Combining Belief Functions Issued from Dependent Sources

Marco E. G. V. Cattaneo

May 2003

Abstract

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.

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