scholarly journals Plato's Cave in the Dempster-Shafer land--the Link between Pignistic and Plausibility Transformations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunlai Zhou ◽  
Biao Qin ◽  
Xiaoyong Du
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Belief Function ◽  
Belief Functions ◽  
Reasoning Under Uncertainty ◽  
Function Model ◽  
Probability Functions ◽  
Degree Of Belief ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evidence

In reasoning under uncertainty in AI, there are (at least) two useful and different ways of understanding beliefs: the first is as absolute belief or degree of belief in propositions and the second is as belief update or measure of change in belief. Pignistic and plausibility transformations are two well-known probability transformations that map belief functions to probability functions in the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence. In this paper, we establish the link between pignistic and plausibility transformations by devising a belief-update framework for belief functions where plausibility transformation works on belief update while pignistic transformation operates on absolute belief. In this framework, we define a new belief-update operator connecting the two transformations, and interpret the framework in a belief-function model of parametric statistical inference. As a metaphor, these two transformations projecting the belief-update framework for belief functions to that for probabilities are likened to the fire projecting reality into shadows on the wall in Plato's cave.

Belief Function Approach to Evidential Reasoning in Causal Maps

2005 ◽  
pp. 109-141
Author(s):  
Rajendra P. Srivastava ◽  
Mari W. Buche ◽  
Tom L. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
Belief Function ◽  
Evidential Reasoning ◽  
Belief Functions ◽  
Causal Maps ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Evidential Reasoning Approach ◽  
Theory Of Belief Functions ◽  
Shafer Theory

The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the use of the evidential reasoning approach under the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory of belief functions to analyze revealed causal maps (RCM). The participants from information technology (IT) organizations provided the concepts to describe the target phenomenon of Job Satisfaction. They also identified the associations between the concepts. This chapter discusses the steps necessary to transform a causal map into an evidential diagram. The evidential diagram can then be analyzed using belief functions technique with survey data, thereby extending the research from a discovery and explanation stage to testing and prediction. An example is provided to demonstrate these steps. This chapter also provides the basics of Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions and a step-by-step description of the propagation process of beliefs in tree-like evidential diagrams.

scholarly journals Probability Estimation in the Framework of Intuitionistic Fuzzy Evidence Theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Yafei Song ◽  
Xiaodan Wang
Keyword(s):  
Evidence Theory ◽  
Estimation Method ◽  
Probability Estimation ◽  
Belief Functions ◽  
Intuitionistic Fuzzy ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Fuzzy Environment ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evidence ◽  
Interval Valued

Intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) evidence theory, as an extension of Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence to the intuitionistic fuzzy environment, is exploited to process imprecise and vague information. Since its inception, much interest has been concentrated on IF evidence theory. Many works on the belief functions in IF information systems have appeared. Although belief functions on the IF sets can deal with uncertainty and vagueness well, it is not convenient for decision making. This paper addresses the issue of probability estimation in the framework of IF evidence theory with the hope of making rational decision. Background knowledge about evidence theory, fuzzy set, and IF set is firstly reviewed, followed by introduction of IF evidence theory. Axiomatic properties of probability distribution are then proposed to assist our interpretation. Finally, probability estimations based on fuzzy and IF belief functions together with their proofs are presented. It is verified that the probability estimation method based on IF belief functions is also potentially applicable to classical evidence theory and fuzzy evidence theory. Moreover, IF belief functions can be combined in a convenient way once they are transformed to interval-valued possibilities.

A categorical approach to the semantics of argumentation

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ambler
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Reasoning Under Uncertainty ◽  
Enriched Category ◽  
Closed Category ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Medical Expert System ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evidence ◽  
Cartesian Closed

Argumentation is a proof theoretic paradigm for reasoning under uncertainty. Whereas a ‘proof’ establishes its conclusion outright, an ‘argument’ can only lend a measure of support. Thus, the process of argumentation consists of identifying all the arguments for a particular hypothesis φ, and then calculating the support for φ from the weight attached to these individual arguments. Argumentation has been incorporated as the inference mechanism of a large scale medical expert system, the ‘Oxford System of Medicine’ (OSM), and it is therefore important to demonstrate that the approach is theoretically justified. This paper provides a formal semantics for the notion of argument embodied in the OSM. We present a categorical account in which arguments are the arrows of a semilattice enriched category. The axioms of a cartesian closed category are modified to give the notion of an ‘evidential closed category’, and we show that this provides the correct enriched setting in which to model the connectives of conjunction (&) and implication (⇒).Finally, we develop a theory of ‘confidence measures’ over such categories, and relate this to the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence.

