Abstract
A major problem encountered when applications of the Dempster-Shafer evidence handling methods are contemplated is the computational complexity of the basic operations. Barnett has proposed a linear-time computational technique for use in evidential reasoning. However, it is restricted to theentire orthogonal sum of dichotomous evidential functions. This means that there has to be a piece of evidence for each contender for the choice being made. This paper presents more general algorithms for combining dichotomous evidential functions. The idea is based on the fact that dichotomous evidential functions generalize simple evidential functions, and a useful general formula for combining simple evidential functions is available. It is therefore natural to seek general formulae or algorithms for combining dichotomous evidential functions.
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References
Shafer G. A Mathematical Theory of Evidence. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1976.
Guan J W, Bell D A. Evidence theory and its applications.Studies in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, 7–8, Vol. 1–2, Elsevier, North-Holland, 1991–2.
Barnett J A. Computational methods for a mathematical theory of evidence. InProc. Seventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), 1981, pp. 868–875.
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Guan Jiwen received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Maths Department of Jilin University, China in 1955 and 1959, respectively. From 1980 to 1985 he was a Professor of Computer Science Department of Jilin University. From 1985 to 1988 he was a Visiting Professor of Computer & Information Science Department, University of Massachusetts, U.S.A. From 1989 he is a Visiting Professor in School of Information & Software Engineering, University of Ulster, UK. Prof. Guan has published about 100 papers and 8 books. Prof. Guan is the Chairman of Chinese IEEE/ACM in UK.
David Bell has been a Professor of Computing at the University of Ulster in Northen Ireland since 1986. He graduated in Pure Maths from Queen’s University, Belfast in 1969 and worked in Data Processing in industry for 3 years before moving into the academic world. His M.S. degree was for research in language design and his Ph.D. for work on storage and access strategies for databases. Prof. Bell was Chairman of the Programme Committee of the prestigious Very Large Databases Conference in 1993, and edited the Pergamon Press “Database Technology” Journal. For some years he has been taking an increasingly active interest in artifitial intelligence topics relevant to his primary interests in databases. He has authored or co-authored nearly 200 papers for journals and conferences and several books. Prof. Bell has received many grants under ESPRIT and other European Programmes, as well as nationally funded proggrammes. A current project concerns extraction of Cause-and-Effect networks from databases which exemplifies his current interests in knowledge discovery in databases.
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Guan, J., Bell, D.A. General algorithms for Barnett’s structure in evidential reasoning. J. of Comput. Sci. & Technol. 10, 518–535 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02943510
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02943510