`socialranking`: A package for evaluating ordinal power relations in cooperative game theory
Jochen Staudacher, Stefano Moretti, Felix Fritz
(Hochschule Kempten, Université Paris Dauphine)
Contact: jochen.staudacher@hs-kempten.de
(Hochschule Kempten, Université Paris Dauphine)
Contact: jochen.staudacher@hs-kempten.de
2023-01-12
socialranking_pdf.Rmd
Abstract
This document gives a brief introduction to power relations and social ranking solutions aimed at ranking elements based on their contributions within coalitions. This document accompanies version 0.1.0 of the packagesocialranking
. ¶
Keywords: power relation, social ranking
solution, cooperative game theory, dominance, cp-majority,
Copeland, Kramer-Simpson, ordinal Banzhaf, dominance,
lexicographical excellence, relations.
Introduction
In the literature of cooperative games, the notion of power index [1–3] has been widely studied to analyze the ``influence” of individuals taking into account their ability to force a decision within groups or coalitions. In practical situations, however, the information concerning the strength of coalitions is hardly quantifiable. So, any attempt to numerically represent the influence of groups and individuals clashes with the complex and multi-attribute nature of the problem and it seems more realistic to represent collective decision-making mechanisms using an ordinal coalitional framework based on two main ingredients: a binary relation over groups or coalitions and a ranking over the individuals.
The main objective of the package socialranking
is to
provide answers for the general problem of how to compare the elements
of a finite set \(N\) given a ranking
over the elements of its power-set (the set of all possible subsets of
\(N\)). To do this, the package
socialranking
implements a portfolio of solutions from the
recent literature on social rankings [4–10].
Quick Start
A power relation (i.e, a ranking over subsets of a finite
set \(N\); see the Section on PowerRelation objects for a formal definition)
can be constructed using the newPowerRelation()
or
newPowerRelationFromString()
functions.
library(socialranking)
newPowerRelation(c(1,2), ">", 1, "~", c(), ">", 2)
## Elements: 1 2
## 12 > (1 ~ {}) > 2
newPowerRelationFromString("ab > a ~ {} > b")
## Elements: a b
## ab > (a ~ {}) > b
newPowerRelationFromString("12 > 1 ~ {} > 2", asWhat = as.numeric)
## Elements: 1 2
## 12 > (1 ~ {}) > 2
Functions used to analyze a given PowerRelation
object
can be grouped into three main categories:
- Comparison functions, only comparing two elements;
- Score functions, calculating the scores for each element;
-
Ranking functions, creating
SocialRankingSolution
objects.
Comparison and score functions are often used to evaluate a social ranking solution (see section on PowerRelation objects for a formal definition). Listed below are some of the most prominent functions and solutions introduced in the aforementioned papers.
These functions may be called as follows.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("ab > ac ~ bc > a ~ c > {} > b")
# a dominates b -> TRUE
dominates(pr, "a", "b")
## [1] TRUE
# b does not dominate a -> FALSE
dominates(pr, "b", "a")
## [1] FALSE
# calculate cumulative scores
scores <- cumulativeScores(pr)
# show score of element a
scores$a
## [1] 1 2 3 3 3
# performing a bunch of rankings
lexcelRanking(pr)
## a > b > c
## a > c > b
copelandRanking(pr)
## a > b ~ c
## a > b ~ c
## a ~ c > b
Finally an incidence matrix for all given coalitions can be
constructed using powerRelationMatrix(pr)
or
as.relation(pr)
from the relations
package
[11]. The incidence matrix may be
displayed using relations::relation_incidence()
.
rel <- relations::as.relation(pr)
rel
## A binary relation of size 7 x 7.
relations::relation_incidence(rel)
## Incidences:
## ab ac bc a c {} b
## ab 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
## ac 0 1 1 1 1 1 1
## bc 0 1 1 1 1 1 1
## a 0 0 0 1 1 1 1
## c 0 0 0 1 1 1 1
## {} 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
## b 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
PowerRelation
Objects
We first introduce some basic definitions on binary relations. Let \(X\) be a set. A set \(R \subseteq X \times X\) is said a binary relation on \(X\). For two elements \(x, y \in X\), \(xRy\) refers to their relation, more formally it means that \((x,y) \in R\). A binary relation \((x,y) \in R\) is said to be:
- reflexive, if for each \(x \in X, xRx\)
- transitive, if for each \(x, y, z \in X, xRy\) and \(yRz \Rightarrow xRz\)
- total, if for each \(x,y \in X, x \neq y \Rightarrow xRy\) or \(yRx\)
- symmetric, if for each \(x,y \in X,xRy \Leftrightarrow yRx\)
- asymmetric, if for each \(x,y \in X,(x,y) \in R \Rightarrow (y,x) \notin R\)
- antisymmetric, if for each \(x,y \in X,xRy \cap yRx \Rightarrow x=y\)
A preorder is defined as a reflexive and transitive relation. If it is total, it is called a total preorder. Additionally if it is antisymmetric, it is called a linear order.
Let \(N = \{1, 2, \dots, n\}\) be a finite set of elements, sometimes also called players. For some \(p \in \{1, \ldots, 2^n\}\), let \(\mathcal{P} = \{S_1, S_2, \dots, S_{p}\}\) be a set of coalitions such that \(S_i \subseteq N\) for all \(i \in \{1, \ldots, p\}\). Thus \(\mathcal{P} \subseteq 2^N\), where \(2^N\) denotes the power set of \(N\) (i.e., the set of all subsets or coalitions of \(N\)).
