In the theory of belief functions, the measure of uncertainty is an important concept, which is used for representing some types of uncertainty incorporated in bodies of evidence such as the discord and the non-specif...In the theory of belief functions, the measure of uncertainty is an important concept, which is used for representing some types of uncertainty incorporated in bodies of evidence such as the discord and the non-specificity. For the non-specificity part, some traditional measures use for reference the Hartley measure in classical set theory; other traditional measures use the simple and heuristic function for joint use of mass assignments and the cardinality of focal elements. In this paper, a new non-specificity measure is proposed using lengths of belief intervals, which represent the degree of imprecision. Therefore, it has more intuitive physical meaning. It can be proved that our new measure can be rewritten in a general form for the non-specificity. Our new measure is also proved to be a strict non-specificity measure with some desired properties. Numerical examples, simulations, the related analyses and proofs are provided to show the characteristics and good properties of the new non-specificity definition. An example of an application of the new non- specificity measure is also presented.展开更多
基金supported by the Grant for State Key Program for Basic Research of China(No.2013CB329405)National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.61573275)+3 种基金Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.61221063)Science and Technology Project of Shaanxi Province of China(No.2013KJXX-46)Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China(20120201120036)Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China(No.xjj2014122)
文摘In the theory of belief functions, the measure of uncertainty is an important concept, which is used for representing some types of uncertainty incorporated in bodies of evidence such as the discord and the non-specificity. For the non-specificity part, some traditional measures use for reference the Hartley measure in classical set theory; other traditional measures use the simple and heuristic function for joint use of mass assignments and the cardinality of focal elements. In this paper, a new non-specificity measure is proposed using lengths of belief intervals, which represent the degree of imprecision. Therefore, it has more intuitive physical meaning. It can be proved that our new measure can be rewritten in a general form for the non-specificity. Our new measure is also proved to be a strict non-specificity measure with some desired properties. Numerical examples, simulations, the related analyses and proofs are provided to show the characteristics and good properties of the new non-specificity definition. An example of an application of the new non- specificity measure is also presented.
