We are given a $n\times n$ symmetric matrix $M$ whose entries are positive integers.

Let $z_{i,j}:=\frac{M_{i,j}}{\sum_{k\neq i,j}\min(M_{i,k},M_{k,j})}$ for all $1\le i<j \le n$, and 
$z:=\sum_{i<j}z_{i,j}$.

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**Question:** Can we prove that the maximum value $z^*$ of $z$ over *all* matrices $M$ defined above is upper bounded by $\alpha n$ for some absolute constant $\alpha$?