一种基于众信度函数的相关证据合成方法

实际应用中,Dempster规则要求的证据独立性可能难以满足.在相关源证据已知的假设条件下,基于证据的众信度函数,提出一种相关证据合成方法. 该方法无需辨识独立证据的过程,可直接得到解析的合成结果,并且对相关源证据的形式没有要求.最后通过算例验证了所提出方法的有效性.     

Evidence combination using OWA-based soft likelihood functions

Dempster's combination rule has been widely regarded and applied since it is an effective and rigorous method of synthesizing multisource information with its special information representation (ie, mass function or basic probability assignment). However, it has also been criticized and debated upon regarding some of its unreasonable behaviors and restrictive requirements, such as the counterintuitive results in some cases. To address these issues from different perspectives, in this study, an alternative fusion rule is developed under the framework of Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. A novel evidence combination rule called CR-SLF is proposed based on soft likelihood functions (SLF) considering the ordered weighted average aggregation operator. Some illustrative examples are shown, and the corresponding analyses demonstrate the good performance of CR-SLF to fuse multisource evidence. To extend CR-SLF further, the reliability of multisource evidence is considered from two aspects, subsequently two reliability-based combination rules are presented, including the discount-based rule and the SLF improvement-based rule. The simulation results show that the reliability-based CR-SLF has a better fusion effect than the rule without considering the reliability.     

Conjunctive and disjunctive combination of belief functions induced by nondistinct bodies of evidence

Dempster's rule plays a central role in the theory of belief functions. However, it assumes the combined bodies of evidence to be distinct, an assumption which is not always verified in practice. In this paper, a new operator, the cautious rule of combination, is introduced. This operator is commutative, associative and idempotent. This latter property makes it suitable to combine belief functions induced by reliable, but possibly overlapping bodies of evidence. A dual operator, the bold disjunctive rule, is also introduced. This operator is also commutative, associative and idempotent, and can be used to combine belief functions issues from possibly overlapping and unreliable sources. Finally, the cautious and bold rules are shown to be particular members of infinite families of conjunctive and disjunctive combination rules based on triangular norms and conorms.     

COMBINING MULTIPLE CLASSIFIERS USING DEMPSTER'S RULE FOR TEXT CATEGORIZATION

In this paper we investigate the combination of four machine learning methods for text categorization using Dempster's rule of combination. These methods include Support Vector Machine (SVM), kNN (Nearest Neighbor), kNN model-based approach (kNNM), and Rocchio. We first present a general representation of the outputs of different classifiers, in particular, modeling it as a piece of evidence by using a novel evidence structure called focal element triplet. Furthermore, we investigate an effective method for combining pieces of evidence derived from classifiers generated by a 10-fold cross-validation. Finally, we evaluate our methods on the 20-newsgroup and Reuters-21578 benchmark data sets and perform the comparative analysis with majority voting in combining multiple classifiers along with the previous result. Our experimental results show that the best combined classifier can improve the performance of the individual classifiers and Dempster's rule of combination outperforms majority voting in combining multiple classifiers.     

On the axiomatic justification of Dempster's rule of combination

Within the theory of belief functions Dempster's rule of combination is of particular importance for the integration of different bodies of evidence. In this article a set of axioms is presented that uniquely determines this rule. As the axioms reflect just the intuitive idea of partially moveable evidence masses the presented results emphasize the unicity of Dempster's rule. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons. Inc.     

Belief function combination and conflict management

Within the framework of evidence theory, data fusion consists in obtaining a single belief function by the combination of several belief functions resulting from distinct information sources. The most popular rule of combination, called Dempster's rule of combination (or the orthogonal sum), has several interesting mathematical properties such as commutativity or associativity. However, combining belief functions with this operator implies normalizing the results by scaling them proportionally to the conflicting mass in order to keep some basic properties. Although this normalization seems logical, several authors have criticized it and some have proposed other solutions. In particular, Dempster's combination operator is a poor solution for the management of the conflict between the various information sources at the normalization step. Conflict management is a major problem especially during the fusion of many information sources. Indeed, the conflict increases with the number of information sources. That is why a strategy for re-assigning the conflicting mass is essential. In this paper, we define a formalism to describe a family of combination operators. So, we propose to develop a generic framework in order to unify several classical rules of combination. We also propose other combination rules allowing an arbitrary or adapted assignment of the conflicting mass to subsets.     

