Related papers: What Does a Belief Function Believe In ?

We first discuss certain problems with the classical probabilistic approach for assessing forensic evidence, in particular its inability to distinguish between lack of belief and disbelief, and its inability to model complete ignorance…

We develop our interpretation of the joint belief distribution and of evidential updating that matches the following basic requirements: * there must exist an efficient method for reasoning within this framework * there must exist a clear…

The combination of evidence in Dempster-Shafer theory is compared with the combination of evidence in probabilistic logic. Sufficient conditions are stated for these two methods to agree. It is then shown that these conditions are minimal…

In this paper, we generalize the belief function on complex plane from another point of view. We first propose a new concept of complex mass function based on the complex number, called complex basic belief assignment, which is a…

This paper is concerned with the apparent greatest weakness of the Mathematical Theory of Evidence (MTE) of Shafer \cite{Shafer:76}, which has been strongly criticized by Wasserman \cite{Wasserman:92ijar}. Weaknesses of Shafer's proposal…

Considerable attention has been given to the problem of non-monotonic reasoning in a belief function framework. Earlier work (M. Ginsberg) proposed solutions introducing meta-rules which recognized conditional independencies in a…

Inappropriate use of Dempster's rule of combination has led some authors to reject the Dempster-Shafer model, arguing that it leads to supposedly unacceptable conclusions when defaults are involved. A most classic example is about the…

There are at least two ways to interpret numerical degrees of belief in terms of betting: (1) you can offer to bet at the odds defined by the degrees of belief, or (2) you can judge that a strategy for taking advantage of such betting…

Shafer's belief functions were introduced in the seventies of the previous century as a mathematical tool in order to model epistemic probability. One of the reasons that they were not picked up by mainstream probability was the lack of a…

Mathematical Theory of Evidence (MTE), a foundation for reasoning under partial ignorance, is blamed to leave frequencies outside (or aside of) its framework. The seriousness of this accusation is obvious: no experiment may be run to…

This paper describes recent work on an ongoing project in medical diagnosis at the University of Guelph. A domain on which experts are not very good at pinpointing a single disease outcome is explored. On-line medical data is available over…

This paper suggests a new interpretation of the Dempster-Shafer theory in terms of probabilistic interpretation of plausibility. A new rule of combination of independent evidence is shown and its preservation of interpretation is…

This paper discusses belief revision under uncertain inputs in the framework of possibility theory. Revision can be based on two possible definitions of the conditioning operation, one based on min operator which requires a purely ordinal…

While belief functions may be seen formally as a generalization of probabilistic distributions, the question of the interactions between belief functions and probability is still an issue in practice. This question is difficult, since the…

One of the most important aspects in any treatment of uncertain information is the rule of combination for updating the degrees of uncertainty. The theory of belief functions uses the Dempster rule to combine two belief functions defined by…

We extend the notion of belief function to the case where the underlying structure is no more the Boolean lattice of subsets of some universal set, but any lattice, which we will endow with a minimal set of properties according to our…

While Evidence Theory (also known as Dempster-Shafer Theory, or Belief Functions Theory) is being increasingly used in data fusion, its potentialities in the Social and Life Sciences are often obscured by lack of awareness of its…

In the current versions of the Dempster-Shafer theory, the only essential restriction on the validity of the rule of combination is that the sources of evidence must be statistically independent. Under this assumption, it is permissible to…

This paper will focus on the process of 'fusing' several observations or models of uncertainty into a single resultant model. Many existing approaches to fusion use subjective quantities such as 'strengths of belief' and process these…

We formulate Dempster Shafer Belief functions in terms of Propositional Logic using the implicit notion of provability underlying Dempster Shafer Theory. Given a set of propositional clauses, assigning weights to certain propositional…