\(\mathcal{T}(N)\) denotes the set of all total preorders on \(N\), \(\mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) the set of all total preorders on \(\mathcal{P}\). A single total preorder \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) is said a power relation.
In a given power relation \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) on \(\mathcal{P} \subseteq 2^N\), its symmetric part is denoted by \(\sim\) (i.e., \(S \sim T\) if \(S \succeq T\) and \(T \succeq S\)), whereas its asymmetric part is denoted by \(\succ\) (i.e., \(S \succ T\) if \(S \succeq T\) and not \(T \succeq S\)). In other terms, for \(S \sim T\) we say that \(S\) is indifferent to \(T\), whereas for \(S \succ T\) we say that \(S\) is strictly better than \(T\).
Lastly for a given power relation in the form of \(S_1 \succeq S_2 \succeq \ldots \succeq S_m\), coalitions that are indifferent to one another can be grouped into equivalence classes \(\sum_i\) such that we get the quotient order \(\sum_1 \succ \sum_2 \succ \ldots \succ \sum_m\).
Let \(N=\{1,2\}\) be two players with its corresponding power set \(2^N = \{\{1,2\}, \{1\}, \{2\}, \emptyset\}\). The following power relation is given: \(\succeq = \{(\{1,2\},\{2\}), (\{2\}, \emptyset), (\emptyset, \{2\}), (\emptyset, \{1\})\}\). This power relation can be rewritten in a consecutive order as: \(\{1,2\} \succ \{2\} \sim \emptyset \succ \{1\}\). Its quotient order is formed by three equivalence classes \(\sum_1 = \{\{1,2\}\}, \sum_2 = \{\{2\}, \emptyset\},\) and \(\sum_3 = \{\{1\}\}\); so the quotient order of \(\succeq\) is such that \(\{\{1,2\}\} \succ \{\{2\}, \emptyset\} \succ \{\{1\}\}\).
A social ranking solution (also called social ranking or, simply, solution) on \(N\), is a function \(R: \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P}) \longrightarrow \mathcal{T}(N)\) associating to each power relation \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) a total preorder \(R(\succeq)\) (or \(R^\succeq\)) over the elements of \(N\). By this definition, the notion \(i R^\succeq j\) means that applying the social ranking solution to the power relation \(\succeq\) gives the result that \(i\) is ranked higher than or equal to \(j\).
Creating PowerRelation
Objects
A power relation in the socialranking
package is defined
to be reflexive, transitive and total. In designing the package it was
deemed logical to have the coalitions specified in a consecutive order,
as seen in Example 1. Each coalition in that order
is split either by a ">"
(left side strictly better) or
a "~"
(two coalitions indifferent to one another). The
following code chunk shows the power relation from Example 1 and how a correlating PowerRelation
object can be constructed.
library(socialranking)
pr <- newPowerRelation(c(1,2), ">", 2, "~", c(), ">", 1)
pr
## Elements: 1 2
## 12 > (2 ~ {}) > 1
class(pr)
## [1] "PowerRelation" "SingleCharElements"
Notice how coalitions such as \(\{1,2\}\) are written as 12
to
improve readability. Similarly the function
newPowerRelationFromString
saves some typing on the user’s
end by interpreting each character of a coalition as a separate player.
Note that spaces in that function are ignored.
newPowerRelationFromString("12 > 2~{} > 1", asWhat = as.numeric)
## Elements: 1 2
## 12 > (2 ~ {}) > 1
The compact notation is only done in PowerRelation
objects where every player is one digit or one character long. If this
is not the case, curly braces and commas are added where needed.
prLong <- newPowerRelation(
c("Alice", "Bob"), ">", "Bob", "~", c(), ">", "Alice"
)
prLong
## Elements: Alice Bob
## {Alice, Bob} > ({Bob} ~ {}) > {Alice}
class(prLong)
## [1] "PowerRelation"
Some may have spotted a "SingleCharElements"
class
missing in class(prLong)
that has been there in
class(pr)
. "SingleCharElements"
influences the
way coalitions are printed. If it is removed from
class(pr)
, the output will include the same curly braces
and commas displayed in prLong
.
## Elements: 1 2
## {1, 2} > ({2} ~ {}) > {1}
Internally a PowerRelation
is a list with four
attributes (see table below). Notice that every coalition vector is
turned into a set
object from the sets
package[12].
Since each coalition vector is turned into a set
,
coalitions such as c(1,2)
, c(2,1)
and
c(1,1,2,2)
are equivalent.
prAtts <- newPowerRelation(c(2,2,1,1,2), ">", c(1,1,1), "~", c())
prAtts
## Elements: 1 2
## 12 > (1 ~ {})
prAtts$elements
## [1] 1 2
prAtts$rankingCoalitions
## [[1]]
## {1, 2}
##
## [[2]]
## {1}
##
## [[3]]
## {}
prAtts$rankingComparators
## [1] ">" "~"
prAtts$equivalenceClasses
## [[1]]
## [[1]][[1]]
## {1, 2}
##
##
## [[2]]
## [[2]][[1]]
## {1}
##
## [[2]][[2]]
## {}
equivalenceClassIndex()
determines at which index \(i\) a coalition \(S \in \sum_i\).
