Combining Belief Functions Issued from Dependent Sources

Dempster’s rule for combining two belief functions assumes the independence of the sources of information. If this assumption is questionable, I suggest to use the least specific combination minimizing the conflict among the ones allowed by a simple generalization of Dempster’s rule. This increases the monotonicity of the reasoning and helps us to manage situations of dependence. Some properties of this combination rule and its usefulness in a generalization of Bayes’ theorem are then considered. Keywords belief functions, propositional logic, combination, Dempster’s rule, independence, conflict, monotonicity, nonspecificity, idempotency, associativity, Bayes’ theorem

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ISIPTA
• Authors: Marco E. G. V. Cattaneo
• Keywords: Belief Functions, Dempster’s Rule, ISIPTA 2003, Mathematics, Specific Combination