writings of TOPSIS.
   • Just like in medical studies, in empirical studies (the orientation of this text is empirical, not methodological right?) please avoid to estimate something (first paragraph, subsection 4.2, pp.11), as the missing value of a ship (i.e., the number of crews) is interpolated. This should be avoided in the authors’ study. Therefore, that instance should be removed, so the experiments should be re-made.
   • Merely the text involves using 13 tables. And, the entire manuscript involves 33, including the appendices. Consider fix these results as tabularised datasets on the academic websites and cite only the URLs in the appendix.
2. For these problems I may just list some of them. The authors should check these throughout the manuscript and send the text to professional proof reading by MS/OR/MCDM-field expert(s) prior to the next submission of the revised version. A formal certificate is required for the process during next review round. The following only lists some examples.
   • Vague expressions read strange. For example, on pp.1, third line, first paragraph, ‘almost all of its forms’ means what forms? And then, ‘contains of several of its types’ reads strange. For another example, on pp. 8, last third line, first paragraph, Section 4, what ‘related research data’ is presented? In most studies, collecting related research data usually comes prior to any analysis work that follows. Since here your meaning is special, you should clarify it. For yet another example, in the first bullet point on pp. 17, the phrase ‘on the one hand’ simply reads strange and not natural.
   • Grammar errors. On pp. 2, the second bullet, ‘for standardize’ should be ‘to standardize’. For example, on pp. 12, the first sentence should be ‘… whose data [is] from the office website of ZYOULUN’.
   • The first sentence, Section 2, ‘... will review …’. However, you have been reviewing. The tense problems should be carefully revised.
   • Order of sentences. In subsection 3.4 (pp.7), ‘The modified TOPSIS method is …: Suppose that …’. However, it had better be ‘Suppose that …, the modified TOPSIS method is …’.
   • Unnecessary adjectives. For example, on pp.8, the sentence before subsection 4.1, is there any result that is not comprehensive? Besides, this sentence also has a grammatical problem: results are plural.
   • Unclear statements. The last sentence, pp. 9. How can the 5 experts provide subjective star ratings ‘from experts’ and those from users? I guess you mean those indicators here.
3. Apart from the following points, the authors should check all parts of the manuscript for similar problems.
   • Before every citations’ bracket ‘[’ insert a space.
   • Since the abbreviation of ‘PIS’ is given very early in the text, it should be used throughout the manuscript. I have found at least 10 or 20 times of no such uses (e.g., even on the same page, in the last paragraph in Section 1). At least for an example, in the initial paragraph in subsection 4.1 on pp. 8.
   • On pp.2, the line space before the first bullet is large.
   • Fonts in the table (e.g., Table 1) is larger than the text, and the font sizes are not consistent.
   • In the intuitive sense, the symbolic format could be typed using the default equation functions in a later Word version. As those formats are usually not acceptable by mathematical professionals, all equations in the text should be typed using Microsoft Equation Editor 3.0 in older Word versions, or simply MathType across any Word version.
   • The table captions are too small (e.g., Tables 2 and 3 on pp. 10).
   • Isn’t there any template of the journal for you to prepare the manuscript?
4. • The citations are not ordered. For example, the first paragraph, pp. 1, the first citation started with [19, 21], then [18], and then [1, 2], followed by [30, 31]. They should be numerically reordered.
   • Some key works (and their relevant discussions) are missing in the bibliographical section (and in the text) of this study. For example, a systematic summary to the step-wise flow for the original TOPSIS model can be cited, e.g., the article entitled: “Rank-based comparative research flow benchmarking the effectiveness of AHP–GTMA on aiding decisions of shredder selection by reference to AHP–TOPSIS”. This is both to justify the original method and to make the required review more robust.
   • Another suggestion is that because this paper uses a correlation analysis to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, for the same types of data with similar purposes, can the non-parametric tests also be used in the future? This forms a worthwhile research direction that is not discussed in the final concluding section, which can discuss the ‘similarity confirmation method’ and cite the article entitled “The effectiveness of IF-MADM (intuitionistic-fuzzy multi-attribute decision-making) for group decisions: Methods and an empirical assessment for the selection of a senior centre”.
5. • Section 3 should also be introduced in Section 2 for the methodological part of the literature study (as another subsections).
   • A figure linking or weaving the steps using each of the methods can benefit your text illustrations.
   • Redundant statements. For example, second sentence, first paragraph, Section 4, pp. 8, these indicator parts were introduced previously. You can refer to that place here.

Author Response

See the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

A very interesting topic brought by the authors concerns tourism. Their processing is the valuation of cruise ships through the provision. The study is not only theoretical in nature, but also contains an empirical part.
   The abstract is concise and its scope is wide. The study begins with a theoretical introduction to the issue. It is a description of the quality of cruise ships in relation to recent years. The authors present two basic cardinal problems, the cruise ship evaluation system, as well as the method of allocating cooperation.
   In the following sections, the authors offer an overview of the research literature on cruise ships. A very good tool is the table, which offers different ways of evaluating cruise ships according to different authors. The selection of the authors of the study for evaluation consists in rating with asterisks for: a) basic evaluation, b) operational capacity of indicators, c) subjective evaluation of experts c) subjective evaluation of users. Several evaluation scales will ensure a broad-spectrum approach, making the evaluation more plastic. The system is also evaluated quantitatively. It is a model of language representation. Interactive group decision-making, in turn, is intended to correct possible disagreements between experts. In this way, it is possible to reach a certain consensus. Introducing a new way of evaluating through the acquisition of results is sophisticated and certainly beneficial. The evaluation method also required a lot of preparation work. The weighting calculation is extremely quantitatively elaborated. Last but not least, the equipment of the cruise ship itself decides.
A comparison of empirical findings yielded valuable results. The analysis of service options is necessary and essential for an exact evaluation. Basic cruise ship indicators are just as important as equipment. Subjective evaluations have shown that most ships still have room for improvement. The authors keep the freshness of the food in mind. We are of the opinion that food quality and freshness are still not relevant. It is not possible to narrow the quality of food to the question of freshness. The recommendation also applies to increasing service capacity. We appreciate the authors' determination to continue their research and design.
The number of bibliographic references is sufficient. There are also new resources among them.
I consider the study to be overworked.

Author Response

See the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have performed the required revision works well for their manuscript within a quite limited time period, addressing all of the key comments while also re-presenting their research using the template and moving the minor supporting information to the website. This has contributed a good publication for JMSE.