equivalenceClassIndex(prAtts, c(2,1))
## [1] 1
equivalenceClassIndex(prAtts, 1)
## [1] 2
equivalenceClassIndex(prAtts, c())
## [1] 2
# are the given coalitions in the same equivalence class?
coalitionsAreIndifferent(prAtts, 1, c())
## [1] TRUE
coalitionsAreIndifferent(prAtts, 1, c(1,2))
## [1] FALSE
Manipulating PowerRelation
Objects
It is strongly discouraged to directly manipulate
PowerRelation
objects, since modifying one list or vector
entry would require updates on all attributes. Instead
newPowerRelation
offers two parameters
rankingCoalitions
and rankingComparators
, each
corresponding to the same named attributes of a
PowerRelation
object.
pr
## Elements: 1 2
## {1, 2} > ({2} ~ {}) > {1}
# reverse power ranking
newPowerRelation(
rankingCoalitions = rev(pr$rankingCoalitions),
rankingComparators = pr$rankingComparators
)
## Elements: 1 2
## 1 > ({} ~ 2) > 12
Note that rankingComparators
is optional. By default it
assumes rankingCoalitions
to be a linear order.
newPowerRelation(rankingCoalitions = rev(pr$rankingCoalitions))
## Elements: 1 2
## 1 > {} > 2 > 12
If the length of the rankingComparators
vector is
smaller or larger than the length of rankingCoalitions
, the
function silently fills in any gaps.
# if too short -> comparator values are repeated
newPowerRelation(
rankingCoalitions = as.list(1:9),
rankingComparators = "~"
)
## Elements: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
## (1 ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5 ~ 6 ~ 7 ~ 8 ~ 9)
newPowerRelation(
rankingCoalitions = as.list(letters[1:9]),
rankingComparators = c(">", "~", "~")
)
## Elements: a b c d e f g h i
## a > (b ~ c ~ d) > (e ~ f ~ g) > (h ~ i)
# if too long -> ignore excessive comparators
newPowerRelation(
rankingCoalitions = pr$rankingCoalitions,
rankingComparators = c("~", ">", "~", ">", ">", "~")
)
## Elements: 1 2
## (12 ~ 2) > ({} ~ 1)
Creating Power sets
As the number of elements \(n\)
increases, the number of possible coalitions increases to \(|2^N| = 2^n\). createPowerset
is a convenient function that not only creates a power set \(2^N\) which can be used to call
newPowerRelation
, but also formats the function call in
such a way that makes it easy to rearrange the ordering of the
coalitions. RStudio offers shortcuts Alt+Up or Alt+Down (Option+Up or
Option+Down on MacOS) to move one or multiple lines of code up or down
(see fig. below).
createPowerset(
c("a", "b", "c"),
writeLines = TRUE,
copyToClipboard = FALSE
)
## newPowerRelation(
## c("a", "b", "c"),
## ">", c("a", "b"),
## ">", c("a", "c"),
## ">", c("b", "c"),
## ">", c("a"),
## ">", c("b"),
## ">", c("c"),
## ">", c(),
## )

Using Alt+Up or Alt+Down to move one or more lines of code
If writeLines
and copyToClipboard
are both
set to FALSE
, the function instead returns a list only
containing coalition vectors. This list can be passed directly as
rankingCoalitions
parameter to
newPowerRelation
.
ps <- createPowerset(1:2, includeEmptySet = FALSE)
ps
## [[1]]
## [1] 1 2
##
## [[2]]
## [1] 1
##
## [[3]]
## [1] 2
newPowerRelation(rankingCoalitions = ps)
## Elements: 1 2
## 12 > 1 > 2
newPowerRelation(rankingCoalitions = createPowerset(letters[1:4]))
## Elements: a b c d
## abcd > abc > abd > acd > bcd > ab > ac > ad > bc > bd > cd > a > b > c > d > {}
SocialRankingSolution
Objects
The main goal of the socialranking
package is to rank
elements based on a given power ranking. More formally we try to map
\(R: \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P}) \rightarrow
\mathcal{T}(N)\), associating to each power relation \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) a
total preorder \(R(\succeq)\) (or \(R^\succeq\)) over the elements of \(N\).
In this context \(i R^\succeq j\)
tells us that, given a power relation \(\succeq\) and applying a social ranking
solution \(R(\succeq)\), \(i\) is ranked higher than or equal to \(j\). From here on out, >
and ~
also denote the asymmetric and the symmetric part of
a social ranking, respectively, \(i\)
>
\(j\) indicating that
\(i\) is strictly better than \(j\), whereas in \(i\) ~
\(j\), \(i\)
is indifferent to \(j\).
In section 3.1 we show how a general
SocialRankingSolution
object can be constructed using the
doRanking
function. In the following sections, we will
introduce the notion of dominance[4],
cumulative dominance[13] and CP-Majority
comparison[6] that lets us compare two
elements before diving into the social ranking solutions of the Ordinal
Banzhaf Index[5], Copeland-like and
Kramer-Simpson-like methods[10], and
lastly the Lexicographical Excellence Solution[9] (Lexcel) and the Dual Lexicographical
Excellence solution[14] (Dual Lexcel).
Creating SocialRankingSolution
objects
A SocialRankingSolution
object represents a total
preorder in \(\mathcal{T}(N)\) over the
elements of \(N\). Internally they are
saved as a list of vectors, each containing players that are indifferent
to one another. This is somewhat similar to the
equivalenceClasses
attribute in PowerRelation
objects.