Using Dempster-Shafer Theory in Data Mining

2011 ◽  
pp. 2011-2018
Author(s):  
Malcolm J. Beynon
Keyword(s):  
Set Theory ◽  
Rough Set ◽  
Rough Set Theory ◽  
Belief Function ◽  
General Term ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Upper And Lower Probabilities ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evidence ◽  
Subjective View

The origins of Dempster-Shafer theory (DST) go back to the work by Dempster (1967) who developed a system of upper and lower probabilities. Following this, his student Shafer (1976), in their book “A Mathematical Theory of Evidence” developed Dempster’s work, including a more thorough explanation of belief functions, a more general term for DST. In summary, it is a methodology for evidential reasoning, manipulating uncertainty and capable of representing partial knowledge (Haenni & Lehmann, 2002; Kulasekere, Premaratne, Dewasurendra, Shyu, & Bauer, 2004; Scotney & McClean, 2003). The perception of DST as a generalisation of Bayesian theory (Shafer & Pearl, 1990), identifies its subjective view, simply, the probability of an event indicates the degree to which someone believes it. This is in contrast to the alternative frequentist view, understood through the “Principle of I sufficient reasoning”, whereby in a situation of ignorance a Bayesian approach is forced to evenly allocate subjective (additive) probabilities over the frame of discernment. See Cobb and Shenoy (2003) for a contemporary comparison between Bayesian and belief function reasoning. The development of DST includes analogies to rough set theory (Wu, Leung, & Zhang, 2002) and its operation within neural and fuzzy environments (Binaghi, Gallo, & Madella, 2000; Yang, Chen, & Wu, 2003). Techniques based around belief decision trees (Elouedi, Mellouli, & Smets, 2001), multi-criteria decision making (Beynon, 2002) and non-paramnteric regression (Petit-Renaud & Denoeux, 2004), utilise DST to allow analysis in the presence of uncertainty and imprecision. This is demonstrated, in this article, with the ‘Classification and Ranking belief Simplex’ (CaRBS) technique for object classification, see Beynon (2005a).

A NON-SPECIFICITY MEASURE FOR CONVEX SETS OF PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS

2000 ◽  
Vol 08 (03) ◽  
pp. 357-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOAQUIN ABELLAN ◽  
SERAFIN MORAL
Keyword(s):  
Convex Sets ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Belief Functions ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evidence ◽  
Specificity Measure ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

In belief functions, there are two types of uncertainty which are due to lack of knowledge: randomness and non-specificity. In this paper, we present a non-specificity measure for convex sets of probability distributions that generalizes Dubois and Prade's non-specificity measure in the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence.

Using Dempster-Shafer Theory in Data Mining

2011 ◽  
pp. 1166-1170
Author(s):  
Malcolm J. Beynon
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Mathematical Theory ◽  
Evidential Reasoning ◽  
Belief Functions ◽  
Partial Knowledge ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Upper And Lower Probabilities ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evidence

The origins of Dempster-Shafer theory (DST) go back to the work by Dempster (1967) who developed a system of upper and lower probabilities. Following this, his student Shafer (1976), in his book “A Mathematical Theory of Evidence” added to Dempster’s work, including a more thorough explanation of belief functions. In summary, it is a methodology for evidential reasoning, manipulating uncertainty and capable of representing partial knowledge (Haenni & Lehmann, 2002; Kulasekere, Premaratne, Dewasurendra, Shyu, & Bauer, 2004; Scotney & McClean, 2003).

REASONING UNDER UNCERTAINTY FOR SHILL DETECTION IN ONLINE AUCTIONS USING DEMPSTER–SHAFER THEORY

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (07) ◽  
pp. 943-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
FEI DONG ◽  
SOL M. SHATZ ◽  
HAIPING XU
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Online Auctions ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Reasoning Under Uncertainty ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evidence ◽  
Positive Results

This paper describes the design of a decision support system for shill detection in online auctions. To assist decision making, each bidder is associated with a type of certification, namely shill, shill suspect, or trusted bidder, at the end of each auction's bidding cycle. The certification level is determined on the basis of a bidder's bidding behaviors including shilling behaviors and normal bidding behaviors, and thus fraudulent bidders can be identified. In this paper, we focus on representing knowledge about bidders from different aspects in online auctions, and reasoning on bidders' trustworthiness under uncertainties using Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence. To demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we provide a case study using real auction data from eBay. The analysis results show that our approach can be used to detect shills effectively and efficiently. By applying Dempster–Shafer theory to combine multiple sources of evidence for shill detection, the proposed approach can significantly reduce the number of false positive results in comparison to approaches using a single source of evidence.

scholarly journals A MODIFIED D NUMBERS METHODOLOGY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 653-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ningkui WANG ◽  
Daijun WEI
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Environmental Impact Assessment ◽  
Previous Method ◽  
Combination Process ◽  
Dempster Shafer Theory ◽  
Shafer Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evidence ◽  
D Numbers ◽  
Commutative Property

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is usually evaluated by many factors influenced by various kinds of uncertainty or fuzziness. As a result, the key issues of EIA problem are to rep­resent and deal with the uncertain or fuzzy information. D numbers theory, as the extension of Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence, is a desirable tool that can express uncertainty and fuzziness, both complete and incomplete, quantitative or qualitative. However, some shortcomings do exist in D numbers combination process, the commutative property is not well considered when multiple D numbers are combined. Though some attempts have made to solve this problem, the previous method is not appropriate and convenience as more information about the given evaluations rep­resented by D numbers are needed. In this paper, a data-driven D numbers combination rule is proposed, commutative property is well considered in the proposed method. In the combination process, there does not require any new information except the original D numbers. An illustrative example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.

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