# A Method to Determine Generalized Basic Probability Assignment in the Open World

Authors: Wen Jiang; Jun Zhan; Deyun Zhou; Xin Li
Journal: Mathematical Problems in Engineering
 (2016)

---

## Abstract

Dempster-Shafer evidence theory (D-S theory) has been widely used in many information fusion systems since it was proposed by Dempster and extended by Shafer. However, how to determine the basic probability assignment (BPA), which is the main and first step in D-S theory, is still an open issue, especially when the given environment is in an open world, which means the frame of discernment is incomplete. In this paper, a method to determine generalized basic probability assignment in an open world is proposed. Frame of discernment in an open world is established first, and then the triangular fuzzy number models to identify target in the proposed frame of discernment are established. Pessimistic strategy based on the differentiation degree between model and sample is defined to yield the BPAs for known targets. If the sum of all the BPAs of known targets is over one, then they will be normalized and the BPA of unknown target is assigned to0; otherwise the BPA of unknown target is equal to 1 minus the sum of all the known targets BPAs. IRIS classification examples illustrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.


---

## Body

## 1. Introduction

As one of the most important tools in multisources information fusion, Dempster-Shafer evidence theory (D-S theory) [1, 2] has been widely used since it has abilities to deal with uncertainty and unknown information and requires fewer conditions than probability theory. D-S theory has a significant advantage over the traditional probabilistic approach; that is, it allows for the allocation of probability mass to sets or intervals. And it can hence handle both aleatory uncertainty and epistemic (or subjective) uncertainty.Although D-S theory is widely used in many application systems such as information fusion systems [3–6], evidential reasoning [7, 8], risk and reliability analysis [9–12], and decision making [13–15], some basic problems are still not completely clarified. One typical open issue is dependent evidence combination [16–18]. The other open issue is how to determine the basic probability assignment (BPA). So far, there is no general method to obtain BPA.In the years, many researchers have investigated different approaches to solve this problem. Xu et al. [19] put forward a nonparametric method to determine BPA based on the relationship between the test sample and the probability models. In their work, a nonparametric probability density function (PDF) is calculated firstly using the training data. Suh and Yook [20] presented a method to determine BPA through sensor data. Their study showed that a pedestrian could recognize a moving object with its method of determining BPA through multisensor data fusion. Yoon et al. [21] proposed a novel way to obtain BPA using sensor signals. The method enabled context inference even when there was no advanced information of the situation. Recently, with the generalized fuzzy numbers [22], we presented a fuzzy method to generate BPA [23].Another vital issue is that the result of BPAs combination is always contradictory to common sense, using D-S theory of evidence to fuse highly conflicting evidences. This problem often appears in engineering applications because environmental noises and human disturbances often lead to conflict among the reports of multiple sensors.Zadeh, the author of fuzzy mathematics, gives an example to analyze the deficiency of the combination rule of evidence theory, which has aroused the interest of many scholars [24]. How to handle conflicting evidence is heavily studied [25, 26]. Yager [27] holds on to the fact that the normalization of the combination rule is the main reason which leads to irrational fusion results. He advocates assigning the conflict coefficient to the unknown items in the frame of discernment (FOD) directly, without normalization step. Yager’s method and the method in [28] only satisfy commutativity, but not associativity. This limits the real application of evidence theory. Smets and Kennes [29] present another ingenious approach. They argue that the conflict is mainly due to the incomplete knowledge base when the reports of sensors are all reliable, so they put forward the concepts of the closed world and the open world. In the transferable belief model (TBM), the so-called closed world means that the FOD consists of all the possible propositions, and the open world refers to the incomplete FOD due for lack of knowledge and various uncertainty. They point out that the methods of Dempster et al. combine BPAs on the premise of assumptions that the information fusion environment is in a closed world.Based on the conception of closed world and open world, Deng [30] proposed the basic frame of generalized evidence theory (GET). In GET, Ø is regarded as an element with the same properties as the other elements. It represents unknown, but not a common empty. For example, in military applications, suppose there are three targets (a, b, and c) on the FOD. Then, the sensors can only recognize the different unions of these three targets. However, if there exists an unknown target (d), the sensors cannot distinguish whether it is one of the previous three targets. In GET, Ø can be interpreted as the unknown targets and m(Ø)≠0. GET is a proper tool to build the real world in a rational way. In the open world, the generalized combination rule (GCR) can solve the problem that the result of BPAs combination is counterintuitive because of the incompleteness of FOD. In the closed world, GET degenerates to D-S theory.As mentioned above, there are already various methods in the closed world. However, there’s no method to determine BPA in the open world. Determining BPA in the open world is a question worth to be explored. This paper proposed a new method to determine BPA in the open world. This method can be applied to classification problems and identification problems, especially when the FOD is not complete.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section2 starts with a brief presentation of D-S theory and some necessary related concepts. The proposed method to construct BPA function is presented in Section 3. Section 4 investigates the effectiveness of the proposed method through a classical classification problem. Conclusions are presented in Section 5.


## 2. Preliminaries

### 2.1. Dempster-Shafer Evidence Theory

D-S theory, introduced by Dempster [1] and extended later by Shafer [2], is concerned with the question of belief in a proposition and systems of propositions. It mainly focuses on the epistemic uncertainty, but it is also valid for aleatoric uncertainty. D-S theory has many advantages, compared to probability theory. For instances, it can handle more uncertainty in real world. In probability theory, the belief can be only assigned to singleton subsets, while in D-S theory the belief can be assigned to any subsets of FOD. And in D-S theory, prior distribution is not necessary before information fusion. Due to its ability to handle uncertainty or imprecision embedded in the evidence, D-S theory has been increasingly applied in many fields [31–35]. Formally, D-S theory concerns the following preliminary notations.