The function doRanking
offers a generic way of creating
SocialRankingSolution
objects. Given a
PowerRelation
object and a sortable vector or list of
scores it determines the power relation between all players. Note that
length(scores) == length(powerRelation$elements)
must be
TRUE
. Additionally each index in scores
corresponds to the index in the sorted vector
powerRelation$elements
.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("abc > ab ~ ac > bc")
# pr$elements == c("a", "b", "c")
# we define some arbitrary score vector where "a" scores highest
# "b" and "c" both score 1, thus they are indifferent
scores <- c(100, 1, 1)
# doRanking(pr, scores)
# TODO
# we can also tell doRanking to punish higher scores
# doRanking(pr, scores, decreasing = FALSE)
By default elements are assumed to be indifferent to one another if
their scores are equal. Sometimes however other factors come into play
that make it non-obvious how to compare two scores. In those cases a
function comparing two scores can be passed that should return
TRUE
if the two scores are considered equal.
scores <- c(0, 20, 21)
# b and c are considered to be indifferent,
# because their score difference is less than 2
# doRanking(pr, scores, isIndifferent = function(a,b) abs(a-b) < 2)
# TODO
Comparison Functions
Comparison functions only compare two elements in a given power relation. They do not offer a social ranking solution. However in cases such as CP-Majority comparison, those comparison functions may be used to construct a social ranking solution in some particular cases.
Dominance
(Dominance [4]) Given a power relation \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) and two elements \(i,j \in N\), \(i\) dominates \(j\) in \(\succeq\) if \(S \cup \{i\} \succeq S \cup \{j\}\) for each \(S \in 2^{N\setminus \{i,j\}}\). \(i\) also strictly dominates \(j\) if there exists \(S \in 2^{N\setminus \{i,j\}}\) such that \(S \cup \{i\} \succ S \cup \{j\}\).
The implication is that for every coalition \(i\) and \(j\) can join, \(i\) has at least the same positive impact as \(j\).
The function dominates(pr, e1, e2)
only returns a
logical value TRUE
if e1
dominates
e2
, else FALSE
. Note that e1
not
dominating e2
does not indicate that
e2
dominates e1
, nor does it imply that
e1
is indifferent to e2
.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString(
"3 > 1 > 2 > 12 > 13 > 23",
asWhat = as.numeric
)
# 1 clearly dominates 2
dominates(pr, 1, 2)
## [1] TRUE
dominates(pr, 2, 1)
## [1] FALSE
# 3 does not dominate 1, nor does 1 dominate 3, because
# {}u3 > {}u1, but 2u1 > 2u3
dominates(pr, 1, 3)
## [1] FALSE
dominates(pr, 3, 1)
## [1] FALSE
# an element i dominates itself, but it does not strictly dominate itself
# because there is no Sui > Sui
dominates(pr, 1, 1)
## [1] TRUE
dominates(pr, 1, 1, strictly = TRUE)
## [1] FALSE
For any \(S \in 2^{N \setminus \{i,j\}}\), we can only compare \(S \cup \{i\} \succeq S \cup \{j\}\) if both \(S \cup \{i\}\) and \(S \cup \{j\}\) take part in the power relation.
Additionally, for \(S = \emptyset\),
we also want to compare \(\{i\} \succeq
\{j\}\). In some situations however a comparison between
singletons is not desired. For this reason the parameter
includeEmptySet
can be set to FALSE
such that
\(\emptyset \cup \{i\} \succeq \emptyset \cup
\{j\}\) is not considered in the CP-Majority comparison.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("ac > bc ~ b > a ~ abc > ab")
# FALSE because ac > bc, whereas b > a
dominates(pr, "a", "b")
## [1] FALSE
# TRUE because ac > bc, ignoring b > a comparison
dominates(pr, "a", "b", includeEmptySet = FALSE)
## [1] TRUE
Cumulative Dominance
When comparing two players \(i,j \in N\), instead of looking at particular coalitions \(S \in 2^{N \setminus \{i,j\}}\) they can join, we look at how many stronger coalitions they can form at each point. This property was originally introduced in [13] as a regular dominance axiom.
For a given power relation \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) and its corresponding quotient order \(\sum_1 \succ \dots \succ \sum_m\), the power of a player \(i\) is given by a vector \(\textrm{Score}_\textrm{Cumul}(i) \in \mathbb{N}^m\) where we cumulatively sum the amount of times \(i\) appears in \(\sum_k\) for each index \(k\).
(Cumulative Dominance Score) Given a power relation \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) and its quotient order \(\sum_1 \succ \dots \succ \sum_m\), the cumulative score vector \(\textrm{Score}_\textrm{Cumul}(i) \in \mathbb{N}^m\) of an element \(i \in N\) is given by:
\[\begin{equation} \textrm{Score}_\textrm{Cumul}(i) = \Big( \sum_{t=1}^k |\{S \in \textstyle \sum_t : i \in S\}|\Big)_{k \in \{1, \dots, m\}} \end{equation}\]
(Cumulative Dominance) Given two elements \(i,j \in N\), \(i\) cumulatively dominates \(j\) in \(\succeq\), if \(\textrm{Score}_\textrm{Cumul}(i)_k \geq \textrm{Score}_\textrm{Cumul}(j)_k\) for each \(k \in \{1, \dots, m\}\). \(i\) also strictly cumulatively dominates \(j\) if there exists a \(k\) such that \(\textrm{Score}_\textrm{Cumul}(i)_k > \textrm{Score}_\textrm{Cumul}(j)_k\).
