Beliefs specified for predicting an unobserved realization of pivotal variables in the context of the fiducial and Dempster-Shafer (DS) inference can be weakened for credible inference. We consider predictive random sets for predicting an unobserved random sample from a known distribution, e.g., the uniform distribution U(0, 1). More specifically, we choose our beliefs for inference in two step...

The main objective of this paper is to describe how Dempster-Shafer’s (DS) theory of belief functions fits in the framework of valuation-based systems (VBS). Since VBS serve as a framework for managing uncertainty in expert systems, this facilitates the use of DS belief-function theory in expert systems.

In this paper, we discuss elliptic genera of (2,2) and (0,2) supersymmetric Landau-Ginzburg models over nontrivial spaces, i.e. nonlinear sigma models on nontrivial noncompact manifolds with superpotential, generalizing old computations in Landau-Ginzburg models over (orbifolds of) vector spaces. For Landau-Ginzburg models in the same universality class as nonlinear sigma models, we explicitly ...

Recently, Hummel and Landy proposed a variation on the Dempster/Shafer theory of evidence that tracks only the first and second order statistics of the opinions of sets of experts. This extension permits the tracking of statistics of probabilistic opinions, however, as opposed to tracking merely Boolean opinions (or possibilities within the "frame of discernment"). Both the Dempster/Shafer form...

This article explains for a general philosophical audience the central issues and strategies in the contemporary moral realism debate. It critically surveys the contribution of some recent scholarship, representing expressivist and pragmatist nondescriptivism (Mark Timmons, Hilary Putnam), subjectivist and nonsubjectivist naturalism (Michael Smith, Paul Bloomfield, Philippa Foot), nonnaturalism...

We prove quantization of the Hall conductance for continuous ergodic Landau Hamiltonians under a condition on the decay of the Fermi projections. This condition and continuity of the integrated density of states are shown to imply continuity of the Hall conductance. In addition, we prove the existence of delocalization near each Landau level for these two-dimensional Hamiltonians. More precisel...

Dempster-Shafer evidence theory is an efficient mathematical tool to deal with uncertain information. In that theory, basic probability assignment (BPA) is the basic element for the expression and inference of uncertainty. Decision-making based on BPA is still an open issue in Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. In this paper, a novel approach of transforming basic probability assignments to proba...