Decision making in the environment of heterogeneous uncertainty

Abstract

The environment of heterogeneous uncertainty is characterized by the presence of variables in multiple uncertainty formalisms. This paper provides an overview of decision models under several uncertainty frameworks including probability theory, Dempster-Shafer belief function theory and possibility theory. It explores the challenges in pulling them together for decision making. We show that the information of sequence of variable resolution, which was often neglected, actually plays a key role in decision making under heterogeneous uncertainty. A novel approach, based on the well-known folding-back principle, to find the certainty equivalent of acts under heterogeneous uncertainty is proposed. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.