For a given PowerRelation
object pr
and two
elements e1
and e2
,
cumulativeScores(pr)
returns the vectors described in
definition 2 for each element,
cumulativelyDominates(pr, e1, e2)
returns TRUE
or FALSE
based on definition 3.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("ab > (ac ~ bc) > (a ~ c) > {} > b")
cumulativeScores(pr)
## $a
## [1] 1 2 3 3 3
##
## $b
## [1] 1 2 2 2 3
##
## $c
## [1] 0 2 3 3 3
##
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "CumulativeScores"
# for each index k, $a[k] >= $b[k]
cumulativelyDominates(pr, "a", "b")
## [1] TRUE
# $a[3] > $b[3], therefore a also strictly dominates b
cumulativelyDominates(pr, "a", "b", strictly = TRUE)
## [1] TRUE
# $b[1] > $c[1], but $c[3] > $b[3]
# therefore neither b nor c dominate each other
cumulativelyDominates(pr, "b", "c")
## [1] FALSE
cumulativelyDominates(pr, "c", "b")
## [1] FALSE
Similar to the dominance property from our previous section, two elements not dominating one or the other does not indicate that they are indifferent.
CP-Majority comparison
The Ceteris Paribus Majority (CP-Majority) relation is a somewhat relaxed version of the dominance property. Instead of checking if \(S \cup \{i\} \succeq S \cup \{j\}\) for all \(S \in 2^{N \setminus \{i,j\}}\), the CP-Majority relation \(iR^\succeq_\textrm{CP}j\) holds if the number of times \(S \cup \{i\} \succeq S \cup \{j\}\) is greater than or equal to the number of times \(S \cup \{j\} \succeq S \cup \{i\}\).
(CP-Majority [6]) Let \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\). The Ceteris Paribus majority relation is the binary relation \(R^\succeq_\textrm{CP} \subseteq N \times N\) such that for all \(i,j \in N\):
\[\begin{equation} iR^\succeq_\textrm{CP}j \Leftrightarrow d_{ij}(\succeq) \geq d_{ji}(\succeq) \end{equation}\]
where \(d_{ij}(\succeq)\) represents the cardinality of the set \(D_{ij}(\succeq)\), the set of all coalitions \(S \in 2^{N \setminus \{i,j\}}\) for which \(S \cup \{i\} \succeq S \cup \{j\}\).
cpMajorityComparisonScore(pr, e1, e2)
calculates the two
scores \(d_{ij}(\succeq)\) and \(-d_{ji}(\succeq)\). Notice the minus sign -
that way we can use the sum of both values to determine the relation
between e1
and e2
.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("ab > (ac ~ bc) > (a ~ c) > {} > b")
cpMajorityComparisonScore(pr, "a", "b")
## [1] 2 -1
cpMajorityComparisonScore(pr, "b", "a")
## [1] 1 -2
if(sum(cpMajorityComparisonScore(pr, "a", "b")) >= 0) {
print("a >= b")
} else {
print("b > a")
}
## [1] "a >= b"
As a slight variation the logical parameter strictly
calculates \(d_{ij}(\succ)\) and \(-d_{ji}(\succ)\), the number of coalitions
\(S \in 2^{N\setminus \{i,j\}}\) where
\(S\cup\{i\}\succ S\cup\{j\}\).
# Now (ac ~ bc) is not counted
cpMajorityComparisonScore(pr, "a", "b", strictly = TRUE)
## [1] 1 0
# Notice that the sum is still the same
sum(cpMajorityComparisonScore(pr, "a", "b", strictly = FALSE)) ==
sum(cpMajorityComparisonScore(pr, "a", "b", strictly = TRUE))
## [1] TRUE
Coincidentally, cpMajorityComparisonScore
with
strictly = TRUE
can be used to determine if e1
(strictly) dominates e2
.
cpMajorityComparisonScore
should be used for simple and
quick calculations. The more comprehensive function
cpMajorityComparison(pr, e1, e2)
does the same
calculations, but in the process retains more information about all the
comparisons that might be interesting to a user, i.e., the set \(D_{ij}(\succeq)\) and \(D_{ji}(\succeq)\) as well as the relation
\(iR^\succeq_\textrm{CP}j\). See the
documentation for a full list of available data.
# extract more information in cpMajorityComparison
cpMajorityComparison(pr, "a", "b")
## a > b
## D_ab = {c, {}}
## D_ba = {c}
## Score of a = 2
## Score of b = 1
# with strictly set to TRUE, coalition c does
# neither appear in D_ab nor in D_ba
cpMajorityComparison(pr, "a", "b", strictly = TRUE)
## a > b
## D_ab = {{}}
## D_ba = {}
## Score of a = 1
## Score of b = 0
The CP-Majority relation can generate cycles, which is the reason that it is not offered as a social ranking solution. Instead we will introduce the Copeland-like method and Kramer-Simpson-like method that make use of the CP-Majority functions to determine a power relation between elements. For further readings on CP-Majority, see [7] and [10].
Social Ranking Solutions
Ordinal Banzhaf
The Ordinal Banzhaf Score is a vector defined by the principle of marginal contributions. Intuitively speaking, if a player joining a coalition causes it to move up in the ranking, it can be interpreted as a positive contribution. On the contrary a negative contribution means that participating causes the coalition to go down in the ranking.
