Linguistic values

Results of previous inspections were available in a structured way just for a few Seveso facdities, where major and minor non conformities are systematically accounted. The number of minor and major non conformances were accounted as inspection results. The mnnbers were converted in a linguistic value ranking from poor to good. For other establishments the results are presented in a more qualitative way. In order to compare the result, violations were weighted as major non conformances and complaints as minor non conformances. 

Summarising it, the following data are acquired from experts N t), t " for time t and linguistic values of the adopted LV variable. 

The fuzzy linguistic approach is an approximate technique which represents qualitative aspects as linguistic values by means of linguistic variables, that is, variables whose values are not numbers but words or sentences as in the case of a natural languages [24]. Its application is beneficial because it introduces a more flexible framework, which allows us a representation of tire information in a more direct and adequate way when we are unable to express it with numerical precision. In such a way, the burden of quantif3ung a qualitative concept is removed. 

A linguistic variable is a variable whose values are words or sentences in a natural or artificial language. These words or sentences will be called the linguistic values of a linguistic variable. 

As a linguistic variable we define the variable which is expressed by words or sentences that we call linguistic values of linguistic variable. Our models assume that linguistic variables have low, average and high values. 

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