Agencies involved in generating regulatory policies promote evidence-based impact assessments (RIAs) to improve the predictability of regulation and develop informed policy. Here, we analyze epistemic foundations RIAs. We frame RIA as reasoning that connects various types knowledge inferences about future. Drawing on Stephen Toulmin's model argumentation, situate deductive inductive steps withi...

Pose estimation involves reconstructing the configuration of a moving body from images sequences. In this paper we present a general framework for pose estimation of unknown objects based on Shafer’s evidential reasoning. During learning an evidential model of the object is built, integrating different image features to improve both estimation robustness and precision. All the measurements comi...

The Self-Reconciling Evidential Database (SED) is a tool for intelligence analysts that combines a numerical uncertainty calculus with a process of higher-order reasoning about knowledge and assumptions. SED includes (1) a natural representation of evidential arguments in terms of a normal or firstblush reaction to the evidence plus a set of exception conditions, (2) a modeling technique that d...

We develop our interpretation of the joint belief distribution and of evidential updating that matches the following basic requirements: * there must exist an efficient method for reasoning within this framework * there must exist a clear correspondence between the contents of the knowledge base and the real world * there must be a clear correspondence between the reasoning method and some real...

Evaluation of services plays an important role in the pre-negotiation process for negotiations over services between autonomous agents. Typically, the service evaluation problem can be regarded as multiattribute decision making, possibly with uncertainty. This chapter first presents an overview on some decision models, which have been used for evaluating service offers in negotiations, and then...

The Dempster-Shafer theory has been extended recently for its application to expert systems. However, implementing the extended D-S reasoning model in rule-based systems greatly complicates the task of generating informative explanations. By implementing GERTIS, a prototype system for diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis, we show that two kinds of knowledge are essential for explanation generation: ...

Abst rac t . Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) have previously been built by hand. These systems have difficulty successfully classifying intruders, and require a significant amount of computational overhead making it difficult to create robust real-time IDS systems. Artificial Intelligence techniques can reduce the human effort required to build these systems and can improve their performance....

An approach to fuse multiple images based on Dempster-Shafer evidential reasoning is proposed in this article. Dempster-Shafer theory provides a complete framework for combining weak evidences from multiple sources. Such situations typically arise in the image fusion problems, where a ‘real scene’ image has to be estimated from incomplete and unreliable observations. By converting images from t...

In this work, we examine the problem of constructing and maintaining a map of an autonomous vehicle’s environment for the purpose of navigation, using evidential reasoning. The inherent uncertainty in the origin of measurements of sensors demands a probabilistic approach to processing, or fusing, the new sensory information to build an accurate map. In this paper, the map is based on a two-dime...

This article performs two types of analysis using Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions for evidential reasoning. The first analysis deals with the impact of the structure of audit evidence on the overall belief at each variable in the network, variables being the account balance to be audited, the related transaction streams, and the associated audit objectives. The second analysis deals ...