Fuzzy Optimization and Decision Making, 3, 93–107, 2004

2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in The Netherlands.

Generalized OWA Aggregation Operators

RONALD R. YAGER yager@panix.com
Machine Intelligence Institute, Iona College, New Rochelle, NY 10801, USA

Abstract. We extend the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator to a provide a new class of
operators called the generalized OWA (GOWA) operators. These operators add to the OWA operator an
additional parameter controlling the power to which the argument values are raised. We look at some
special cases of these operators. One important case corresponds to the generalized mean and another
special case is the ordered weighted geometric operator.

Keywords: aggregation, generalized mean, fuzzy sets, OWA operators

1. Introduction

The ordered weighted averaging operator introduced in Yager (1988) provides a

parameterized family of aggregation operators which have been used in many
applications (Yager and Kacprzyk (1997)). In this work we provide a generalization
of this OWA operator by combining it with the generalized mean operator (Dyck-
hoff and Pedrycz (1984)). This combination leads to a class of operators which we
denote as the generalized ordered weighted averaging (GOWA) operators. Here we
investigate some properties of these new operators.

2. GOWA Operators

The OWA operator is defined by

X
n
Fða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ wj bj
j¼1

where bj is thePjth largest of the ai and wj are a collection of weights such that
wj 2 [0,1] and nj¼1 wj ¼ 1.
A convenient vector expression of this aggregation operator can be obtained if
we let W be an n-dimension vector whose components are the wj and let B be
an n-dimension vector whose components are the bj . We call W the weighting vec-
tor and B the ordered argument vector. Using these vectors we can express
Fða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ WT B.
By selecting different manifestations of W we can implement different aggrega-
tions. Particularly notable among the operators that can be obtained are the Max,
94 YAGER

Min and the simple average. These are respectively obtained by the vectors W
where
w1 ¼ 1 and wj ¼ 0 for j 6¼ 1, W
where wn ¼ 1 and wj ¼ 0 for j 6¼ n, and WA where
wj ¼ 1n. Yager (1993) discuses various different examples of weighting vectors.
It has been shown (Yager (1988)) that the OWA operator is a mean operator: it is
symmetric, monotonic and bounded, Mini ½ai   Fða1 ; . . . ; an Þ  Maxi ½ai . It is also
idempotent, Fða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ a when ai ¼ a for all i.
While the OWA operator can take its arguments values from the real line an
important special case occurs when the arguments are drawn from the unit interval,
I ¼ ½0; 1. In this case F : In ! I. It is this special case we shall focus on.
We now introduce a class of aggregation operator which we shall call the gene-
ralized OWA operators. We shall denote these as GOWA operators.

Definition A mapping M : In ! I is called a generalized ordered weighted aggrega-

tion (GOWA) operator of dimension n if
!1=k
X
n
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ wj bkj
j¼1

P
where, wj are a collection of weights satisfying wj 2 ½0; 1 and nj¼1 wj ¼ 1; k is a
parameter such that k 2 ½1; 1; bj is the jth largest of the ai .
Using vector notation we can express this as Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ ðWT Bk Þ1=k where W
and B are the vectors introduced earlier. In order to emphasize the parameters W
and k at times we shall indicate this operator as MW=k ða1 ; . . . ; an Þ.
Two special cases are of great significance. First is the case when k ¼ 1, here we get
X
n
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ w j bj ¼ W T B
j¼1

which is the usual OWA operator. The other important special case is when wj ¼ 1n.
In this case
!1=k
X
n
1
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ akj
j¼1
n

This is the generalized mean operator discussed by Dyckhoff and Pedrycz (1984). We
note these are also mean operators: they are symmetric, monotonic and bounded.
Before investigating more special cases we look at some properties of the GOWA
operators. First we see that the GOWA operator is commutative, if P is any per-
mutation then

Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ MðaPð1Þ ; . . . ; aPðnÞ Þ:

This implies that the initial indexing of the arguments does not matter.
GOWA AGGREGATION OPERATORS 95

We easily see that it is an idempotent operator if aj ¼ a for all j then

!1=k
X
n
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ wj ak ¼ ðak Þ1=k ¼ a
j¼1

Next we establish the monotonicity of these operators.

THEOREM Mða1 ; . . . ; an ) is monotonic, Mða~1 ; . . . ; a~n Þ  Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ if a~i  ai for

all i.

Proof: We prove the monotonicity in two steps.

