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Auteurs principaux: Greco, Salvatore, Siraj, Sajid, Lundy, Michele
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2021
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Accès en ligne:https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.01731
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author Greco, Salvatore
Siraj, Sajid
Lundy, Michele
author_facet Greco, Salvatore
Siraj, Sajid
Lundy, Michele
contents Eliciting preferences from human judgements is inherently imprecise, yet most decision analysis methods force a single priority vector from pairwise comparisons, discarding the information embedded in inconsistencies. We instead leverage inconsistency to characterise preference uncertainty by examining all priority vectors consistent with the decision maker's judgements. Spanning tree analysis enumerates combinations of evaluation and weighting vectors from pairwise comparison subsets, each yielding a distinct preference vector and collectively defining a distribution over possible preference orderings. Since exponential growth renders complete enumeration prohibitive, we propose a stochastic random walk sampling approach with sample sizes formally established via statistical sampling theory. This enables two key metrics: Pairwise Winning Indices (PWIs), the probability one alternative is preferred to another, and Rank Acceptability Indices (RAIs), the probability an alternative attains a given rank. A notable advantage is applicability to incomplete pairwise comparisons, common in large-scale problems. We validate the methodology against complete enumeration on a didactic example, then demonstrate scalability on a telecommunications backbone infrastructure selection case study involving billions of spanning tree combinations. The approach yields probabilistic insights into preference robustness and ranking uncertainty, supporting informed decisions without the burden of exact enumeration.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2107_01731
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Preference Analysis Using Random Spanning Trees: A Stochastic Sampling Approach to Inconsistent Pairwise Comparisons
Greco, Salvatore
Siraj, Sajid
Lundy, Michele
General Economics
Economics
Systems and Control
Eliciting preferences from human judgements is inherently imprecise, yet most decision analysis methods force a single priority vector from pairwise comparisons, discarding the information embedded in inconsistencies. We instead leverage inconsistency to characterise preference uncertainty by examining all priority vectors consistent with the decision maker's judgements. Spanning tree analysis enumerates combinations of evaluation and weighting vectors from pairwise comparison subsets, each yielding a distinct preference vector and collectively defining a distribution over possible preference orderings. Since exponential growth renders complete enumeration prohibitive, we propose a stochastic random walk sampling approach with sample sizes formally established via statistical sampling theory. This enables two key metrics: Pairwise Winning Indices (PWIs), the probability one alternative is preferred to another, and Rank Acceptability Indices (RAIs), the probability an alternative attains a given rank. A notable advantage is applicability to incomplete pairwise comparisons, common in large-scale problems. We validate the methodology against complete enumeration on a didactic example, then demonstrate scalability on a telecommunications backbone infrastructure selection case study involving billions of spanning tree combinations. The approach yields probabilistic insights into preference robustness and ranking uncertainty, supporting informed decisions without the burden of exact enumeration.
title Preference Analysis Using Random Spanning Trees: A Stochastic Sampling Approach to Inconsistent Pairwise Comparisons
topic General Economics
Economics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.01731