#### 2.1.1. Frame of Discernment and Mass Function

Evidence theory first supposes the definition of a set of hypothesesHi called the frame of discernment, defined as Θ={H1,H2,…,HN}. The set Θ is composed of N exhaustive and exclusive hypotheses. Denote P(Θ), the power set composed of 2N propositions of Θ, as(1)PΘ=Ø,H1,H2,…,HN,H1∪H2,H1∪H3,…,Θ,where Ø denotes the empty set. The N subsets containing only one element each are called singletons.When the FOD is determined, the mass functionm is defined as a mapping of the power set P(Θ) to a number between 0 and 1; that is,(2)m:PΘ⟼0,1which satisfies the following conditions:(3)∑A∈PΘmA=1,mØ=0.The mass function m is also called the basic probability assignment (BPA) function. m(A) expresses the proportion of all relevant and available evidence that supports the claim that a particular element of Θ belongs to the set A but to no particular subset of A. Any subset A of Θ such that m(A)>0 is called a focal element.


#### 2.1.2. Belief and Upper Probability Functions [2]

A functionBel:2Θ→[0,1] is called a belief function over Θ if it is given by (4) for some basic probability assignment m:2Θ→[0,1]. Consider(4)BelA=∑B⊆AmB.Whenever Bel is belief function over a frame Θ, the function P∗:2Θ→[0,1] defined by (5) is called the upper probability function of A:(5)P∗A=1-BelA¯.


#### 2.1.3. Dempster’s Combination Rule [2]

SupposeBel1 and Bel2 are belief functions over the same frame Θ, with BPA m1 and m2 and focal elements A1,…,Ak and B1,…,Bl, respectively. Then the function m:2Θ→[0,1] defined by m(Ø)=0 and(6)mA=∑B∩C=Am1Bm2C1-kwith(7)k=∑B∩C=Øm1Bm2Cfor all nonempty A⊂Θ is a BPA. The core of the belief function given by m is equal to the intersection of the cores of Bel1 and Bel2. It is also called the orthogonalsum of Bel1 and Bel2 and is denoted by Bel1⊕Bel2.


### 2.2. Jousselme Distance

Jousselme et al. [36] proposed a new distance to measure the difference between two bodies of evidence, which is also called the evidence distance.Letm1 and m2 be two BPAs on the same FOD Θ, containing N mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses. The distance between m1 and m2 is(8)dBPAm1,m2=12m1→-m2→TD__m1→-m2→,where m1→ and m2→ are the BPAs according to (3) in Subsection 2.1 and D__ is a 2N×2N matrix whose elements are (9)DA,B=A∩BA∪B,where A,B∈P(Θ) are derived from m1 and m2, respectively.


### 2.3. Fuzzy Sets Theory

Fuzzy sets theory was first proposed by Zadeh [37] in 1965. The theory is widely used in many uncertain environments such as decision making [38–41] and optimization [42–44]. Some relative notions on fuzzy sets are given as follows.Definition 1 (fuzzy set).
LetX be a universe of discourse, where A~ is a fuzzy subset of X; and for all x∈X, there is a number μA~(x)∈[0,1] which is assigned to represent the membership degree of x in A~ and is called the membership function of A~ [45].Definition 2 (fuzzy number).
A fuzzy numberA~ is a normal and convex fuzzy subset of X [45].
Here, “normality” implies that(10)⋁xμA~x=1,∃x∈R,and “convex” means that(11)μA~αx1+1-αx2⩾min⁡μA~x1,μA~x2∀x1∈X,x2∈X,∀α∈0,1.Definition 3 (generalized fuzzy numbers).
A generalized fuzzy numberA=(a1,a2,a3,a4;ω) is described as any fuzzy subset of the real line R with membership function fA that possesses the following features: (1)
fA(x):R→[0,ω] is continuous, 0≤ω≤1.(2)
fA(x)=0, for all x∈(-∞,a1].(3)
fA(x) is strictly increasing in [a1,a2].(4)
fA(x)=ω, for x∈[a2,a3], where ω is a constant and 0<ω≤1.(5)
fA(x) is strictly decreasing in [a2,a3].(6)
fA(x)=0, for all x∈[a4,∞).Particularly, a trapezoidal fuzzy number and triangular fuzzy number can be shown in Figures 1(a) and 1(b), respectively.Figure 1
Trapezoidal and triangular fuzzy number.
(a)
(b)


### 2.4. Generalized Evidence Theory [30]

Generalized evidence theory (GET), based on the classical Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory, was proposed by Deng [30]. GET abolished the restriction on m(Ø)=0; that is, m(Ø) is not necessarily zero. In GET, the empty set (Ø) can be singleton subsets or multiple hypothesis sets. Moreover, GET can degenerate to the classical D-S theory if the value of m(Ø) is zero. In other words, GET is the extension of the classical D-S theory and can express and deal with more uncertain information in the open world, comparing with D-S theory.


#### 2.4.1. Generalized Basic Probability Assignment [30]

Suppose thatU is a frame of discernment in an open world [30]. Its power set, 2GU, is composed of 2U propositions, ∀A⊂U. If the function m:2GU→[0,1] meets the condition (12)∑A⊆2GUmGA=1then mG is the GBPA of the frame of discernment U. The difference between GBPA and traditional BPA is the restriction of Ø. Note that mG(Ø)=0 is not necessary in GBPA. If mG(Ø)=0, the GBPA reduces to a traditional BPA.


#### 2.4.2. Generalized Combination Rule (GCR) [30]

In GET,Ø1∩Ø2=Ø means that the intersection between two empty sets is still an empty set. Given two GPBAs (m1 and m2), the GCR is defined as follows [30]:(13)mA=1-mØ∑B∩C=Am1Bm2C1-Kwith(14)K=∑B∩C=Øm1Bm2C,mØ=m1Øm2Ø.m(Ø)=1 if and only if K=1.


## 2.1. Dempster-Shafer Evidence Theory

D-S theory, introduced by Dempster [1] and extended later by Shafer [2], is concerned with the question of belief in a proposition and systems of propositions. It mainly focuses on the epistemic uncertainty, but it is also valid for aleatoric uncertainty. D-S theory has many advantages, compared to probability theory. For instances, it can handle more uncertainty in real world. In probability theory, the belief can be only assigned to singleton subsets, while in D-S theory the belief can be assigned to any subsets of FOD. And in D-S theory, prior distribution is not necessary before information fusion. Due to its ability to handle uncertainty or imprecision embedded in the evidence, D-S theory has been increasingly applied in many fields [31–35]. Formally, D-S theory concerns the following preliminary notations.