(1) Let Be and B be the associated ordered argument vectors with component b~j and
bj respectively. Since a~i  ai
it is the case ~
Pn 1=kthat bj  bj for all j.
k
(2) Consider now the term f ¼ j¼1 wj bj we now
Pshow thatit is monotonic in
1 n k
bj . First we take the natural log of f, log ½f ¼ k log j¼1 wj bj and then we take
the derivative with respect to bj

d log f 1 kwj b1k

j wj b1k
j
¼ Pn ¼ Pn 0
dbj k j¼1 wj b1k
j j¼1 j bj
w 1k

of
since d db
log f
j
 0 then ob j
 0. Furthermore since bj is monotonic with respect to the ai
then the result follows.
The boundness of Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ can easily be established. Since aj  Maxi ½ai  ¼ a

from

P the monotonicity
1=k we get Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ  Mða
; . . . ; a
Þ. Since Mða
; . . . ; a
Þ ¼
n
k
j¼1 wj a ¼ a
then Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ  Maxj ðaj Þ. Similarly we can show that
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ  Mini ½ai . Thus we see that the GOWA operator is bounded.
The satisfaction of these properties, commutativity, boundedness and monoto-
nicity implies that the GOWA operators are mean operators for any choice of k and
W.
An additional property associated with the GOWA operators is monotonicity
with respect to k, if k > k0 then

!1=k !1=k0
X
n X
n
0
wj bkj  wj bkj
j¼1 j¼1
96 YAGER

The proof of this is essentially the same as the proof that the generalized mean has
this property (Dyckhoff and Pedrycz (1984)).
It is also the case that this operator exhibits a monotonicity with respect to the
vector W. In particular, as more of the weight is allocated to components higher in
W the value of the aggregation increases. Formally we express this as follows. Let k1
and k2 be two indices such that k1 > k2 . If W and W e are two weighing vector such
that

w~j ¼ wj for all j 6¼ k1 and k2 ; w~k1 ¼ wk1  D; w~k2 ¼ wk2 þ D

then

~ ða1 ; . . . ; an Þ  MW=k ða1 ; . . . ; an Þ

Mw=k

Thus in summary the GOWA operator is a mean operator that is monotonic with
respect to both its parameters, W and k.

3. Cases of GOWA Operators

We now look at some special cases obtained by using different choices of the
parameters W and k.
First we consider some cases of W. If W ¼ W
where w1 ¼ 1 and wj ¼ 0 for all
j 6¼ 1 then
!1=k
X
n
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ wj bkj ¼ ðbk1 Þ1=k ¼ b1 ¼ Maxi ½ai 
j¼1

Thus here with W ¼ W
we always get the Max independent of the selection of k. In
the case where W ¼ W
where wn ¼ 1 and wj ¼ 0 for all j 6¼ n we can show that
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ Mini ½aj  independent of the selection of k. More generally if W½k is a
focused weighting vector having wk ¼ 1 and wj ¼ 0 for all j 6¼ k then for any k we get
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ bk , the kth largest of the arguments. In this case the aggregation is
effectively based on only one argument. More generally note that if wk ¼ 0 then
0 11=k
B C
B P C
B n C
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ B
B
wj bkj C
C
Thus if the kth weight in W is zero then the kth largest
@j ¼ 1 A
j 6¼ k
argument is disregarded in the aggregation. Here the kth largest argument plays in
the ordering process but not in the actual calculation.
We already noted in the special case where wj ¼ 1n for all j we get the generalized
mean.
Another important special case occurs when w1 ¼ a and wn ¼ 1  a. This corre-
sponds to the Hurwicz weighting vector WH . In this case
GOWA AGGREGATION OPERATORS 97

Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ ðabk1 þ ð1  aÞbkn Þ1=k

where b1 ¼ Maxi ½ai  and bn ¼ Mini ½ai . An interesting special case is when a ¼ 1=2.
Here we get

 1=k
1
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ ðbk1 þ bkn Þ1=k
2

Let us now consider the form of the GOWA operator for some particular cases of
k. As we have already noted when k ¼ 1 we get the usual OWA operator. When
k ¼ 2 we get

!1=2
X
n
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ wj b2j
j¼1

We get the order weighted square mean aggregation (OWMESA).

