The pairwise comparison method is an interesting technique for building a global ranking from binary comparisons. In fact, some web search engines use this method to quantify the importance of a set of web sites.
The purpose of this paper is to search a set of priority weights from the preference information contained in a general pairwise comparison matrix; i.e., a matrix without consistency and reciprocity properties. For this purpose, we consider an approximation methodology within a distance-based framework. In this context, Goal Programming is introduced as a flexible tool for computing priority weights.
Keywords: ranking theory; pairwise comparison; distance-based methods; goal programming;
AMS: 91B08; 90B50; 90C29;
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