Alternative formulations of the theory of evidence based on basic plausibility and commonality assignments

Abstract

In this paper we introduce indeed two alternative formulations of the theory of evidence by proving that both plausibility and commonality functions share the same combinatorial structure of sum function of belief functions, and computing their Moebius inverses called basic plausibility and commonality assignments. The equivalence of the associated formulations of the ToE is mirrored by the geometric congruence of the related simplices. Applications to the probabilistic approximation problem are briefly presented. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.