A new belief rule base knowledge representation scheme and inference methodology using the evidential reasoning rule for evidence combination

In this paper, we extend the original belief rule-base inference methodology using the evidential reasoning approach by i) introducing generalised belief rules as knowledge representation scheme, and ii) using the evidential reasoning rule for evidence combination in the rule-base inference methodology instead of the evidential reasoning approach. The result is a new rule-base inference methodology which is able to handle a combination of various types of uncertainty.Generalised belief rules are an extension of traditional rules where each consequent of a generalised belief rule is a belief distribution defined on the power set of propositions, or possible outcomes, that are assumed to be collectively exhaustive and mutually exclusive. This novel extension allows any combination of certain, uncertain, interval, partial or incomplete judgements to be represented as rule-based knowledge. It is shown that traditional IF-THEN rules, probabilistic IF-THEN rules, and interval rules are all special cases of the new generalised belief rules.The rule-base inference methodology has been updated to enable inference within generalised belief rule bases. The evidential reasoning rule for evidence combination is used for the aggregation of belief distributions of rule consequents.     

Evaluation method based on fuzzy relations between Dempster–Shafer belief structure

Many relations in the real world can be described by mathematical language. Fuzzy set theory can transform human language into mathematical language and use membership degree function to describe relations between events. Dempster–Shafer evidence theory provides basic probability assignment (BPA), which can describe the occurrence rate of attributes in basic events. Based on the known membership degree function and BPA distribution, a new evaluation method is proposed in this paper to analyze decision making. Given the relations among relevant events, which are expressed by BPA distribution and membership degree function, the relations among basic events and top event can be obtained. The Dempster's combination rule and pignistic probability transformation are used to transform BPA distribution into probability distribution. The belief measure is applied to deal with these fuzzy relations. Some numerical examples are given in this paper to illustrate the proposed evaluation methodology.     

Combination of sources of evidence with different discounting factors based on a new dissimilarity measure

The sources of evidence may have different reliability and importance in real applications for decision making. The estimation of the discounting (weighting) factors when the prior knowledge is unknown have been regularly studied until recently. In the past, the determination of the weighting factors focused only on reliability discounting rule and it was mainly dependent on the dissimilarity measure between basic belief assignments (bba's) represented by an evidential distance. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to characterize efficiently the dissimilarity only through an evidential distance. Thus, both a distance and a conflict coefficient based on probabilistic transformations BetP are proposed to characterize the dissimilarity. The distance represents the difference between bba's, whereas the conflict coefficient reveals the divergence degree of the hypotheses that two belief functions strongly support. These two aspects of dissimilarity are complementary in a certain sense, and their fusion is used as the dissimilarity measure. Then, a new estimation method of weighting factors is presented by using the proposed dissimilarity measure. In the evaluation of weight of a source, both its dissimilarity with other sources and their weighting factors are considered. The weighting factors can be applied in the both importance and reliability discounting rules, but the selection of the adapted discounting rule should depend on the actual application. Simple numerical examples are given to illustrate the interest of the proposed approach.     

基于直觉模糊集的时域证据组合方法研究

证据理论已广泛应用于时空信息融合领域,由于时域信息融合表现出明显的序贯性和动态性,为实现基于证据理论的时域信息融合,有效处理时域冲突信息,结合证据可靠性评估和证据折扣的思想,在直觉模糊框架内提出了一种基于复合可靠度的时域证据组合方法.首先定义一种基于可靠度的直觉模糊数排序方法,在此基础上提出一种基于直觉模糊多属性决策的证据可靠性评估方法;然后,基于此方法对时域信息序列中相邻时间节点的证据可靠性进行评估,得到时域证据的相对可靠性因子;最后,结合由时域证据可靠度衰减模型得到的实时可靠性因子,得到时域证据的复合可靠性因子,再基于证据折扣运算和Dempster证据组合规则提出一种基于复合可靠度的时域证据组合方法.数值算例和仿真表明,该方法具有较强的时间敏感性,充分体现了时域信息融合的动态性特点,可以较好地处理时域证据中的冲突信息,基于该方法构建的融合识别系统具有较强的抗干扰能力.     