### 2.1.1. Frame of Discernment and Mass Function

Evidence theory first supposes the definition of a set of hypothesesHi called the frame of discernment, defined as Θ={H1,H2,…,HN}. The set Θ is composed of N exhaustive and exclusive hypotheses. Denote P(Θ), the power set composed of 2N propositions of Θ, as(1)PΘ=Ø,H1,H2,…,HN,H1∪H2,H1∪H3,…,Θ,where Ø denotes the empty set. The N subsets containing only one element each are called singletons.When the FOD is determined, the mass functionm is defined as a mapping of the power set P(Θ) to a number between 0 and 1; that is,(2)m:PΘ⟼0,1which satisfies the following conditions:(3)∑A∈PΘmA=1,mØ=0.The mass function m is also called the basic probability assignment (BPA) function. m(A) expresses the proportion of all relevant and available evidence that supports the claim that a particular element of Θ belongs to the set A but to no particular subset of A. Any subset A of Θ such that m(A)>0 is called a focal element.


### 2.1.2. Belief and Upper Probability Functions [2]

A functionBel:2Θ→[0,1] is called a belief function over Θ if it is given by (4) for some basic probability assignment m:2Θ→[0,1]. Consider(4)BelA=∑B⊆AmB.Whenever Bel is belief function over a frame Θ, the function P∗:2Θ→[0,1] defined by (5) is called the upper probability function of A:(5)P∗A=1-BelA¯.


### 2.1.3. Dempster’s Combination Rule [2]

SupposeBel1 and Bel2 are belief functions over the same frame Θ, with BPA m1 and m2 and focal elements A1,…,Ak and B1,…,Bl, respectively. Then the function m:2Θ→[0,1] defined by m(Ø)=0 and(6)mA=∑B∩C=Am1Bm2C1-kwith(7)k=∑B∩C=Øm1Bm2Cfor all nonempty A⊂Θ is a BPA. The core of the belief function given by m is equal to the intersection of the cores of Bel1 and Bel2. It is also called the orthogonalsum of Bel1 and Bel2 and is denoted by Bel1⊕Bel2.


## 2.1.1. Frame of Discernment and Mass Function

Evidence theory first supposes the definition of a set of hypothesesHi called the frame of discernment, defined as Θ={H1,H2,…,HN}. The set Θ is composed of N exhaustive and exclusive hypotheses. Denote P(Θ), the power set composed of 2N propositions of Θ, as(1)PΘ=Ø,H1,H2,…,HN,H1∪H2,H1∪H3,…,Θ,where Ø denotes the empty set. The N subsets containing only one element each are called singletons.When the FOD is determined, the mass functionm is defined as a mapping of the power set P(Θ) to a number between 0 and 1; that is,(2)m:PΘ⟼0,1which satisfies the following conditions:(3)∑A∈PΘmA=1,mØ=0.The mass function m is also called the basic probability assignment (BPA) function. m(A) expresses the proportion of all relevant and available evidence that supports the claim that a particular element of Θ belongs to the set A but to no particular subset of A. Any subset A of Θ such that m(A)>0 is called a focal element.


## 2.1.2. Belief and Upper Probability Functions [2]

A functionBel:2Θ→[0,1] is called a belief function over Θ if it is given by (4) for some basic probability assignment m:2Θ→[0,1]. Consider(4)BelA=∑B⊆AmB.Whenever Bel is belief function over a frame Θ, the function P∗:2Θ→[0,1] defined by (5) is called the upper probability function of A:(5)P∗A=1-BelA¯.


## 2.1.3. Dempster’s Combination Rule [2]

SupposeBel1 and Bel2 are belief functions over the same frame Θ, with BPA m1 and m2 and focal elements A1,…,Ak and B1,…,Bl, respectively. Then the function m:2Θ→[0,1] defined by m(Ø)=0 and(6)mA=∑B∩C=Am1Bm2C1-kwith(7)k=∑B∩C=Øm1Bm2Cfor all nonempty A⊂Θ is a BPA. The core of the belief function given by m is equal to the intersection of the cores of Bel1 and Bel2. It is also called the orthogonalsum of Bel1 and Bel2 and is denoted by Bel1⊕Bel2.


## 2.2. Jousselme Distance

Jousselme et al. [36] proposed a new distance to measure the difference between two bodies of evidence, which is also called the evidence distance.Letm1 and m2 be two BPAs on the same FOD Θ, containing N mutually exclusive and exhaustive hypotheses. The distance between m1 and m2 is(8)dBPAm1,m2=12m1→-m2→TD__m1→-m2→,where m1→ and m2→ are the BPAs according to (3) in Subsection 2.1 and D__ is a 2N×2N matrix whose elements are (9)DA,B=A∩BA∪B,where A,B∈P(Θ) are derived from m1 and m2, respectively.


## 2.3. Fuzzy Sets Theory

Fuzzy sets theory was first proposed by Zadeh [37] in 1965. The theory is widely used in many uncertain environments such as decision making [38–41] and optimization [42–44]. Some relative notions on fuzzy sets are given as follows.Definition 1 (fuzzy set).
LetX be a universe of discourse, where A~ is a fuzzy subset of X; and for all x∈X, there is a number μA~(x)∈[0,1] which is assigned to represent the membership degree of x in A~ and is called the membership function of A~ [45].Definition 2 (fuzzy number).
A fuzzy numberA~ is a normal and convex fuzzy subset of X [45].
Here, “normality” implies that(10)⋁xμA~x=1,∃x∈R,and “convex” means that(11)μA~αx1+1-αx2⩾min⁡μA~x1,μA~x2∀x1∈X,x2∈X,∀α∈0,1.Definition 3 (generalized fuzzy numbers).
A generalized fuzzy numberA=(a1,a2,a3,a4;ω) is described as any fuzzy subset of the real line R with membership function fA that possesses the following features: (1)
fA(x):R→[0,ω] is continuous, 0≤ω≤1.(2)
fA(x)=0, for all x∈(-∞,a1].(3)
fA(x) is strictly increasing in [a1,a2].(4)
fA(x)=ω, for x∈[a2,a3], where ω is a constant and 0<ω≤1.(5)
fA(x) is strictly decreasing in [a2,a3].(6)
fA(x)=0, for all x∈[a4,∞).Particularly, a trapezoidal fuzzy number and triangular fuzzy number can be shown in Figures 1(a) and 1(b), respectively.Figure 1
Trapezoidal and triangular fuzzy number.
(a)
(b)


## 2.4. Generalized Evidence Theory [30]

Generalized evidence theory (GET), based on the classical Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory, was proposed by Deng [30]. GET abolished the restriction on m(Ø)=0; that is, m(Ø) is not necessarily zero. In GET, the empty set (Ø) can be singleton subsets or multiple hypothesis sets. Moreover, GET can degenerate to the classical D-S theory if the value of m(Ø) is zero. In other words, GET is the extension of the classical D-S theory and can express and deal with more uncertain information in the open world, comparing with D-S theory.


