A novel approach to interval comparison and application to software quality evaluation

ABSTRACT

Owing to increasing complexity in the real world, many attributes in decision science are uncertain. The interval data are more suitable for characterising those attributes. The interval comparison is an important research topic in this background. This paper proposes a new method for comparing two intervals based on a two-dimensional geometric interpretation. The equivalence is illustrated through a proof. Some mathematical experiments are provided to illustrate the validity. The proposed method is applied to the quality evaluation of software product. The results show that the provided method has important implications in both theoretical and practical perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Interval comparison
• two-dimensional geometric interpretation
• dominance degree
• software quality evaluation

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments and suggestions that have led to this improved version of the paper.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Young Creative Talents Project from Department of Education of Guangdong Province [No. 2016KQNCX064]; the Project of Enhancing School with Innovation of Guangdong Ocean University [No. GDOU2017052802].