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Logical Decisions - Classweb

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Interpreting the Ranking Results<br />

LDW's ranking results are presented in terms of utilities. You<br />

should be careful when interpreting these utilities.<br />

Most importantly, the absolute size of the utility numbers is not<br />

meaningful. Thus, an alternative with a utility of .98 in one<br />

analysis is not inherently better than an alternative with a utility<br />

of .75 in another analysis.<br />

You should only compare the utilities from a particular analysis<br />

with each other.<br />

It is easy to change the sizes of the utility numbers by changing<br />

the measures' ranges. However, these types of changes will not<br />

change the alternatives' rank ordering if you adjust the weights<br />

properly.<br />

Utilities can be adjusted by adding a constant to all of the utilities<br />

or by multiplying all of the utilities by a constant. In<br />

mathematical terms, utilities are unique up to a linear<br />

transformation. Scales like utility with this property are called<br />

interval scales.<br />

One type of comparison that is possible between alternatives is<br />

changes in utilities. If alternative A has a utility of 0.5, alternative<br />

B has a utility of 0.6 and alternative C has a utility of 0.8, not only<br />

can you say that alternative C is preferred to alternatives A and B,<br />

you can also say that the increase in desirability from B to C is<br />

greater than the increase from A to B.<br />

Although utilities generally range from zero to one, occasionally<br />

an alternative will have a ranking outside this range, either<br />

negative or greater than one. There is nothing wrong with this. It<br />

just means that the alternative has one or more levels outside the<br />

ranges of the measures, and that LDW has extrapolated the<br />

utilities for these measures.<br />

Section 9 -- In Depth 9-65

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