### 2.4.1. Generalized Basic Probability Assignment [30]

Suppose thatU is a frame of discernment in an open world [30]. Its power set, 2GU, is composed of 2U propositions, ∀A⊂U. If the function m:2GU→[0,1] meets the condition (12)∑A⊆2GUmGA=1then mG is the GBPA of the frame of discernment U. The difference between GBPA and traditional BPA is the restriction of Ø. Note that mG(Ø)=0 is not necessary in GBPA. If mG(Ø)=0, the GBPA reduces to a traditional BPA.


### 2.4.2. Generalized Combination Rule (GCR) [30]

In GET,Ø1∩Ø2=Ø means that the intersection between two empty sets is still an empty set. Given two GPBAs (m1 and m2), the GCR is defined as follows [30]:(13)mA=1-mØ∑B∩C=Am1Bm2C1-Kwith(14)K=∑B∩C=Øm1Bm2C,mØ=m1Øm2Ø.m(Ø)=1 if and only if K=1.


## 2.4.1. Generalized Basic Probability Assignment [30]

Suppose thatU is a frame of discernment in an open world [30]. Its power set, 2GU, is composed of 2U propositions, ∀A⊂U. If the function m:2GU→[0,1] meets the condition (12)∑A⊆2GUmGA=1then mG is the GBPA of the frame of discernment U. The difference between GBPA and traditional BPA is the restriction of Ø. Note that mG(Ø)=0 is not necessary in GBPA. If mG(Ø)=0, the GBPA reduces to a traditional BPA.


## 2.4.2. Generalized Combination Rule (GCR) [30]

In GET,Ø1∩Ø2=Ø means that the intersection between two empty sets is still an empty set. Given two GPBAs (m1 and m2), the GCR is defined as follows [30]:(13)mA=1-mØ∑B∩C=Am1Bm2C1-Kwith(14)K=∑B∩C=Øm1Bm2C,mØ=m1Øm2Ø.m(Ø)=1 if and only if K=1.


## 3. Proposed Method to Determine BPA Function

### 3.1. Sample Difference Degree

In order to reflect the difference between the sample and the target model, we proposed a sample difference degree function, which performs well in the measurement of difference between the sample data and the model data. And now, it will be amended to define pessimistic function in a more reasonable way.In our method, the triangular fuzzy numbers, which denote the target model and the sample data, should firstly be normalized into the interval[0,1] as A~ and a~0, respectively. Four normalized triangular fuzzy numbers are defined as follows:(1)
Triangular fuzzy number of target modelA~=(a,b,c;ω).(2)
Triangular fuzzy number of sample dataa~0=(a0,a0,a0;1).(3)
Left standard triangular fuzzy numberA~0=(0,0,0;1).(4)
Right standard triangular fuzzy numberA~1=(1,1,1;1).ω∈[0,1], 0⩽a⩽b⩽c⩽1. Then the Left and right average area, SL(A~), SL(a~0), SR(A~), and SR(a~0), are defined as follows and are shown in Figure 2. As can be seen from Figure 2, g1(x) is the left membership degree curve of A~, and g1-1(x) denotes inverse function of g1(x); g2(x) is the right membership degree curve of A~, and g2-1(x) denotes inverse function of g2(x). Then the left adjacent area SLA is the area enclosed by g1(x) and left standard triangular fuzzy number (0,0,0;1); the left far area SLF is the area enclosed by g2(x) and left standard triangular fuzzy number (0,0,0;1); the right adjacent area SRA is the area enclosed by g2(x) and right standard triangular fuzzy number (1,1,1;1); the right far area SRF is the area enclosed by g1(x) and right standard triangular fuzzy number (1,1,1;1). Obviously, the four kinds of area can be obtained by the following equations:(15)SLA=∫0ωg1-1xdx,SLF=∫0ωg2-1xdx,SRA=∫0ω1-g2-1xdx,SRF=∫0ω1-g1-1xdx.Based on the four kinds of area, SLA, SLF, SRA, and SRF, the left average area SL and the right average area SR are defined, respectively, as follows:(16)SL=SLA+SLF2,(17)SR=SRA+SRF2.Figure 2 indicates that the larger SL, the closer the fuzzy number A~ to A~1; the larger SR, the closer the fuzzy number A~ to A~0. That is to say, SL and SR can accurately represent the position and the state information of a triangular fuzzy number in the interval [0,1]. Based on the fact that the shape and position of a fuzzy number can, to a large extent, be expressed as the credibility of the proposition, a conclusion can be made that the difference between the average area (SL(A~),SR(A~)) of A~ and the average area (SL(a~0),SR(a~0)) of a~0 reflects the difference between the sample a~0 and the model A~. So, it is reasonable to define the difference degree difa to measure the difference between the sample and the model as follows: (18)difa=SLA~-ωSLa~0+SRA~-ωSRa~0.Figure 2
Left and right area between a triangle fuzzy number and standard fuzzy number.
(a)
Left adjacent area
(b)
Left far area
(c)
Right adjacent area
(d)
Right far area


### 3.2. Frame of Discernment in Open World

According to the basic framework of the generalized evidence theory [30], an open world is absolute and a closed world is relative. Assume the system to be concerned is not complete and the system FOD Θ is constructed as Θ={a1,a2,…,an,Ø}, where Ø denotes the unknown objects. Ø could be one unknown object or the conjunction of several unknown objects. During the procedure of applying GET, new target representation model is generated by machine learning method along with the accumulation of sensor reports to revise the existing target model library until the system is judged to be complete.