(Ordinal marginal contribution [5]) Let \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\). For a given element \(i \in N\), its ordinal marginal contribution \(m_i^S(\succeq)\) with right to a coalition \(S \in \mathcal{P}\) is defined as:
\[\begin{equation} m_i^S(\succeq) = \begin{cases} \hphantom{-}1 & \textrm{if } S \cup \{i\} \succ S\\ -1 & \textrm{if } S \succ S \cup \{i\}\\ \hphantom{-}0 & \textrm{otherwise} \end{cases} \end{equation}\]
(Ordinal Banzhaf relation) Let \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\). The Ordinal Banzhaf relation is the binary relation \(R^\succeq_\textrm{Banz} \subseteq N \times N\) such that for all \(i,j \in N\):
\[\begin{equation} iR^\succeq_\textrm{Banz}j \Leftrightarrow \text{Score}_\text{Banz}(i) \geq \text{Score}_\text{Banz}(j), \end{equation}\]
where \(\text{Score}_\text{Banz}(i) = \sum_{S} m^S_i(\succeq)\) for all \(S \in N\setminus\{i\}\).
Note that if \(S \cup \{i\} \notin \mathcal{P}\), \(m_i^S(\succeq) = 0\).
The function ordinalBanzhafScores
returns two numbers
for each element: the number of coalitions \(S\) where a player’s contribution has a
positive impact, and the number of coalitions \(S\) where a player’s contribution has a
negative impact. These two numbers are added and elements are ranked
highest to lowest.
pr <- newPowerRelation(
c(1,2),
">", c(1),
">", c(2)
)
# both players 1 and 2 have an Ordinal Banzhaf Score of 1
# therefore they are indifferent to one another
ordinalBanzhafScores(pr)
## $`1`
## [1] 1 0
##
## $`2`
## [1] 1 0
##
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "OrdinalBanzhafScores"
## 1 ~ 2
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("ab > a > {} > b")
# player b has a negative impact on the empty set
# -> player b's score is 1 - 1 = 0
# -> player a's score is 2 - 0 = 2
sapply(ordinalBanzhafScores(pr), function(score) sum(score))
## a b
## 2 0
## a > b
Copeland-like method
The Copeland-like method of ranking elements based on the CP-Majority rule is strongly inspired by the Copeland score from social choice theory[15]. The score of an element \(i \in N\) is determined by the amount of the pairwise CP-Majority winning comparisons \(i R^\succeq_\textrm{CP} j\), minus the number of all losing comparisons \(j R^\succeq_\textrm{CP} i\) against all other elements \(j \in N \setminus \{i\}\).
(Copeland-like relation [10]) Let \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\). The Copeland-like relation is the binary relation \(R^\succeq_\textrm{Cop} \subseteq N \times N\) such that for all \(i,j \in N\):
\[\begin{equation} iR^\succeq_\textrm{Cop}j \Leftrightarrow \text{Score}_\text{Cop}(i) \geq \text{Score}_\text{Cop}(j), \end{equation}\]
where \(\text{Score}_\text{Cop}(i) = |\{j \in N \setminus \{i\}: d_{ij}(\succeq) \geq d_{ji}(\succeq)\}| - |\{j \in N \setminus \{i\}: d_{ij}(\succeq) \leq d_{ji}(\succeq)\}|\)
copelandScores(pr)
returns two numerical values for each
element, a positive number for the winning comparisons (shown in \(\text{Score}_\text{Cop}(i)\) on the left)
and a negative number for the losing comparisons (in \(\text{Score}_\text{Cop}(i)\) on the
right).
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("(abc ~ ab ~ c ~ a) > (b ~ bc) > ac")
scores <- copelandScores(pr)
# Based on CP-Majority, a>=b and a>=c (+2), but b>=a (-1)
scores$a
## [1] 2 -1
sapply(copelandScores(pr), sum)
## a b c
## 1 0 -1
copelandRanking(pr)
## a > b > c
Kramer-Simpson-like method
Strongly inspired by the Kramer-Simpson method of social choice theory[16, 17], elements are ranked inversely to their greatest pairwise defeat over all possible CP-Majority comparisons.
(Kramer-Simpson-like relation [10]) Let \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\). The Kramer-Simpson-like relation is the binary relation \(R^\succeq_\textrm{KS} \subseteq N \times N\) such that for all \(i,j \in N\):
\[\begin{equation} iR^\succeq_\textrm{KS}j \Leftrightarrow \text{Score}_\text{KS}(i) \leq \text{Score}_\text{KS}(j), \end{equation}\]
where \(\text{Score}_\text{KS}(i) = \max_j d_{ji}(\succeq)\) for all \(j \in N \setminus \{i\}\).
kramerSimpsonScores(pr)
returns a single numerical value
for each element, which sorted lowest to highest gives us the ranking
solution.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("(abc ~ ab ~ c ~ a) > (b ~ bc) > ac")
unlist(kramerSimpsonScores(pr))
## a b c
## 0 0 1
## a ~ b > c
There is a small caveat to Definition 8. By default this function does not compare \(d_{ii}(\succeq)\). In other terms, the score of every element is the maximum CP-Majority comparison score against all other elements.
This is slightly different from the definition found in [10], where the CP-Majority comparison \(d_{ii}(\succeq)\) is also considered. Since by definition \(d_{ii}(\succeq) = 0\), the Kramer-Simpson scores in those cases will never be negative, possibly discarding valuable information.
