Classic Works of the Dempster-Shafer Theory of Belief Functions


Book Description

This is a collection of classic research papers on the Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions. The book is the authoritative reference in the field of evidential reasoning and an important archival reference in a wide range of areas including uncertainty reasoning in artificial intelligence and decision making in economics, engineering, and management. The book includes a foreword reflecting the development of the theory in the last forty years.




Introduction to Imprecise Probabilities


Book Description

In recent years, the theory has become widely accepted and has beenfurther developed, but a detailed introduction is needed in orderto make the material available and accessible to a wide audience.This will be the first book providing such an introduction,covering core theory and recent developments which can be appliedto many application areas. All authors of individual chapters areleading researchers on the specific topics, assuring high qualityand up-to-date contents. An Introduction to Imprecise Probabilities provides acomprehensive introduction to imprecise probabilities, includingtheory and applications reflecting the current state if the art.Each chapter is written by experts on the respective topics,including: Sets of desirable gambles; Coherent lower (conditional)previsions; Special cases and links to literature; Decision making;Graphical models; Classification; Reliability and risk assessment;Statistical inference; Structural judgments; Aspects ofimplementation (including elicitation and computation); Models infinance; Game-theoretic probability; Stochastic processes(including Markov chains); Engineering applications. Essential reading for researchers in academia, researchinstitutes and other organizations, as well as practitionersengaged in areas such as risk analysis and engineering.




Belief Functions in Business Decisions


Book Description

The book focuses on applications of belief functions to business decisions. Section I introduces the intuitive, conceptual and historical development of belief functions. Three different interpretations (the marginally correct approximation, the qualitative model, and the quantitative model) of belief functions are investigated, and rough set theory and structured query language (SQL) are used to express belief function semantics. Section II presents applications of belief functions in information systems and auditing. Included are discussions on how a belief-function framework provides a more efficient and effective audit methodology and also the appropriateness of belief functions to represent uncertainties in audit evidence. The third section deals with applications of belief functions to mergers and acquisitions; financial analysis of engineering enterprises; forecast demand for mobile satellite services; modeling financial portfolios; and economics.




A novel decision probability transformation method based on belief interval


Book Description

In Dempster–Shafer evidence theory, the basic probability assignment (BPA) can effectively represent and process uncertain information. How to transform the BPA of uncertain information into a decision probability remains a problem to be solved. In the light of this issue, we develop a novel decision probability transformation method to realize the transition from the belief decision to the probability decision in the framework of Dempster–Shafer evidence theory. The newly proposed method considers the transformation of BPA with multi-subset focal elements from the perspective of the belief interval, and applies the continuous interval argument ordered weighted average operator to quantify the data information contained in the belief interval for each singleton. Afterward, we present an approach to calculate the support degree of the singleton based on quantitative data information. According to the support degree of the singleton, the BPA of multi-subset focal elements is allocated reasonably. Furthermore, we introduce the concepts of probabilistic information content in this paper, which is utilized to evaluate the performance of the decision probability transformation method. Eventually, a few numerical examples and a practical application are given to demonstrate the rationality and accuracy of our proposed method.




On the belief universal gravitation (BUG)


Book Description

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A Mathematical Theory of Evidence


Book Description

Both in science and in practical affairs we reason by combining facts only inconclusively supported by evidence. Building on an abstract understanding of this process of combination, this book constructs a new theory of epistemic probability. The theory draws on the work of A. P. Dempster but diverges from Depster's viewpoint by identifying his "lower probabilities" as epistemic probabilities and taking his rule for combining "upper and lower probabilities" as fundamental. The book opens with a critique of the well-known Bayesian theory of epistemic probability. It then proceeds to develop an alternative to the additive set functions and the rule of conditioning of the Bayesian theory: set functions that need only be what Choquet called "monotone of order of infinity." and Dempster's rule for combining such set functions. This rule, together with the idea of "weights of evidence," leads to both an extensive new theory and a better understanding of the Bayesian theory. The book concludes with a brief treatment of statistical inference and a discussion of the limitations of epistemic probability. Appendices contain mathematical proofs, which are relatively elementary and seldom depend on mathematics more advanced that the binomial theorem.




Belief Functions: Theory and Applications


Book Description

The theory of belief functions, also known as evidence theory or Dempster-Shafer theory, was first introduced by Arthur P. Dempster in the context of statistical inference, and was later developed by Glenn Shafer as a general framework for modeling epistemic uncertainty. These early contributions have been the starting points of many important developments, including the Transferable Belief Model and the Theory of Hints. The theory of belief functions is now well established as a general framework for reasoning with uncertainty, and has well understood connections to other frameworks such as probability, possibility and imprecise probability theories. This volume contains the proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Belief Functions that was held in Compiègne, France on 9-11 May 2012. It gathers 51 contributions describing recent developments both on theoretical issues (including approximation methods, combination rules, continuous belief functions, graphical models and independence concepts) and applications in various areas including classification, image processing, statistics and intelligent vehicles.




Belief Functions: Theory and Applications


Book Description

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Belief Functions, BELIEF 2016, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in September 2016. The 25 revised full papers presented in this book were carefully selected and reviewed from 33 submissions. The papers describe recent developments of theoretical issues and applications in various areas such as combination rules; conflict management; generalized information theory; image processing; material sciences; navigation.




Graphical Belief Modeling


Book Description

This innovative volume explores graphical models using belief functions as a representation of uncertainty, offering an alternative approach to problems where probability proves inadequate. Graphical Belief Modeling makes it easy to compare the two approaches while evaluating their relative strengths and limitations. The author examines both theory and computation, incorporating practical notes from the author's own experience with the BELIEF software package. As one of the first volumes to apply the Dempster-Shafer belief functions to a practical model, a substantial portion of the book is devoted to a single example--calculating the reliability of a complex system. This special feature enables readers to gain a thorough understanding of the application of this methodology. The first section provides a description of graphical belief models and probablistic graphical models that form an important subset: the second section discusses the algorithm used in the manipulation of graphical models: the final segment of the book offers a complete description of the risk assessment example, as well as the methodology used to describe it. Graphical Belief Modeling offers researchers and graduate students in artificial intelligence and statistics more than just a new approach to an old reliability task: it provides them with an invaluable illustration of the process of graphical belief modeling.




Modern Methods of Clinical Investigation


Book Description

The very rapid pace of advances in biomedical research promises us a wide range of new drugs, medical devices, and clinical procedures. The extent to which these discoveries will benefit the public, however, depends in large part on the methods we choose for developing and testing them. Modern Methods of Clinical Investigation focuses on strategies for clinical evaluation and their role in uncovering the actual benefits and risks of medical innovation. Essays explore differences in our current systems for evaluating drugs, medical devices, and clinical procedures; health insurance databases as a tool for assessing treatment outcomes; the role of the medical profession, the Food and Drug Administration, and industry in stimulating the use of evaluative methods; and more. This book will be of special interest to policymakers, regulators, executives in the medical industry, clinical researchers, and physicians.