AN ALGORITHM FOR MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD RANKING AND SLATER'S i FROM PAIRED COMPARISONS

The linear programming solution of the maximum likelihood ranking from paired comparisons problem, due to DeCani (1969), is considered. It is noted that Boolean methods exist for the solution of linear programmes in binary variables. The pseudo-Boolean programming method of Hammer & Rudeanu (1968) is applied to DeCani's formulation and also to the problem of finding Slater's i. It is suggested that the algorithm is usually efficient for k-replicated paired comparisons data but not for the single replicate experiment.