Consider now the case when k ¼ 1 here we get

  Qn
w1 wn 1 1 j¼1 bj
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ þ  þ P
¼ n wj ¼
b1 bn j¼1 bj
P n
Qn 
j¼1 wj bi
i¼1
i 6¼ 1

Q
n
This is closely related to the Harmonic average. If we denote Prodj ¼ bi then
i¼1
Qn i 6¼ j
j¼1 bj
Mða1 ; . . . an Þ ¼ Pn
j¼1 wj Prodj

Since the bj are indexed in decreasing order we see that for j < i we have
Prodj  Prodi . From this we see that as the weights move to the lower elements the
value of the resulting aggregation increases since its denominator increases while the
numerator remains the same.
Consider now the case where k ! 0. In this case we get

Y
n
w
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ bj j
j¼1

We observe that this is closely related to the geometric mean. This special case with
k ! 0 has been studied in Chiclana et al. (2000) and Xu and Da (2002) where it was
98 YAGER

called this the ordered weighted geometric (OWG) operator. In Herrera et al. (in
press) the authors have indicated its usefulness in decision making in the case where
the criteria are measured on ratio scales.
We note the following property for GOWA operators with k ! 0:

THEOREM If k ! 0 and if wn 6¼ 0 any aggregation Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ in which there exists

one argument with aj ¼ 0 has Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ 0.

wn
Qn wj We see this since if 9 aj ¼ 0 then bn ¼ 0 and since wn 6¼ 0 then bn ¼ 0 thus
Proof:
j¼1 bj ¼ 0.
This leads us to observe an important property of these GOWA operators.

THEOREM For any GOWA operator with k < 0 and having a W for which wn 6¼ 0 any
aggregation MW=k ða; . . . ; an Þ in which one argument has value, zero results in
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ 0.

Proof: We have just show that this holds for k > 0. The monotonicity of the
GOWA with respect to k implies the property holds for all k < 0.
We now consider the case in which k ! 1. Here then we have

!1=k
X
n
MW=k ða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ Lim wj bkj ¼ Max ½bj :
k!1 all j s:t: wj 6¼0
j¼1

Thus here we get as the aggregated value the largest argument which has a non-zero
weight. Since the bj are in descending then MW=k ða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ b1 if w1 6¼ 0. It is
interesting to note that if k ! 1 but W is such that wn ¼ 1, wj ¼ 0 for all j 6¼ n, then
MW=k ða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ Mini ½ai  ¼ bn :
In the case where k ! 1. we get MW=k ða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ Minall j s:t wj 6¼0 ½bj . Here we
get the smallest argument which has a non-zero weight. In particular if wn 6¼ 0 then
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ bn .
However if W is such that w1 ¼ 1 then even though k ! 1 we get
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ Maxi ½ai  ¼ b1 .
We earlier noted the special case in which our weights are of the Hurwicz type WH
(Hurwicz (1951)). In this case w1 ¼ a. and wn ¼ ð1  aÞ and the aggregated value is

Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ ðabk1 þ ð1  aÞbkn Þ1=k

In this Hurwicz case when k ¼ 1 we get a form of the harmonic mean

b1 bn
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼
abn þ ð1  aÞb1
GOWA AGGREGATION OPERATORS 99

If we take the derivatives with respect to b1 and bn we get

oM b2n a oM b21 a

¼ and ¼
ob1 ðabn þ
ab1 Þ 2 obn ðabn þ
ab1 Þ2

We note that since b1 > bn there is a tendency for the smaller value, bn , to have a
larger derivative and hence be more influential in the aggregation, this effect is
of course modulated by the value of a.
As a matter of fact oM oM
ob1 ¼ obn when
2
b2n a ¼ b21 ð1  aÞb2n a ¼ b2n a a

hence when 1a ¼ bb1n .
We note we additional assume a ¼ 1=2 then Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ 1ðbb1þb
bn
Þ
¼ b2b1 þb
1 bn
2
.
2 1 2

4. Characterization of GOWA Operators

Yager (1988) associated with the OWA operator a measure called the attitudinal
character of the aggregation. This measure of attitudinal character is a number in the
unit interval indicating the ‘‘Andness/Orness’’ or equivalently the Miness/Maxness
of the aggregation. Essentially it provides a scalar valued characterization of the type
of aggregation being performed. For the ordinary OWA operator the attitudinal
character, which is just dependent on W, was defined as

