An approach for preference ranking of alternatives (Q1090582)

The authors present a method for determining the preference of a set of alternatives based on pairwise quantitative comparisons. Considering, at least formally, the family of pairwise 'degrees of preference' obtained from the decision-maker, as conditional probabilities, the authors construct a probability measure they interpret as the 'relative preference' of each alternative over the rest. As the decision-maker is presumably not entirely coherent nor precise in his evaluations, the 'relative preference' is determined as a probability at minimal distance of the decision-maker's degrees of preference. The authors' approach as tested and compared to a few other algorithms on a set of 20 randomly generated multicriteria problems for which a 'true' utility function is assumed. Indications are also provided for selecting alternatives for pairwise comparisons.