Efficient computation of rankings from pairwise comparisons

M. E. J. Newman

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arXiv · 2207.00076

Efficient computation of rankings from pairwise comparisons

M. E. J. Newman

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Abstract

We study the ranking of individuals, teams, or objects, based on pairwise comparisons between them, using the Bradley-Terry model. Estimates of rankings within this model are commonly made using a simple iterative algorithm first introduced by Zermelo almost a century ago. Here we describe an alternative and similarly simple iteration that provably returns identical results but does so much faster -- over a hundred times faster in some cases. We demonstrate this algorithm with applications to a range of example data sets and derive a number of results regarding its convergence.

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M. E. J. Newman. 2022-06-30. Efficient computation of rankings from pairwise comparisons. https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.00076

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