User Manual User Manual
When working in the Fixed Par. page, the user may edit the performances of the profiles (reference, often fictititious alternatives that separate two consecutive categories), as well as the thresholds assiciated with the criteria (which may vary from profile to profile). When there are NCat categories, there will exist NCat-1 profiles.
The user may change the size of the grid cells and the size of the font by using the Height, Width and Font size buttons. The size of the area reserved for the inputs may be enlarged by dragging the line that divides the window in two parts. If the size of the left area of the window becomes smaller than the grid then scrollbars will appear. There may be cells smaller than its contents. In this case the contents appear truncated, but the users may see them entirely if they rest the mouse (without clicking) over one of such cells.
The performances of the profiles may be directly input in the corresponding cells. A row staring with g(bi) refers to the i-th profile. g(b1) separates the two worst categories, Cat1 and Cat2; g(b2) separates Cat2 and Cat3; and so forth. The rows starting with qi refer to the indifference thresholds for the i-th profile, and the rows starting with pi refer to the preference thresholds for the i-th profile. The preference threshold for a given criterion cannot be less than the corresponding indifference threshold.
By default IRIS is prepared to accept veto thresholds. To disable veto for a particular criterion the user may place the value of zero (which is hidden) for the veto threshold of that criterion. The user may also disable/enable veto for all the criteria by selecting/unselecting the button “Use vj” (see figure). When “Use vj” is not selected, IRIS considers s(ai,bh) = c(ai,bh). The user may choose to work with discordance thresholds also, instead of letting them take the default value uj(bh) = 0.25 pj(bh) + 0.75 vj(bh). To enable/disable the use of explicit discordance thresholds the user may select/unselect the button “Use uj”. This button is available only when the button “Use vj” is selected. As for the veto thresholds, discordance thresholds with value 0 are ignored and hidden.
The last row in the grid indicates if the preference increases or decreases with the performances. If the value is 1, then the higher the performance, the better (the criteria is one to be maximized, such as "customer satisfaction"). If the value is -1, then the lower the performance, the better (the criteria is one to be minimized, such as "fuel consumption")
You may navigate between cells using your mouse or the keyboard arrow keys. All input must be numerical, either positive or negative values, either integer or not (the decimal point is ".", regardless of Window's settings). The performance cells cannot be blank: zero values must be explicitly inserted as a number.
The user may change the number of categories, either creating new ones (by splitting existing categories) or deleting some of them (by merging consecutive categories). The Categories menu and the pop-up menu offer the commands to perform this.
The user may change the number of alternatives, either creating new ones or deleting some of them. The Actions menu and the pop-up menu offer the commands to perform this.