Connectionist-Based Dempster–Shafer Evidential Reasoning for Data Fusion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Dempster-Shafer evidence theory (DSET) is a popular paradigm for dealing with uncertainty and imprecision. Its corresponding evidential reasoning framework is theoretically attractive. However, there are outstanding issues that hinder its use in real-life applications. Two prominent issues in this regard are 1) the issue of basic probability assignments (masses) and 2) the issue of dependence among information sources. This paper attempts to deal with these issues by utilizing neural networks in the context of pattern classification application. First, a multilayer perceptron neural network with the mean squared error as a cost function is implemented to calculate, for each information source, posteriori probabilities for all classes. Second, an evidence structure construction scheme is developed for transferring the estimated posteriori probabilities to a set of masses along with the corresponding focal elements, from a Bayesian decision point of view. Third, a network realization of the Dempster-Shafer evidential reasoning is designed and analyzed, and it is further extended to a DSET-based neural network, referred to as DSETNN, to manipulate the evidence structures. In order to tackle the issue of dependence between sources, DSETNN is tuned for optimal performance through a supervised learning process. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we apply it to three benchmark pattern classification problems. Experiments reveal that the DSETNN out-performs DSET and provide encouraging results in terms of classification accuracy and the speed of learning convergence.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".