Patent Document ID: 8315971
Application ID: 12646418
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. An apparatus comprising: an analytic network process (ANP) storage memory that stores an ANP weighted supermatrix representing an ANP model; and a processor in communication with the ANP storage memory, the processor being configured to facilitate measuring an instantaneous rate of change of alternative scores with respect to a fixed node of the ANP model, to determine a marginal influence of the fixed node; and maintaining a same proportionality in the stored ANP weighted supermatrix as an importance of the fixed node is changed to measure the instantaneous rate of change, the marginal influence being determined consistent with at least one of the formulas: an upper marginal influence of node r on alternative i is s r , i ′ + = lim h → 0 + ⁢ s r , i ⁡ ( p 0 + h ) - s r , i ⁡ ( p 0 ) h ; and ⁢ a lower marginal influence of node r on alternative i is s r , i ′ - = lim h → 0 - ⁢ s r , i ⁡ ( p 0 + h ) - s r , i ⁡ ( p 0 ) h ; where r is the fixed node, i is the alternative which is scored, s′ r + is a total upper marginal influence vector, s′ r − is a total lower marginal influence vector, h is a predetermined amount by which the importance of the fixed node was changed, p 0 is a parameter value which represents returning the node importance to an original weight.