Reliability and combination rule in the theory of belief functions

This paper presents a point of view to address an application with the theory of belief functions from a global approach. Indeed, in a belief application, the definition of the basic belief assignments and the tasks of reduction of focal elements number, discounting, combination and decision, must be thought at the same time. Moreover these tasks can be seen as a general process of belief transfer. The second aspect of this paper involves the introduction of the reliability in the combination rule directly and not before. Indeed, in general, the discounting process is made with a discounting factor that is a reliability factor of the sources. Here we propose to include in the combination rule an estimation of the reliability based on a local conflict estimation.

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