An inherent difficulty in the aggregation of multidimensional data

Marek Gągolewski , Raul Perez-Fernandez , B De Baets

Abstract

In the field of information fusion, the problem of data aggregation has been formalized as an order-preserving process that builds upon the property of monotonicity. However, fields such as computational statistics, data analysis, and geometry usually emphasize the role of equivariances to various geometrical transformations in aggregation processes. Admittedly, if we consider a unidimensional data fusion task, both requirements are often compatible with each other. Nevertheless, in this paper, we show that, in the multidimensional setting, the only idempotent functions that are monotone and orthogonal equivariant are the over-simplistic weighted centroids. Even more, this result still holds after replacing monotonicity and orthogonal equivariance by the weaker property of orthomonotonicity. This implies that the aforementioned approaches to the aggregation of multidimensional data are irreconcilable, and that, if a weighted centroid is to be avoided, we must choose between monotonicity and a desirable behavior with regard to orthogonal transformations.