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Rankings derived from pairwise comparisons are central to many economic and computational systems. In the context of large language models (LLMs), rankings are typically constructed from human preference data and presented as leaderboards…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-03-05 Angel Rodrigo Avelar Menendez , Yufeng Liu , Xiaowu Dai

This paper examines the problem of ranking a collection of objects using pairwise comparisons (rankings of two objects). In general, the ranking of $n$ objects can be identified by standard sorting methods using $n log_2 n$ pairwise…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2011-12-13 Kevin G. Jamieson , Robert D. Nowak

We develop a new statistical model to analyse time-varying ranking data. The model can be used with a large number of ranked items, accommodates exogenous time-varying covariates and partial rankings, and is estimated via the maximum…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-11-23 Vladimír Holý , Jan Zouhar

In this paper, we address the top-$K$ ranking problem with a monotone adversary. We consider the scenario where a comparison graph is randomly generated and the adversary is allowed to add arbitrary edges. The statistician's goal is then to…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-06-21 Yuepeng Yang , Antares Chen , Lorenzo Orecchia , Cong Ma

Given partially observed pairwise comparison data generated by the Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model, we study the problem of top-$k$ ranking. That is, to optimally identify the set of top-$k$ players. We derive the minimax rate with respect…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2021-07-16 Pinhan Chen , Chao Gao , Anderson Y. Zhang

For nonbalanced paired comparisons, a wide variety of ranking methods have been proposed. One of the best popular methods is the Bradley-Terry model in which the ranking of a set of objects is decided by the maximum likelihood estimates…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-11-07 Ting Yan

Aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) with human preferences is crucial in ensuring desirable and controllable model behaviors. Current methods, such as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and Direct Preference Optimization…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-10-24 Yang Zhao , Yixin Wang , Mingzhang Yin

This paper studies the performance of the spectral method in the estimation and uncertainty quantification of the unobserved preference scores of compared entities in a general and more realistic setup. Specifically, the comparison graph…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-03-04 Jianqing Fan , Zhipeng Lou , Weichen Wang , Mengxin Yu

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…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-08-16 M. E. J. Newman

This paper is concerned with the problem of top-$K$ ranking from pairwise comparisons. Given a collection of $n$ items and a few pairwise comparisons across them, one wishes to identify the set of $K$ items that receive the highest ranks.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-13 Yuxin Chen , Jianqing Fan , Cong Ma , Kaizheng Wang

The rating of items based on pairwise comparisons has been a topic of statistical investigation for many decades. Numerous approaches have been proposed. One of the best known is the Bradley-Terry model. This paper seeks to assemble and…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-08-08 Ian Hamilton , Nick Tawn , David Firth

We study the top-$K$ ranking problem where the goal is to recover the set of top-$K$ ranked items out of a large collection of items based on partially revealed preferences. We consider an adversarial crowdsourced setting where there are…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2016-02-16 Changho Suh , Vincent Y. F. Tan , Renbo Zhao

We study the active learning problem of top-$k$ ranking from multi-wise comparisons under the popular multinomial logit model. Our goal is to identify the top-$k$ items with high probability by adaptively querying sets for comparisons and…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2017-08-01 Xi Chen , Yuanzhi Li , Jieming Mao

This paper considers ranking inference of $n$ items based on the observed data on the top choice among $M$ randomly selected items at each trial. This is a useful modification of the Plackett-Luce model for $M$-way ranking with only the top…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-01-09 Jianqing Fan , Zhipeng Lou , Weichen Wang , Mengxin Yu

The Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model is a benchmark model for pairwise comparisons between individuals. Despite recent progress on the first-order asymptotics of several popular procedures, the understanding of uncertainty quantification in…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2022-08-11 Chao Gao , Yandi Shen , Anderson Y. Zhang

Estimating consumer preferences is central to many problems in economics and marketing. This paper develops a flexible framework for learning individual preferences from partial ranking information by interpreting observed rankings as…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-02-19 Yu-Chang Chen , Chen Chian Fuh , Shang En Tsai

Stochastic transitivity is central for rank aggregation based on pairwise comparison data. The existing models, including the Thurstone, Bradley-Terry (BT), and nonparametric BT models, adopt a strong notion of stochastic transitivity,…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-09 Haoran Zhang , Yunxiao Chen

Data in the form of pairwise comparisons arises in many domains, including preference elicitation, sporting competitions, and peer grading among others. We consider parametric ordinal models for such pairwise comparison data involving a…

Online learning to rank (OLTR) interactively learns to choose lists of items from a large collection based on certain click models that describe users' click behaviors. Most recent works for this problem focus on the stochastic environment…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-13 Cheng Chen , Canzhe Zhao , Shuai Li

Ranking lists are often provided at regular time intervals in a range of applications, including economics, sports, marketing, and politics. Most popular methods for rank-order data postulate a linear specification for the latent scores,…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-12-09 Matteo Iacopini , Eoghan O'Neill , Luca Rossini