Comparison of evidence theory and Bayesian theory for uncertainty modeling

• Published in: Reliability engineering & system safety Vol. 85; no. 1; pp. 295 - 311
• Main Authors: Soundappan, Prabhu, Nikolaidis, Efstratios, Haftka, Raphael T., Grandhi, Ramana, Canfield, Robert
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2004
• Subjects: Bayesian methods; Epistemic uncertainty; Evidence theory; Experimental testing; Epistemic uncertainty; Evidence theory; Bayesian methods; Experimental testing
• ISSN: 0951-8320; 1879-0836
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2004.03.018

This paper compares Evidence Theory (ET) and Bayesian Theory (BT) for uncertainty modeling and decision under uncertainty, when the evidence about uncertainty is imprecise. The basic concepts of ET and BT are introduced and the ways these theories model uncertainties, propagate them through systems and assess the safety of these systems are presented. ET and BT approaches are demonstrated and compared on challenge problems involving an algebraic function whose input variables are uncertain. The evidence about the input variables consists of intervals provided by experts. It is recommended that a decision-maker compute both the Bayesian probabilities of the outcomes of alternative actions and their plausibility and belief measures when evidence about uncertainty is imprecise, because this helps assess the importance of imprecision and the value of additional information. Finally, the paper presents and demonstrates a method for testing approaches for decision under uncertainty in terms of their effectiveness in making decisions.