On generalized Bonferroni mean operators for multi-criteria aggregation

We introduce the idea of multi-criteria aggregation functions and describe a number of properties desired in such functions. We emphasize the importance of having an aggregation function capture the expressed interrelationship between the criteria. A number of standard aggregation functions are introduced. We next introduce the Bonferroni mean operator. We provide an interpretation of this operator as involving a product of each argument with the average of the other arguments, a combined averaging and "anding" operator. This allows us to suggest generalizations of this operator by replacing the simple averaging by other mean type operators as well as associating differing importances with the arguments. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.