Pairwise comparisons are a well-established tool to compare weights of criteria and alternatives or, more in general, any entities. Their ultimate goal is to facilitate the search for a suitable weight vector. In this context, the concepts of inconsistency and inconsistency index have emerged. This manuscript has two goals. Firstly, it surveys the most relevant inconsistency indices by means of a self-contained exposition. Secondly, by analyzing recent trends and milestones it presents some conclusions and a discussion on possible directions of future research.

This paper presents a tri-objective Optimal Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) Placement (OPP) strategy that is focused on the minimization of i) the total number of PMU channels, ii) the maximum state estimation uncertainty based only on high-rate PMU data and iii) the sensitivity of state estimation to line parameter tolerances. The proposed formulation keeps into account system observability with and without contingencies due to single-line and PMU faults. Also, it includes the effect of possible zero-injection buses and a-priori constraints on both the number of PMU channels and the type of PMU measurements performed at each bus. Due to the nonlinear combinatorial nature of the proposed OPP problem, this is solved through a custom implementation of the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II). The analysis of the proposed OPP strategy is focused on distribution systems. The placement results obtained using four test systems of different size show that increasing the number of buses instrumented with PMUs and/or the number of PMU channels beyond given thresholds just leads to larger costs with negligible further reductions in both state estimation uncertainty and sensitivity to line parameters tolerances. Moreover, if PMUs with just two three-phase channels are used, we can avoid instrumenting between 30% and 40% of buses with a minor impact on state estimation performance even in the case of contingencies. This percentage can be slightly increased if multi-channel PMUs are used. However, this choice generally is not profitable.

The aim of this study is to develop an inland terminal location selection methodology. This methodology is viewed from the perspective of the shipping line designing the inland transport chain while also taking the objectives of multiple other stakeholders into account. To that end, we develop a consensus model for a group Best-Worst Method (BWM) in order to aggregate the evaluations of the various stakeholders. The proposed method is applied to a real-life case study involving the Maersk shipping line, in which nine experts representing three different types of stakeholders assess six possible locations. After the evaluation, the market volume potential is identified as one of the most important criteria. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis indicates that a varying influx of the container volume has no impact on the most desirable location.