Intensity of preference and related uncertainty in non-compensatory aggregation rules

Non-compensatory aggregation rules are applied in a variety of problems such as voting theory, multi-criteria analysis, composite indicators, web ranking algorithms and so on. A major open problem is the fact that non-compensability implies the analytical cost of loosing all available information about intensity of preference, i.e. if some variables are measured on interval or ratio scales, they have to be treated as measured on an ordinal scale. Here this problem has been tackled in its most general formulation, that is when mixed measurement scales (interval, ratio and ordinal) are used and both stochastic and fuzzy uncertainties are present. Objectives of this article are first to present a comprehensive review of useful solutions already proposed in the literature and second to advance the state of the art mainly in the theoretical guarantee that weights have the meaning of importance coefficients and they can be summarized in a voting matrix. This is a key result for using non-compensatory Condorcet consistent rules. A proof on the probability of existence of ties in the voting matrix is also developed.

[1]  K. Zaras,et al.  Stochastic dominance in multicriterion analysis under risk , 1995 .

[2]  P.-C.-F. Daunou,et al.  Mémoire sur les élections au scrutin , 1803 .

[3]  P. Fishburn Binary choice probabilities: on the varieties of stochastic transitivity , 1973 .

[4]  F. Vega-Redondo Complex Social Networks: Econometric Society Monographs , 2007 .

[5]  Michel Truchon,et al.  Figure Skating and the Theory of Social Choice , 1998 .

[6]  H. Poincaré La valeur de la science , 1905 .

[7]  Andrea Calì,et al.  State of the Art Survey , 2006 .

[8]  Jean-Claude Vansnick,et al.  Measurement Theory and Decision Aid , 1990 .

[9]  R. Luce Semiorders and a Theory of Utility Discrimination , 1956 .

[10]  Peter Nijkamp,et al.  Comparison of Fuzzy Sets: A New Semantic Distance , 1992 .

[11]  G. Munda Multicriteria Evaluation in a Fuzzy Environment: Theory and Applications in Ecological Economics , 1995 .

[12]  C. J. Hearne Non-conventional Preference Relations in Decision Making , 1989 .

[13]  Peter C. Fishburn,et al.  Utility theory with inexact preferences and degrees of preference , 1970, Synthese.

[14]  Benedetto Matarazzo,et al.  New approaches for the comparison of L-R fuzzy numbers: a theoretical and operational analysis , 2001, Fuzzy Sets Syst..

[15]  Mina Baliamoune-Lutz,et al.  On the Measurement of Human Well-Being: Fuzzy Set Theory and Sen's Capability Approach , 2009 .

[16]  Giuseppe Munda,et al.  Multicriteria Evaluation in a Fuzzy Environment , 1995 .

[17]  Giuseppe Munda,et al.  Social multi-criteria evaluation: Methodological foundations and operational consequences , 2004, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[18]  S French,et al.  Multicriteria Methodology for Decision Aiding , 1996 .

[19]  B. Roy Méthodologie multicritère d'aide à la décision , 1985 .

[20]  Stefano Tarantola,et al.  Sensitivity Analysis in Practice: A Guide to Assessing Scientific Models , 2004 .

[21]  Giuseppe Munda,et al.  Choosing Aggregation Rules for Composite Indicators , 2012 .

[22]  Jean-Claude Vansnick On the problem of weights in multiple criteria decision making (the noncompensatory approach) , 1986 .

[23]  Yoram Singer,et al.  Learning to Order Things , 1997, NIPS.

[24]  R. L. Keeney,et al.  Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Trade-Offs , 1977, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[25]  M. Victoria-Feser,et al.  Welfare Rankings in the Presence of Contaminated Data , 2002 .

[26]  K. Arrow,et al.  Social Choice and Multicriterion Decision-Making , 1986 .

[27]  Carlos A. Bana e Costa,et al.  Readings in Multiple Criteria Decision Aid , 2011 .

[28]  Giuseppe Munda,et al.  Noncompensatory/nonlinear composite indicators for ranking countries: a defensible setting , 2009 .

[29]  F. Roberts Measurement Theory with Applications to Decisionmaking, Utility, and the Social Sciences: Measurement Theory , 1984 .

[30]  Theodor J. Stewart,et al.  Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis , 2001 .

[31]  Madan M. Gupta,et al.  Fuzzy automata and decision processes , 1977 .

[32]  Denis Bouyssou,et al.  Some remarks on the notion of compensation in MCDM , 1986 .

[33]  Denis Bouyssou,et al.  Noncompensatory and generalized noncompensatory preference structures , 1986 .

[34]  Jean Pierre Brans,et al.  HOW TO SELECT AND HOW TO RANK PROJECTS: THE PROMETHEE METHOD , 1986 .

[35]  V. V. Podinovskii Criteria importance theory , 1994 .

[36]  Nicolas de Condorcet Essai Sur L'Application de L'Analyse a la Probabilite Des Decisions Rendues a la Pluralite Des Voix , 2009 .

[37]  Moni Naor,et al.  Rank aggregation methods for the Web , 2001, WWW '01.

[38]  W. Sharpe,et al.  Mean-Variance Analysis in Portfolio Choice and Capital Markets , 1987 .

[39]  Jayant Kalagnanam,et al.  A Computational Study of the Kemeny Rule for Preference Aggregation , 2004, AAAI.