Representation of utility difference proportions: matrices and consistency checking

Abstract: When making a good decision, people must evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each option, and take all the alternatives into consideration. But it’s always difficult for most of us. How to make a good decision and make a smart choice becomes more and more important in our daily life. In our thesis work, we have performed a pilot study within a research program in decision analysis regarding representation of utility difference proportion matrices, with the problem of utility aggregation in view.  We have proposed a matrix representation based on a map of maps and implemented it as a Java class. We have also defined a simple measure of inconsistency between utility difference proportions, and implemented this measure as a method in the matrix class. The function of the matrix class has been verified with some simple test programs.