Fuzzy Focal Elements in Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence: Case Study in Risk Analysis

Evidence Theory is an important tool of uncertainty modelling when both epistemic and aleatory uncertainties are present in the problem under consideration. In the absence of empirical data, experts in related fields provide necessary information. The fundamental objects of this theory of evidence are called focal elements, and the primitive function associated with it is called basic probability assignment (bpa). Focal elements are usually crisp subsets of some universal set. However in certain situations focal elements may also be represented by fuzzy numbers. In this paper we discuss Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence with fuzzy focal elements. We have considered two hypothetical case studies in risk analysis in this setting.