A new combination function in evidence theory

This article studies the combination of basic probability assignment (bpa) in evidence theory. After introducing an interpretation of the mass function we show that given two bpa Dempster's rule of combination does not build a coherent bpa with respect to the interpretation. Next we give a new combination function that overcomes this problem and study some of its properties. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

An integrated fuzzy MCDM approach for supplier evaluation and selection

A fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making approach that makes use of quality function deployment (QFD), fusion of fuzzy information and 2-tuple linguistic representation model is developed for supplier selection. The proposed methodology seeks to establish the relevant supplier assessment criteria while also considering the impacts of inner dependence among them. Two interrelated house of quality matrices are constructed, and fusion of fuzzy information and 2-tuple linguistic representation model are employed to compute the weights of supplier selection criteria and subsequently the ratings of suppliers. The proposed method is apt to manage non-homogeneous information in a decision setting with multiple information sources. The decision framework presented in this paper employs ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator, and the aggregation process is based on combining information by means of fuzzy sets on a basic linguistic term set. The proposed framework is illustrated through a case study conducted in a private hospital in Istanbul.     

Credibility decay model in temporal evidence combination

Data fusion in time domain is sequential and dynamic. Methods to deal with evidence conflict in spatial domain may not suitable in temporal domain. It is significant to determine the dynamic credibility of evidence in time domain. The Markovian requirement of time domain fusion is analyzed based on Dempster's combination rule and evidence discount theory. And the credibility decay model is presented to get the dynamic evidence credibility. Then the evidence is discounted by dynamic discount factor. It's illustrated that such model can satisfied the requirement of data fusion in time domain. Proper and solid decision can be made by this approach.     

The entailment principle for dempster—shafer granules

We discuss the rule of inference called the entailment principle which plays a significant role in the possibilistic type reasoning used in the theory of approximate reasoning. We extend this principle to situations in which the knowledge is a type of combination of possibilistic and probabilistic information which we call Dempster—Shafer granules. We discuss the conjunction of these D—S granules and show that Dempster's rule of combination is a special application of conjunction followed by a particular implementation of the entailment principle.     

A method for combining conflicting evidences with improved distance function and Tsallis entropy

For the sake of great ability of handling uncertain information, Dempster-Shafer evidence theory is extensively used in information fusion. Nevertheless, when there exists highly inconsistent evidences, using classical Dempster's combination rule may lead to counter-intuitive results. To address this issue, a new conflicting evidences combination method based on distance function and Tsallis entropy is proposed. Numerical examples are used to illustrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed method. Further, an fault diagnosis problem is used as an example to show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. The proposed method outperforms other methods that the proposed method recognize the target by the probability 99.49%, which is higher than other methods.     

Representation and combination of uncertainty with belief functions and possibility measures

The theory of evidence proposed by G. Shafer is gaining more and more acceptance in the field of artificial intelligence, for the purpose of managing uncertainty in knowledge bases. One of the crucial problems is combining uncertain pieces of evidence stemming from several sources, whether rules or physical sensors. This paper examines the framework of belief functions in terms of expressive power for knowledge representation. It is recalled that probability theory and Zadeh's theory of possibility are mathematically encompassed by the theory of evidence, as far as the evaluation of belief is concerned. Empirical and axiomatic foundations of belief functions and possibility measures are investigated. Then the general problem of combining uncertain evidence is addressed, with focus on Dempster rule of combination. It is pointed out that this rule is not very well adapted to the pooling of conflicting information. Alternative rules are proposed to cope with this problem and deal with specific cases such as nonreliable sources, nonexhaustive sources, inconsistent sources, and dependent sources. It is also indicated that combination rules issued from fuzzy set and possibility theory look more flexible than Dempster rule because many variants exist, and their numerical stability seems to be better.     

Implementing Dempster's rule for hierarchical evidence

This article gives an algorithm for the exact implementation of Dempster's rule in the case of hierarchical evidence. This algorithm is computationally efficient, and it makes the approximation suggested by Gordon and Shortliffe unnecessary. The algorithm itself is simple, but its derivation depends on a detailed understanding of the interaction of hierarchical evidence.     

On the dempster-shafer framework and new combination rules

We discuss the basic concepts of the Dempster-Shafer approach, basic probability assignments, belief functions, and probability functions. We discuss how to represent various types of knowledge in this framework. We discuss measures of entropy and specificity for belief structures. We discuss the combination and extension of belief structures. We introduce some concerns associated with the Dempster rule of combination inherent in the normalization due to conflict. We introduce two alternative techniques for combining belief structures. The first uses Dempster's rule, while the second is based upon a modification of this rule. We discuss the issue of credibility of a witness.     

一种相关证据的合成规则

相关证据可视为两个独立源证据与同一相关源证据合成产生,基于这一假设,提出了合成规则的逆运算—–"去合成"规则,在此基础上提出一类相关证据的合成规则,避免了对相关源证据的重复计算.通过算例进一步验证了该方法的有效性.