X
n
nj
A  CðWÞ ¼ wj
j¼1
n1

It can be shown that when W ¼ W
, w1 ¼ 1 and wj ¼ 0 for all j 6¼ 1,

A–CðW
Þ ¼ 1. For W ¼ W
, wn ¼ 1 and wj ¼ 0 for j 6¼ n, A–CðW
Þ ¼ 0. For
W ¼ Wn , where wj ¼ 1=n for all j, A–CðWN Þ ¼ 0:5. For the Hurwicz type weighting
vector, WH , where w1 ¼ a and wn ¼ ð1  aÞ and all other wj ¼ 0 we get A–
CðWH Þ ¼ a. We also note in the case of the weighting vector W½k where wk ¼ 1 we
get A–CðW½k Þ ¼ nk
n1.
We see the attitudinal character provides an indication of the type of the aggre-
gation being performed: A–C!1 indicates Max type aggregation, A–C!0 indicates
Min type aggregation and A–C!0.5 indicates an aggregation that is neutral with
respect to this dimension.
An important class of weighting vectors are symmetric ones. We say W is sym-
metric if wj ¼ wnjþ1 . It can be shown that if W is symmetric then A–CðWÞ ¼ 0:5. We
note examples of symmetric vectors are WA , the median type vector, W½K with k ¼ n2,
as well as WH when a ¼ 0:5.
Another notable situation is that of dual weighting vectors. Let W and W e be two
weighting vectors such that w~j ¼ wnjþ1 then we say that W and W e are duals. We
100 YAGER

note that W
and W
are dual. We also note that a symmetric weighting vector is self
dual, We ¼ W. Let us look at the relationship between A–CðWÞ and A–CðWÞ. ~

1 X n
ACðWÞ ¼ wj ðn  jÞ
n  1 j¼1

e ¼ 1 X n
1 X n
ACðWÞ w~j ðn  jÞ ¼ wnjþ1 ðn  jÞ
n  1 j¼1 n  1 j¼1

Let i ¼ n  j þ 1, then j ¼ n  i þ 1 using this we get

e ¼ 1 X i
1 X n
ACðWÞ wi ðn  ðn  i þ 1ÞÞ ¼ wi ði  1Þ
n  1 i¼n n  1 i¼1

e ¼ 1 X n
1 X n
ACðWÞ wi ði  nÞ þ ðn  1Þ
n  1 i¼1 n  1 i¼1

e ¼ 1  ACðWÞ
ACðWÞ

Thus the attitudinal character of dual weighting vectors are complements of each of
other.
Yager (1988) suggested an interpretation of the attitudinal character of the
aggregation that allows us to extend it to GOWA operators having parameters W
and k. In Yager (1988) it was noted this attitudinal character is the OWA aggre-
1 0
gation of the argument n1 ; n2
n1 n1 ; . . . ; ;
n1 n1 , A–CðWÞ ¼ WT B where B has com-
nj
ponents bj ¼ n1. Using this we can define the attitudinal character of the GOWA
operator

X
n  k !1=k
nj
ACðW=kÞ ¼ wj ¼ ðWT Bk Þ1=k
j¼1
n1

P 1=k
1 n k
We can also express this as A–CðW=kÞ ¼ n1 j¼1 wj ðn  jÞ . It is the GOWA
n1 n2 1 0

aggregation of the linear argument n1 ; n1 ; . . . ; n1 ; n1 :
Let us now obtain the attitudinal character for some examples of the GOWA
Qn  nj  First consider the class where k ! 0 here we nn
operators. get A–CðW=kÞ ¼
j¼1 n1 wj . If we additional assume that w n ¼
6 0, since b n ¼ n1 ¼ 0, we get A–
CðW=kÞ ¼ 0. As we have previously indicated the GOWA is monotonic with respect
GOWA AGGREGATION OPERATORS 101

to k, and since A–CðW=kÞ is a GOWA aggregation we have that if ~k < k then A–

CðW=~ kÞ A–CðW=kÞ. This allows us to make the following observation.
Observation: If W is such that wn 6¼ 0 then A–CðW=kÞ ¼ 0 for all k < 0.
The implication of this is that GOWA operators with k < 0 and having W such
that wn 6¼ 0 tend to act like a ‘‘Min/And’’ type aggregations. The smallest valued
arguments in the aggregation play an important role.
Let us now look at the attitudinal character for the family of operators where
W ¼ WA , wj ¼ 1n for all j. In this case we get

