Quantiles in Abstract Convex Structures

Abstract

In this short paper, we aim at a qualitative framework for modeling multivariate decision problems where each alternative is characterized by a set of properties. To this extent, we consider convex spaces as underlying universes and make use of lattice operations in convex spaces to formalize the notion of quantiles. We also put in evidence that many important models of decision problems can be viewed as convex spaces-based models. Several properties of aggregation operators are translated into this general setting, and independence and invariance are used to provide axiomatic characterizations of quantiles.

Keywords

• convex space
• aggregation operator
• invariance
• independence
• quantile