network that ranks

[Yu Shen]

Suppose a unit in the network stands for an option being compared with
others, and given the pairwise prferences, such as option A is better
than option B, etc. I would like the responses of the units to be
proportional to their ranks in the preference relationship.

I tried the Interactive Activation and Competition network in PDP
book, IAC. It seems to work, by coding the weights among the units as
follows: if A is better than B, then the weight from B to A is 1, and
the weight from A to B is -1. And the initial state of the units are
taken to be constant, 0.5 (the rest value). I tested up to cases of 4
units. For A>B>C>D, the response of the same ranks is produced (unit A
is the highest, unit b is the next, etc.). But I'm wondering if it
work for all the cases.

Any pointer for better connectionist solution?

Thank you,

Yu Shen