FNBT: Full Negation Belief Transformation for Open-World Information Fusion Based on Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: He, Meishen, Ma, Wenjun, Wang, Jiao, Yue, Huijun, Fan, Xiaoma
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author He, Meishen
Ma, Wenjun
Wang, Jiao
Yue, Huijun
Fan, Xiaoma
author_facet He, Meishen
Ma, Wenjun
Wang, Jiao
Yue, Huijun
Fan, Xiaoma
contents The Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence has been widely applied in the field of information fusion under uncertainty. Most existing research focuses on combining evidence within the same frame of discernment. However, in real-world scenarios, trained algorithms or data often originate from different regions or organizations, where data silos are prevalent. As a result, using different data sources or models to generate basic probability assignments may lead to heterogeneous frames, for which traditional fusion methods often yield unsatisfactory results. To address this challenge, this study proposes an open-world information fusion method, termed Full Negation Belief Transformation (FNBT), based on the Dempster-Shafer theory. More specially, a criterion is introduced to determine whether a given fusion task belongs to the open-world setting. Then, by extending the frames, the method can accommodate elements from heterogeneous frames. Finally, a full negation mechanism is employed to transform the mass functions, so that existing combination rules can be applied to the transformed mass functions for such information fusion. Theoretically, the proposed method satisfies three desirable properties, which are formally proven: mass function invariance, heritability, and essential conflict elimination. Empirically, FNBT demonstrates superior performance in pattern classification tasks on real-world datasets and successfully resolves Zadeh's counterexample, thereby validating its practical effectiveness.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_08075
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FNBT: Full Negation Belief Transformation for Open-World Information Fusion Based on Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence
He, Meishen
Ma, Wenjun
Wang, Jiao
Yue, Huijun
Fan, Xiaoma
Artificial Intelligence
The Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence has been widely applied in the field of information fusion under uncertainty. Most existing research focuses on combining evidence within the same frame of discernment. However, in real-world scenarios, trained algorithms or data often originate from different regions or organizations, where data silos are prevalent. As a result, using different data sources or models to generate basic probability assignments may lead to heterogeneous frames, for which traditional fusion methods often yield unsatisfactory results. To address this challenge, this study proposes an open-world information fusion method, termed Full Negation Belief Transformation (FNBT), based on the Dempster-Shafer theory. More specially, a criterion is introduced to determine whether a given fusion task belongs to the open-world setting. Then, by extending the frames, the method can accommodate elements from heterogeneous frames. Finally, a full negation mechanism is employed to transform the mass functions, so that existing combination rules can be applied to the transformed mass functions for such information fusion. Theoretically, the proposed method satisfies three desirable properties, which are formally proven: mass function invariance, heritability, and essential conflict elimination. Empirically, FNBT demonstrates superior performance in pattern classification tasks on real-world datasets and successfully resolves Zadeh's counterexample, thereby validating its practical effectiveness.
title FNBT: Full Negation Belief Transformation for Open-World Information Fusion Based on Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.08075