### 3.3. Pessimistic Function

As can be seen from (18), the difa reflects the possibility that the sample data may be distributed into the interval built by the training samples. The larger the difa, the greater the deviation between the test sample and the training sample model, and vice versa. From this point of view, we use the difa as argument to define a pessimistic function and yield initial BPA, following a pessimistic strategy: when difa is greater than a threshold value, the incremental rate of BPA is less than the decreasing rate of difa; on the contrary, when difa is less than the threshold value, the incremental rate of BPA is greater than the decreasing rate of difa. In this way, pessimistic function can effectively reflect the difference between test sample and training sample models to generate the initial BPA.Definition 4 (pessimistic function).
Consider(19)S=ω·e-r·difa/2,where ω denotes the height of sample triangular fuzzy number, r denotes the difference coefficient, which is used to revise the membership degree of unknown samples, and difa denotes the sample difference defined as (18).


### 3.4. Procedures to Determine BPA

A flow chart of the proposed method is shown in Figure3 and details are as follows: Consider species X={x1,x2,…,xn,Ø}, where Ø denotes the unknown elements. Each species xi has k attributes xi1,xi2,…,xik, so the test sample ξ to be recognized also has k attributes ξ1,ξ2,…,ξk. We randomly choose m instances for each species xi and build the model: (20)Ti=t1i,t2i,…,tmi,where Ti is a k×m matrix and the jth row Ti(j,:) denotes j attribution value of each sample of species xi.Figure 3
The steps to determine BPA.


#### 3.4.1. Step  1: Establish the Triangular Fuzzy Number Model Matrix

A triangular fuzzy number modelA~ij=(aij,bij,cij;1) for j attribution of species xi is established according to the sample values, where (21)aij=min⁡Tij,:,bij=∑Tij,:m,cij=max⁡Tij,:.Then the triangular fuzzy number models for each attribution of species xi can be represented as Mi=(A~i1,A~i2,…,A~ik). Furthermore, all the triangular fuzzy number models for each attribution of species xi (i=1,2,…,n) can be acquired and denoted as a n×k matrix M=(M1,M2,…,Mn)′, where each column of M represents the triangular fuzzy numbers belonging to the different species but the same attribution. As can be seen from Figure 4, there is often some intersection between two triangular fuzzy numbers. In most cases, the intersection is a generalized fuzzy number. But in some cases, it is not a generalized fuzzy number, as shown in Figure 4. For this particular case, it can be processed by the method proposed by Xiao et al. [46] to construct a generalized triangular fuzzy number. Besides, if these is no intersection between two fuzzy numbers, a special fuzzy number (0,0,0;0) could be used to represent this case. To do the same operation on each column of M, we can get a fuzzy number matrix M′=M1,M2,…,M2n-1′. The mth attribution value ξm(1⩽m⩽k) of the test sample ξ to be recognized should be converted to a special triangular fuzzy number ξ~m=(ξm,ξm,ξm;1). Doing this processing k times, we can get a triangular fuzzy number matrix ξ~=(ξ~1,ξ~2,…,ξ~k). Then M′ and ξ~ can be merged into a matrix Mξ. Now we need to normalize every triangular fuzzy number of the matrix Mξ to [0,1]. Each element of the matrix Mξ is divided by n times of the maximum element value, where n represents normalization coefficient, which is adjustable according to different engineering application.Figure 4
Generalized fuzzy number yield by two normal fuzzy numbers.


#### 3.4.2. Step  2: Establish the Differentiation Matrix

In this step, we need to calculate the left and right average area (SL,SR) for each triangular fuzzy number in matrix Mξ according to (16) and (17). Based on the area, the sample differentiation matrix difa between each of the first 2n-1 rows in Mξ and the (2n-1)×k test sample ξ0 could be calculated.


#### 3.4.3. Step  3: Calculate the Similarity MatrixS

For each element in matrixdifa, a pessimistic function can be defined according to (19):(22)Si,j=ωij·e-r·difai,j/2;now we could obtain a similarity matrix S0, which denotes the similarity degree between the test sample and the target species models. Assume FOD is incomplete; we first calculate the value of the jth (j=1,2,…,k) column of matrix S0. Then if the result is larger than 1, the jth column should be normalized and set S(2n,j)=0 which denotes the similarity degree between the test sample ξ0 and Ø; else if the result is less than 1, S(2n,j)=1-S(:,j) is regarded as the similarity between the test sample ξ0 and Ø, where S(:,j) represents the sum of the first 2n-1 rows in similarity matrix S0. Finally, the modified 2n×k similarity matrix S0 could be regarded as the initial BPA matrix S2n×k.


#### 3.4.4. Step  4: Calculate Evidence Disctance

Taking each columnS(:,j)(j=1,2,…,k) in matrix S2n×k as a piece of evidence or as a vector, we could calculate the distance between any two bodies of evidence based on (8) to obtain a distance matrix [Dij]k×k, where Dij represents the distance between the ith and jth column of the initial BPA matrix S2n×k. Obviously, Dij equals Dji; that is, distance matrix [Dij]k×k is a symmetrical matrix, which can simplify the calculation to a great extent.


#### 3.4.5. Step  5: Determine the Extent of Conflict of Evidence

First, we can sum each rowD(j,:)(j=1,2,…,k) in matrix Dk×k and obtain a vector d0; it can be normalized as a vector d=d0/max⁡(d0), where max⁡(d0) denotes the maximum element of d0. As debated in Section 1, classical D-S theory has a vital problem that combining two highly conflicting evidences could get even a wrong result. So a conflict threshold λ(0⩽λ⩽1) should be set first according to concrete engineering application. If the maximum element value of vector d is less than conflict threshold λ, the conflict degree is acceptable and the initial BPAs could be combined with GCR (see (12) and (13)) directly; otherwise the initial BPAs should be adjusted. The specific process is in Section 3.4.6, with the discount coefficient method.


