Additive representations on rank-ordered sets. I: The algebraic approach (Q1184249)

The problem of using additive conjoint measurements on the rank- ordered subsets is considered. They represent the most important cases of subsets of Cartesian products, because many current approaches in decision making under uncertainty and/or risk can be described in terms of ranking associated outcomes. The main result presented is that additive conjoint measurements on subsets of Cartesian products have characteristics different from those valid for full Cartesian products. The difference appears when extreme alternatives, whose n-th coordinate is maximal or the first coordinate is minimal, are included into some rank-ordered subsets of the Cartesian product. It is proved that to preserve the results valid for the full Cartesian product to serve rank-ordered subsets the traditional Archimedean axiom from \textit{D. H. Krantz, R. D. Luce, P. Suppes} and \textit{A. Tversky}, Foundation of measurement. Vol. 1: Additive and polynomial representations (1971; Zbl 0232.02040), must be strengthened. As the Archimedean axiom requires that every bounded standard sequence has to be finite, it is shown that on rank-ordered subsets this condition is not strong enough to guarantee that additive representations are real-valued. The counterexample that shows the evidence of the need for such transformations of the Archimedean axiom conditions is presented for the two-dimensional case. The main results are formulated as theorems and propositions with explicit proofs are provided. Some further elucidations and examples that cover special cases are also presented.