To still account for the original definition in [10], the functions
kramerSimpsonScores
and kramerSimpsonRanking
offer a compIvsI
parameter that can be set to
TRUE
if one wishes for \(d_{ii}(\succeq)\) to be included in the
comparisons.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString(
"b > (a ~ c) > ab > (ac ~ bc) > {} > abc"
)
kramerSimpsonRanking(pr)
## b > a > c
# notice how b's score is negative
unlist(kramerSimpsonScores(pr))
## a b c
## 1 -1 2
kramerSimpsonScores(pr, elements = "b", compIvsI = TRUE)
## $b
## [1] 0
##
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "KramerSimpsonScores"
Lexicographical Excellence Solution
The idea behind the lexicographical excellence solution (Lexcel) is to reward elements appearing more frequently in higher ranked equivalence classes.
For a given power relation \(\succeq\) and its quotient order \(\sum_1 \succ \dots \succ \sum_m\), we denote by \(i_k\) the number of coalitions in \(\sum_k\) containing \(i\):
\[\begin{equation} i_k = |\{S \in \textstyle \sum_k: i \in S\}| \end{equation}\]
for \(k \in \{1, \dots, m\}\). Now, let \(\text{Score}_\text{Lex}(i)\) be the \(m\)-dimensional vector \(\text{Score}_\text{Lex}(i) = (i_1, \dots, i_m)\) associated to \(\succeq\). Consider the lexicographic order \(\geq_\textrm{Lex}\) among vectors \(\mathbf{i}\) and \(\mathbf{j}\): \(\mathbf{i} \geq_\textrm{Lex} \mathbf{j}\) if either \(\mathbf{i} = \mathbf{j}\) or there exists \(t : i_r = j_r, r \in \{1,\dots,t-1\}\), and \(i_t > j_t\).
(Lexicographic-Excellence relation [8]) Let \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\) with its corresponding quotient order \(\sum_1 \succ \dots \succ \sum_m\). The Lexicographic-Excellence relation is the binary relation \(R^\succeq_\textrm{Lex} \subseteq N \times N\) such that for all \(i,j \in N\):
\[\begin{equation} iR^\succeq_\textrm{Lex}j \Leftrightarrow \text{Score}_\text{Lex}(i) \geq_{\textrm{Lex}} \text{Score}_\text{Lex}(j) \end{equation}\]
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString(
"12 > (123 ~ 23 ~ 3) > (1 ~ 2) > 13",
asWhat = as.numeric
)
# show the number of times an element appears in each equivalence class
# e.g. 3 appears 3 times in [[2]] and 1 time in [[4]]
lapply(pr$equivalenceClasses, unlist)
## [[1]]
## [1] 1 2
##
## [[2]]
## [1] 1 2 3 2 3 3
##
## [[3]]
## [1] 1 2
##
## [[4]]
## [1] 1 3
lexScores <- lexcelScores(pr)
for(i in names(lexScores))
paste0("Lexcel score of element ", i, ": ", lexScores[i])
# at index 1, element 2 ranks higher than 3
lexScores['2'] > lexScores['3']
## [1] TRUE
# at index 2, element 2 ranks higher than 1
lexScores['2'] > lexScores['1']
## [1] TRUE
lexcelRanking(pr)
## 2 > 1 > 3
For some generalizations of the Lexcel solution see also [9].
Lexcel score vectors are very similar to the cumulative score vectors
(see section on Cumulative Dominance) in that
the number of times an element appears in a given equivalence class is
of interest. In fact, applying the base function cumsum
on
an element’s lexcel score gives us its cumulative score.
lexcelCumulated <- lapply(lexScores, cumsum)
cumulScores <- cumulativeScores(pr)
paste0(names(lexcelCumulated), ": ", lexcelCumulated, collapse = ', ')
## [1] "1: 1:4, 2: c(1, 3, 4, 4), 3: c(0, 3, 3, 4)"
## [1] "1: 1:4, 2: c(1, 3, 4, 4), 3: c(0, 3, 3, 4)"
Dual Lexicographical Excellence Solution
Similar to the Lexcel ranking, the Dual Lexcel also uses the Lexcel score vectors from definition 9 to establish a ranking. However, instead of rewarding higher frequencies in high ranking coalitions, it punishes higher frequencies in lower ranking coalitions, or, it punishes mediocrity[14].
Take the values \(i_k\) for \(k \in \{1, \dots, m\}\) and the Lexcel score vector \(\text{Score}_\text{Lex}(i)\) from section Lexicographical Excellence Solution. Consider the dual lexicographical order \(\geq_\textrm{DualLex}\) among vectors \(\mathbf{i}\) and \(\mathbf{j}\): \(\mathbf{i} \geq_\textrm{DualLex} \mathbf{j}\) if either \(\mathbf{i} = \mathbf{j}\) or there exists \(t: i_t < j_t\) and \(i_r = j_r, r\in\{t+1, \dots, m\}\).
(Dual Lexicographical-Excellence relation [14]) Let \(\succeq \in \mathcal{T}(\mathcal{P})\). The Dual Lexicographic-Excellence relation is the binary relation \(R^\succeq_\textrm{DualLex} \subseteq N \times N\) such that for all \(i,j \in N\):
\[\begin{equation} iR^\succeq_\textrm{DualLex}j \Leftrightarrow \text{Score}_\text{Lex}(i) \geq_\textrm{DualLex} \text{Score}_\text{Lex}(j) \end{equation}\]
The S3 class LexcelScores
does not account for Dual
Lexcel comparisons. Instead -rev(x)
is called on a Lexcel
score vector x
such that the resulting comparisons produces
a Dual Lexcel ranking solution.