#### 3.4.6. Step  6: Adjust the Conflicting Evidence by Using the Discount Coefficient Method

This step will be operated if evidence conflict is over thresholdλ. In this step, conflict resolution between initial BPAs should firstly be done. Then GCR could be applied to combine the preprocessed BPAs. Computational procedure is summarized as follows:(1)
Construct a comparative matrixP with the average of each row (d¯i) in distance matrix Dk×k:(23)Pi,j=d¯id¯j,whereP(i,j) is the ith row and jth column element in matrix P, d¯i is the ith row of Dk×k, and d¯j is the jth row of Dk×k.(2)
Calculate eigenvector (ωi) corresponding to the maximum eigenvalue and normalize ωi as discount coefficient ω.(3)
Discount the initial BPAs with coefficientω to obtain the final BPAs.(4)
Combine the final BPAs with GCR and then the final recognized result will be acquired.


## 3.1. Sample Difference Degree

In order to reflect the difference between the sample and the target model, we proposed a sample difference degree function, which performs well in the measurement of difference between the sample data and the model data. And now, it will be amended to define pessimistic function in a more reasonable way.In our method, the triangular fuzzy numbers, which denote the target model and the sample data, should firstly be normalized into the interval[0,1] as A~ and a~0, respectively. Four normalized triangular fuzzy numbers are defined as follows:(1)
Triangular fuzzy number of target modelA~=(a,b,c;ω).(2)
Triangular fuzzy number of sample dataa~0=(a0,a0,a0;1).(3)
Left standard triangular fuzzy numberA~0=(0,0,0;1).(4)
Right standard triangular fuzzy numberA~1=(1,1,1;1).ω∈[0,1], 0⩽a⩽b⩽c⩽1. Then the Left and right average area, SL(A~), SL(a~0), SR(A~), and SR(a~0), are defined as follows and are shown in Figure 2. As can be seen from Figure 2, g1(x) is the left membership degree curve of A~, and g1-1(x) denotes inverse function of g1(x); g2(x) is the right membership degree curve of A~, and g2-1(x) denotes inverse function of g2(x). Then the left adjacent area SLA is the area enclosed by g1(x) and left standard triangular fuzzy number (0,0,0;1); the left far area SLF is the area enclosed by g2(x) and left standard triangular fuzzy number (0,0,0;1); the right adjacent area SRA is the area enclosed by g2(x) and right standard triangular fuzzy number (1,1,1;1); the right far area SRF is the area enclosed by g1(x) and right standard triangular fuzzy number (1,1,1;1). Obviously, the four kinds of area can be obtained by the following equations:(15)SLA=∫0ωg1-1xdx,SLF=∫0ωg2-1xdx,SRA=∫0ω1-g2-1xdx,SRF=∫0ω1-g1-1xdx.Based on the four kinds of area, SLA, SLF, SRA, and SRF, the left average area SL and the right average area SR are defined, respectively, as follows:(16)SL=SLA+SLF2,(17)SR=SRA+SRF2.Figure 2 indicates that the larger SL, the closer the fuzzy number A~ to A~1; the larger SR, the closer the fuzzy number A~ to A~0. That is to say, SL and SR can accurately represent the position and the state information of a triangular fuzzy number in the interval [0,1]. Based on the fact that the shape and position of a fuzzy number can, to a large extent, be expressed as the credibility of the proposition, a conclusion can be made that the difference between the average area (SL(A~),SR(A~)) of A~ and the average area (SL(a~0),SR(a~0)) of a~0 reflects the difference between the sample a~0 and the model A~. So, it is reasonable to define the difference degree difa to measure the difference between the sample and the model as follows: (18)difa=SLA~-ωSLa~0+SRA~-ωSRa~0.Figure 2
Left and right area between a triangle fuzzy number and standard fuzzy number.
(a)
Left adjacent area
(b)
Left far area
(c)
Right adjacent area
(d)
Right far area


## 3.2. Frame of Discernment in Open World

According to the basic framework of the generalized evidence theory [30], an open world is absolute and a closed world is relative. Assume the system to be concerned is not complete and the system FOD Θ is constructed as Θ={a1,a2,…,an,Ø}, where Ø denotes the unknown objects. Ø could be one unknown object or the conjunction of several unknown objects. During the procedure of applying GET, new target representation model is generated by machine learning method along with the accumulation of sensor reports to revise the existing target model library until the system is judged to be complete.


## 3.3. Pessimistic Function

As can be seen from (18), the difa reflects the possibility that the sample data may be distributed into the interval built by the training samples. The larger the difa, the greater the deviation between the test sample and the training sample model, and vice versa. From this point of view, we use the difa as argument to define a pessimistic function and yield initial BPA, following a pessimistic strategy: when difa is greater than a threshold value, the incremental rate of BPA is less than the decreasing rate of difa; on the contrary, when difa is less than the threshold value, the incremental rate of BPA is greater than the decreasing rate of difa. In this way, pessimistic function can effectively reflect the difference between test sample and training sample models to generate the initial BPA.Definition 4 (pessimistic function).
Consider(19)S=ω·e-r·difa/2,where ω denotes the height of sample triangular fuzzy number, r denotes the difference coefficient, which is used to revise the membership degree of unknown samples, and difa denotes the sample difference defined as (18).


## 3.4. Procedures to Determine BPA

A flow chart of the proposed method is shown in Figure3 and details are as follows: Consider species X={x1,x2,…,xn,Ø}, where Ø denotes the unknown elements. Each species xi has k attributes xi1,xi2,…,xik, so the test sample ξ to be recognized also has k attributes ξ1,ξ2,…,ξk. We randomly choose m instances for each species xi and build the model: (20)Ti=t1i,t2i,…,tmi,where Ti is a k×m matrix and the jth row Ti(j,:) denotes j attribution value of each sample of species xi.Figure 3
The steps to determine BPA.