X   !1=k  1=k X !1=k

n
1 nj k 1 1 n
ACðWA =kÞ ¼ ¼ ðn  jÞk
j¼1
n n1 n1 n j¼1

Since wn ¼ 1n from the preceding observation we have that A–CðWA =kÞ ¼ 0 for k  0.
We now investigate what happens to A–CðWA =kÞ when k >
0 (see Figures1 and 2).
1
11=k Pn k
1=k
In Figure 1, we have plotted A–CðWA =kÞ ¼ n1 n j¼1 ðn  jÞ as a
function of n for k ¼ 20, 15, 10, 4, 2. We observe that A–CðWA =kÞ leads to be higher
for smaller n, although not significantly, and it asymptotically approaches some limit
which depends on k. The bigger k the closer the limit is to one.
In Figure 2, we have

Pplotted these 1=kasymptotic limits for n ¼ 100. Here we plotted
1 1 100 k
A–CðWA =kÞ ¼ 99 100 j¼1 ðn  jÞ for k=1–30. We observe that A–CðWA =kÞ
increases as k increases going from A–CðWA =kÞ ¼ 0:5 for k ¼ 1 to A–C ðWA =kÞ ¼
0:9 for k ¼ 30.
We now consider the case where W ¼ W½k , here wk ¼ 1. Let us see the effect of k.
Here
!1=k
1 Xn
k 1 nk
ACðW½k =kÞ ¼ wj ðn  jÞ ¼ ððn  kÞk Þk ¼
n  1 j¼1 n1 n1

Figure 1.
102 YAGER

Figure 2.

What is interesting is that A–CðW½k =kÞ is the same for all k, it just depends on k.
We now turn to symmetric weighting vectors. We previously noted that for a
symmetric weighting vector W we get A–CðWÞ ¼ 0:5. This is not necessarily the case
when k 6¼ 1. In the following we consider the special case of symmetric vector where
wj ¼ wjnþ1 ¼ 0:5 for some j. For the case where n ¼ 100 and j ¼ 2 in Figure 3 we
plot A–CðW=kÞ for k ¼ 20 to 20. We see that as k gets smaller we have A–
CðW=kÞ ! 0, we get a kind of Min aggregation. On the other hand when k gets
larger we have A–CðW=kÞ ! 1 giving us a more Max like aggregation.
In Figure 4, we consider the situation of different values of j in the above sym-
metric weighting vector. We plot A–CðW=kÞ for k ¼ 30 to 30 and for j ¼ 2, 20, 30
and 49 (in increasing thickness). We see that as the two symmetric weights move
closer to the center, j getting larger, this operator acts more like A–CðW=kÞ ¼ 0:5.

Figure 3.
GOWA AGGREGATION OPERATORS 103

Figure 4.

We now look at the Hurwicz weighting vector WH where w1 ¼ a and wn ¼ ð1  aÞ.

For this we get

ACðWH =kÞ ¼ ðabk1 þ ð1  aÞbkn Þ1=k

where b1 ¼ 1 and bn ¼ 0. We see that for k < 0 this has value zero. For k > 0 we
have

ACðWH =kÞ ¼ ðabkn Þ1=k ¼ a1=k

Consider now the situation for 0 < k < 1. We see that for k ¼ 1 we get
ACðWH =kÞ ¼ a. Increasing k, letting it go to 1, leads us to obtaining
ACðWH =kÞ ! 1. On the other hand decreasing k, letting go to zero results in
having ACðWH =kÞ ! 0. This situation very clearly displays the effect of k.

5. Functional Defined GOWA Operators

Yager (1996) discusses various different methods for obtaining the OWA weighing
vectors. One important method for generating the weights is via a function
f : ½0; 1 ! ½0; 1 for which fð0Þ ¼ 0, fð1Þ ¼ 1 and fðxÞ ‡ fðyÞ if x > y. These functions
are called basic unit interval monotonic (BUM)
 functions. Using these functions we
can generate the OWA weights as wi ¼ f ni  fði1 n Þ. Yager (1996) also discusses how
these BUM functions can be related to linguistic concepts. This facility plays a
important role in implementing Zadeh’s paradigm of computing with words (Zadeh
(1996), Zadeh (1999), Zadeh and Kacprzyk (1999)) by providing us with an ability to
induce information aggregation procedures guided by verbally expressed concepts.
104 YAGER

Using these BUM functions in the GOWA aggregation we get the formulation

!1=k  !1=k
X
n Xn    
j j1
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ wj bkj ¼ f f bkj :
j¼1 j¼1
n n

An important special case of the above occurs when fðxÞ ¼ xP where, P 2 ½0; 1.
We shall denote these as Wp =k. It is note that if addition we assume k ¼ 1 we have

X  P   !
n
j j1 P
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼  bj :
j¼1
n n

For this special case of fðxÞ ¼ xP with k ¼ 1 we see that

P Operator AC
P!0 Max 1
P!1 Average 0:5
P!1 Max 0

Thus for for k ¼ 1 as P goes from 0 to 1, ACðWp =kÞ goes from 1 to 0.

