A Computational Framework for Identity Based on Situation Theory and Dempster-Shafer Theory

A prototype for cyber identity is presented in a computational framework based on Barwise and Devlin’s situation theory. We use real-life examples in identifying an individual to create what we call an id-situation; an id-situation is where an id-action is performed. We use the Semantic Web standards to represent these id-situations from our real-life examples. The examples include identifying an individual by fingerprint and by mugshot. Central to our account is how to represent the strength of the evidence, within the situations, as a measure of the support for judgments reached in the id-situation. To measure evidence of an identity from the supporting situations, we used the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence. This theory is elaborated in this paper to apply to situation theory. This paper was advised under faculty member Dr. Albert Esterline {[email protected]}from the Department of Computer Science at NC A&T State University.