Partially Specified Belief Functions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for constructing complete belief functions from partial data, utilizing the focusing principle alongside existing principles, to better capture relevant belief information.

Contribution

It proposes the focusing principle as a novel approach to complete belief functions, improving upon existing methods like minimum specificity and least commitment principles.

Findings

The focusing principle effectively identifies relevant focal elements.

The method outperforms existing approaches in certain belief assignment scenarios.

Comparative analysis demonstrates advantages of the new procedure.

Abstract

This paper presents a procedure to determine a complete belief function from the known values of belief for some of the subsets of the frame of discerment. The method is based on the principle of minimum commitment and a new principle called the focusing principle. This additional principle is based on the idea that belief is specified for the most relevant sets: the focal elements. The resulting procedure is compared with existing methods of building complete belief functions: the minimum specificity principle and the least commitment principle.