Unconstraining k but assuming P ¼ 1, fðxÞ ¼ x, we have wj ¼ 1n for all j and we
get the standard generalized mean operator

!1=k  1=k X !1=k

X
n
1 1 n
Mða1 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ bkj ¼ bkj
j¼1
n n j¼1

We note for this case where P ¼ 1 as k goes from 1 to 1; M goes from Min to
Max. Thus here for P ¼ 1 ACðWp =kÞ goes from 0 to 1 as k goes from 1 to 1:
Let us look at ACðWp =kÞ for other values of k and P. In Figure 5, we plot
ACðWp =kÞ for P ¼ 0:02, 0.2, 1, 2, 7, 20 and for k ¼ 30 to 30 with n ¼ 100.
The use of a weight generating function allows us to very naturally introduce
importance weights into the GOWA aggregation process. Assume associated with
each argument we have an importance weight uj . We shall assume that these weights
lie in the unit interval although we need not assume that they sum to one. Without
lose of generality we shall assume that the aj have been indexed in descending order
aj ¼ bj . Here then uj is the importance weight associated with bj . Using these im-
portances and theP function f we getP
the weight wj associated with bj in the following
way. We let Sj ¼ ji¼1 ui and T ¼ ni¼1 ui then we obtain
   
Sj Sj1
wj ¼ f f
T T
GOWA AGGREGATION OPERATORS 105

Figure 5. A–CðWp=k Þ for various values of P .

We can then combine this with any selection of k.

We see here that we can consider the formulation of aggregations in which we
have the following parameters. A function f, an collection of importance weights ui
associated with the arguments and a parameter k. The function f clearly plays a role
in determining the weights W, in collaboration with the importances. The semantics
of the parameter k is not the totally obvious. At the very least it provides another
dimension that can come into with play in any learning based method.

6. Generalized Choquet Aggregation

There exists the possibility of applying the ideas introduced here to situations in
which we use more sophisticated methods to generate the weighting vector. One such
situation is where we use a fuzzy measure to generate the weighting vector (Sugeno
(1977)). Implementing this leads to an extension of the Choquet integral (Sugeno and
Murofushi (1987)) to what we shall call the Generalized Choquet Aggregation. Let us
look at this extension.
Here we assume a set of objects A ¼ fA1 ; . . . ; An g. Associated with each object Ai
is a value which desire to aggregate, we shall denote these values as ai and refer to
them as the argument values. In addition we have a measure l on subsets of A,
l : 2A ! ½0; 1, such that lðHÞ ¼ 0, lðAÞ ¼ 1 and lðFÞ ‡ lðEÞ for E  F. It is
interesting to note the similarity between the measure l and the BUM function f
introduced previously. In this framework we use the measure l to generate the
weights. We shall find it convenient to introduce function index such that index(j) is
the index of the jth largest of ai . Thus aindexðjÞ is the jth largest argument. We now
define Hj ¼ fAindexðkÞ jk ¼ 1 to jg, it is the subset of j objects having the largest
argument values. Using this we define the set of weights
106 YAGER

wj ¼ lðHj Þ  lðHjþ1 Þ

It is easy to show that the wj 2 ½0; 1 and that they sum to one.
The normal Choquet integral of the argument collection ða1 ; a2 ; . . . ; an Þ with re-
spect to the measure l is defined as

X
n
Cl ða1 ; a2 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ wj aindexðjÞ
j¼1

Using this structure and the ideas introduced in this work we can provide an
extension to a Generalized Choquet integral. Letting k 2 ½1; 1 we define the
Generalized Choquet integral as
!1=k
X
n
Cl=k ða1 ; a2 ; . . . ; an Þ ¼ wj akindexðjÞ
j¼1

7. Conclusion

We extended the OWA operator to a provide a new class of operators called the
GOWA operators with addition of a parameter controlling the power to which the
argument values are raised. We looked at some special cases of these operators in
order to get some understanding of this operator. We studied the attitudinal char-
acter of these operators. A future step that must be taken is the extension of the
method for learning the OWA weights of (Filev and Yager (1998)) to this more
general case where we must also learn the parameter k.

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