### 3.4.1. Step  1: Establish the Triangular Fuzzy Number Model Matrix

A triangular fuzzy number modelA~ij=(aij,bij,cij;1) for j attribution of species xi is established according to the sample values, where (21)aij=min⁡Tij,:,bij=∑Tij,:m,cij=max⁡Tij,:.Then the triangular fuzzy number models for each attribution of species xi can be represented as Mi=(A~i1,A~i2,…,A~ik). Furthermore, all the triangular fuzzy number models for each attribution of species xi (i=1,2,…,n) can be acquired and denoted as a n×k matrix M=(M1,M2,…,Mn)′, where each column of M represents the triangular fuzzy numbers belonging to the different species but the same attribution. As can be seen from Figure 4, there is often some intersection between two triangular fuzzy numbers. In most cases, the intersection is a generalized fuzzy number. But in some cases, it is not a generalized fuzzy number, as shown in Figure 4. For this particular case, it can be processed by the method proposed by Xiao et al. [46] to construct a generalized triangular fuzzy number. Besides, if these is no intersection between two fuzzy numbers, a special fuzzy number (0,0,0;0) could be used to represent this case. To do the same operation on each column of M, we can get a fuzzy number matrix M′=M1,M2,…,M2n-1′. The mth attribution value ξm(1⩽m⩽k) of the test sample ξ to be recognized should be converted to a special triangular fuzzy number ξ~m=(ξm,ξm,ξm;1). Doing this processing k times, we can get a triangular fuzzy number matrix ξ~=(ξ~1,ξ~2,…,ξ~k). Then M′ and ξ~ can be merged into a matrix Mξ. Now we need to normalize every triangular fuzzy number of the matrix Mξ to [0,1]. Each element of the matrix Mξ is divided by n times of the maximum element value, where n represents normalization coefficient, which is adjustable according to different engineering application.Figure 4
Generalized fuzzy number yield by two normal fuzzy numbers.


### 3.4.2. Step  2: Establish the Differentiation Matrix

In this step, we need to calculate the left and right average area (SL,SR) for each triangular fuzzy number in matrix Mξ according to (16) and (17). Based on the area, the sample differentiation matrix difa between each of the first 2n-1 rows in Mξ and the (2n-1)×k test sample ξ0 could be calculated.


### 3.4.3. Step  3: Calculate the Similarity MatrixS

For each element in matrixdifa, a pessimistic function can be defined according to (19):(22)Si,j=ωij·e-r·difai,j/2;now we could obtain a similarity matrix S0, which denotes the similarity degree between the test sample and the target species models. Assume FOD is incomplete; we first calculate the value of the jth (j=1,2,…,k) column of matrix S0. Then if the result is larger than 1, the jth column should be normalized and set S(2n,j)=0 which denotes the similarity degree between the test sample ξ0 and Ø; else if the result is less than 1, S(2n,j)=1-S(:,j) is regarded as the similarity between the test sample ξ0 and Ø, where S(:,j) represents the sum of the first 2n-1 rows in similarity matrix S0. Finally, the modified 2n×k similarity matrix S0 could be regarded as the initial BPA matrix S2n×k.


### 3.4.4. Step  4: Calculate Evidence Disctance

Taking each columnS(:,j)(j=1,2,…,k) in matrix S2n×k as a piece of evidence or as a vector, we could calculate the distance between any two bodies of evidence based on (8) to obtain a distance matrix [Dij]k×k, where Dij represents the distance between the ith and jth column of the initial BPA matrix S2n×k. Obviously, Dij equals Dji; that is, distance matrix [Dij]k×k is a symmetrical matrix, which can simplify the calculation to a great extent.


### 3.4.5. Step  5: Determine the Extent of Conflict of Evidence

First, we can sum each rowD(j,:)(j=1,2,…,k) in matrix Dk×k and obtain a vector d0; it can be normalized as a vector d=d0/max⁡(d0), where max⁡(d0) denotes the maximum element of d0. As debated in Section 1, classical D-S theory has a vital problem that combining two highly conflicting evidences could get even a wrong result. So a conflict threshold λ(0⩽λ⩽1) should be set first according to concrete engineering application. If the maximum element value of vector d is less than conflict threshold λ, the conflict degree is acceptable and the initial BPAs could be combined with GCR (see (12) and (13)) directly; otherwise the initial BPAs should be adjusted. The specific process is in Section 3.4.6, with the discount coefficient method.


### 3.4.6. Step  6: Adjust the Conflicting Evidence by Using the Discount Coefficient Method

This step will be operated if evidence conflict is over thresholdλ. In this step, conflict resolution between initial BPAs should firstly be done. Then GCR could be applied to combine the preprocessed BPAs. Computational procedure is summarized as follows:(1)
Construct a comparative matrixP with the average of each row (d¯i) in distance matrix Dk×k:(23)Pi,j=d¯id¯j,whereP(i,j) is the ith row and jth column element in matrix P, d¯i is the ith row of Dk×k, and d¯j is the jth row of Dk×k.(2)
Calculate eigenvector (ωi) corresponding to the maximum eigenvalue and normalize ωi as discount coefficient ω.(3)
Discount the initial BPAs with coefficientω to obtain the final BPAs.(4)
Combine the final BPAs with GCR and then the final recognized result will be acquired.


## 3.4.1. Step  1: Establish the Triangular Fuzzy Number Model Matrix

A triangular fuzzy number modelA~ij=(aij,bij,cij;1) for j attribution of species xi is established according to the sample values, where (21)aij=min⁡Tij,:,bij=∑Tij,:m,cij=max⁡Tij,:.Then the triangular fuzzy number models for each attribution of species xi can be represented as Mi=(A~i1,A~i2,…,A~ik). Furthermore, all the triangular fuzzy number models for each attribution of species xi (i=1,2,…,n) can be acquired and denoted as a n×k matrix M=(M1,M2,…,Mn)′, where each column of M represents the triangular fuzzy numbers belonging to the different species but the same attribution. As can be seen from Figure 4, there is often some intersection between two triangular fuzzy numbers. In most cases, the intersection is a generalized fuzzy number. But in some cases, it is not a generalized fuzzy number, as shown in Figure 4. For this particular case, it can be processed by the method proposed by Xiao et al. [46] to construct a generalized triangular fuzzy number. Besides, if these is no intersection between two fuzzy numbers, a special fuzzy number (0,0,0;0) could be used to represent this case. To do the same operation on each column of M, we can get a fuzzy number matrix M′=M1,M2,…,M2n-1′. The mth attribution value ξm(1⩽m⩽k) of the test sample ξ to be recognized should be converted to a special triangular fuzzy number ξ~m=(ξm,ξm,ξm;1). Doing this processing k times, we can get a triangular fuzzy number matrix ξ~=(ξ~1,ξ~2,…,ξ~k). Then M′ and ξ~ can be merged into a matrix Mξ. Now we need to normalize every triangular fuzzy number of the matrix Mξ to [0,1]. Each element of the matrix Mξ is divided by n times of the maximum element value, where n represents normalization coefficient, which is adjustable according to different engineering application.Figure 4
Generalized fuzzy number yield by two normal fuzzy numbers.