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString(
"12 > (123 ~ 23 ~ 3) > (1 ~ 2) > 13",
asWhat = as.numeric
)
lexScores <- lexcelScores(pr)
# in regular Lexcel, 1 scores higher than 3
lexScores['1'] > lexScores['3']
## [1] TRUE
# turn Lexcel score into Dual Lexcel score
dualLexScores <- structure(
lapply(lexcelScores(pr), function(r) -rev(r)),
class = 'LexcelScores'
)
# now 1 scores lower than 3
dualLexScores['1'] > dualLexScores['3']
## [1] FALSE
# element 2 comes out at the top in both Lexcel and Dual Lexcel
lexcelRanking(pr)
## 2 > 1 > 3
## 2 > 3 > 1
Relations
Incidence Matrix
In our vignette we focused more on the intuitive aspects of power relations and social ranking solutions. To reiterate, a power relation is a total preorder, or a reflexive and transitive relation \(\succeq \in \mathcal{P} \times \mathcal{P}\), where \(\sim\) denotes the symmetric part and \(\succ\) its asymmetric part.
A power relation can be viewed as an incidence matrix \((b_{ij}) = B \in \{0,1\}^{|\mathcal{P}| \times |\mathcal{P}|}\). Given two coalitions \(i, j \in \mathcal{P}\), if \(iRj\) then \(b_{ij} = 1\), else \(0\).
With help of the relations
package, the functions
relations::as.relation(pr)
and
powerRelationMatrix(pr)
turn a PowerRelation
object into a relation
object. relations
then
offers ways to display the relation
object as an incidence
matrix with relation_incidence(rel)
and to test basic
properties such relation_is_linear_order(rel)
,
relation_is_acyclic(rel)
and
relation_is_antisymmetric(rel)
(see relations
package for more [11]).
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("ab > a > {} > b")
rel <- relations::as.relation(pr)
relations::relation_incidence(rel)
## Incidences:
## ab a {} b
## ab 1 1 1 1
## a 0 1 1 1
## {} 0 0 1 1
## b 0 0 0 1
c(
relations::relation_is_acyclic(rel),
relations::relation_is_antisymmetric(rel),
relations::relation_is_linear_order(rel),
relations::relation_is_complete(rel),
relations::relation_is_reflexive(rel),
relations::relation_is_transitive(rel)
)
## [1] TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE
Note that the columns and rows are sorted by their names in
relation_domain(rel)
, hence why each name is preceded by
the ordering number.
# a power relation where coalitions {1} and {2} are indifferent
pr <- newPowerRelationFromString("12 > (1 ~ 2)", asWhat = as.numeric)
rel <- relations::as.relation(pr)
# we have both binary relations {1}R{2} as well as {2}R{1}
relations::relation_incidence(rel)
## Incidences:
## 12 1 2
## 12 1 1 1
## 1 0 1 1
## 2 0 1 1
# FALSE
c(
relations::relation_is_acyclic(rel),
relations::relation_is_antisymmetric(rel),
relations::relation_is_linear_order(rel),
relations::relation_is_complete(rel),
relations::relation_is_reflexive(rel),
relations::relation_is_transitive(rel)
)
## [1] FALSE FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE
Cycles and Transitive Closure
A cycle in a power relation exists, if there is one coalition \(S \in 2^N\) that appears twice. For example, in \(\{1,2\} \succ (\{1\} \sim \emptyset) \succ \{1,2\}\), the coalition \(\{1,2\}\) appears at the beginning and at the end of the power relation.
Properly handling power relations and calculating social ranking solutions with cycles is somewhat ill-defined, hence a warning message is shown as soon as one is created.
newPowerRelation(c(1,2), ">", 2, ">", 1, "~", 2, ">", c(1,2))
## Warning in newPowerRelation(c(1, 2), ">", 2, ">", 1, "~", 2, ">", c(1, 2)): Found the following duplicates. Did you mean to introduce cycles?
## {2}
## {1, 2}
## Elements: 1 2
## 12 > 2 > (1 ~ 2) > 12
Recall that a power relation is transitive, meaning for three coalitions \(x, y, z \in 2^N\), if \(xRy\) and \(yRz\), then \(xRz\). If we introduce cycles, we pretty much introduce symmetry. Assume we have the power relation \(x \succ y \succ x\). Then, even though \(xRy\) and \(yRx\) are defined as the asymmetric part of the power relation \(\succeq\), together they form the symmetric power relation \(x \sim y\).
transitiveClosure(pr)
is a function that turns a power
relation with cycles into one without one. In the process of removing
duplicate coalitions, it turns all asymmectric relations within a cycle
into symmetric relations.
pr <- suppressWarnings(newPowerRelation(1, '>', 2, '>', 1))
pr
## Elements: 1 2
## 1 > 2 > 1
## Elements: 1 2
## (1 ~ 2)
# two cycles, (1>3>1) and (2>23>2)
pr <- suppressWarnings(
newPowerRelationFromString(
"1 > 3 > 1 > 2 > 23 > 2",
asWhat = as.numeric
)
)
transitiveClosure(pr)
## Elements: 1 2 3
## (1 ~ 3) > (2 ~ 23)
# overlapping cycles
pr <- suppressWarnings(
newPowerRelationFromString("c > ac > b > ac > (a ~ b) > abc")
)
transitiveClosure(pr)
## Elements: a b c
## c > (ac ~ b ~ a) > abc