## 3.4.2. Step  2: Establish the Differentiation Matrix

In this step, we need to calculate the left and right average area (SL,SR) for each triangular fuzzy number in matrix Mξ according to (16) and (17). Based on the area, the sample differentiation matrix difa between each of the first 2n-1 rows in Mξ and the (2n-1)×k test sample ξ0 could be calculated.


## 3.4.3. Step  3: Calculate the Similarity MatrixS

For each element in matrixdifa, a pessimistic function can be defined according to (19):(22)Si,j=ωij·e-r·difai,j/2;now we could obtain a similarity matrix S0, which denotes the similarity degree between the test sample and the target species models. Assume FOD is incomplete; we first calculate the value of the jth (j=1,2,…,k) column of matrix S0. Then if the result is larger than 1, the jth column should be normalized and set S(2n,j)=0 which denotes the similarity degree between the test sample ξ0 and Ø; else if the result is less than 1, S(2n,j)=1-S(:,j) is regarded as the similarity between the test sample ξ0 and Ø, where S(:,j) represents the sum of the first 2n-1 rows in similarity matrix S0. Finally, the modified 2n×k similarity matrix S0 could be regarded as the initial BPA matrix S2n×k.


## 3.4.4. Step  4: Calculate Evidence Disctance

Taking each columnS(:,j)(j=1,2,…,k) in matrix S2n×k as a piece of evidence or as a vector, we could calculate the distance between any two bodies of evidence based on (8) to obtain a distance matrix [Dij]k×k, where Dij represents the distance between the ith and jth column of the initial BPA matrix S2n×k. Obviously, Dij equals Dji; that is, distance matrix [Dij]k×k is a symmetrical matrix, which can simplify the calculation to a great extent.


## 3.4.5. Step  5: Determine the Extent of Conflict of Evidence

First, we can sum each rowD(j,:)(j=1,2,…,k) in matrix Dk×k and obtain a vector d0; it can be normalized as a vector d=d0/max⁡(d0), where max⁡(d0) denotes the maximum element of d0. As debated in Section 1, classical D-S theory has a vital problem that combining two highly conflicting evidences could get even a wrong result. So a conflict threshold λ(0⩽λ⩽1) should be set first according to concrete engineering application. If the maximum element value of vector d is less than conflict threshold λ, the conflict degree is acceptable and the initial BPAs could be combined with GCR (see (12) and (13)) directly; otherwise the initial BPAs should be adjusted. The specific process is in Section 3.4.6, with the discount coefficient method.


## 3.4.6. Step  6: Adjust the Conflicting Evidence by Using the Discount Coefficient Method

This step will be operated if evidence conflict is over thresholdλ. In this step, conflict resolution between initial BPAs should firstly be done. Then GCR could be applied to combine the preprocessed BPAs. Computational procedure is summarized as follows:(1)
Construct a comparative matrixP with the average of each row (d¯i) in distance matrix Dk×k:(23)Pi,j=d¯id¯j,whereP(i,j) is the ith row and jth column element in matrix P, d¯i is the ith row of Dk×k, and d¯j is the jth row of Dk×k.(2)
Calculate eigenvector (ωi) corresponding to the maximum eigenvalue and normalize ωi as discount coefficient ω.(3)
Discount the initial BPAs with coefficientω to obtain the final BPAs.(4)
Combine the final BPAs with GCR and then the final recognized result will be acquired.


## 4. Experimental Analysis

In this paper, we take Iris dataset [47] to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The Iris dataset, which is perhaps the best known database to be found in pattern recognition literature, involves classification of three species of the Iris flowers,Iris setosa (S),Iris versicolour (E), andIris virginica (V), on the basis of four numeric attributes of the Iris flower: sepal length (SL) in cm, sepal width (SW) in cm, petal length (PL) in cm, and petal width (PW) in cm [47]. In the Iris dataset, there are 50 instances for each of three species. The data are obtained from the UCI repository (UCI Machine Learning Repository: http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Iris) of machine learning databases. Among 50 instances of each species, 30 instances are randomly selected as the training set, and the remaining 20 instances serve as the test set. Each of four attributes is regarded as an information source, and correspondingly there are three training sets and three test sets.


### 4.1. To Recognize Known Species of Iris Dataset

Before the experiment, the fully optimized parameter settings should be obtained first by training the dataset. The conflict thresholdλ can be set according to experts’ experience usually. In this experiment, λ=0.2. It means that the conflict is in the acceptable scale only if the maximum conflict between bodies of evidence is less than 0.2. Otherwise the initial BPAs should be adjusted. The difference coefficient r can be obtained by an iterative program. The difference coefficient r would be adjusted in each iterative step. When the average recognition rate of known species is up to an acceptable scale and the deviation of the average recognition rate between current step and last step was tiny enough, the parameter r would be obtained. After the training process, we have obtained the optimized parameter settings as {r=12.0,λ=0.2}. Because these optimized parameters fit the dataset well, parameters are all set as the optimized settings in the following.Following the steps in Section3.4, triangular fuzzy numbers of the training samples are built, shown in Table 1 and in Figure 5.Table 1
Fuzzy number model constructed by 90 Iris data instances.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
S
(4.4, 4.94, 5.8; 1.0)
(3.0, 3.47, 4.0; 1.0)
E
(4.9, 5.48, 6.2; 1.0)
(2.0, 2.65, 3.4; 1.0)
V
(6.1, 6.85, 7.7; 1.0)
(2.6, 2.94, 3.2; 1.0)
SE
(4.9, 5.2625, 5.8; 0.625)
(2.0, 2.65, 3.4; 1.0)
SV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(2.6, 2.94, 3.2; 1.0)
EV
(6.1, 6.151, 6.20; 0.068)
(2.6, 2.849, 3.2; 0.733)
SEV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(2.6, 2.849, 3.2; 0.733)
Item
Attributes
PL
PW
S
(1.0, 1.43, 1.9; 1.0)
(0.1, 0.24, 0.6; 1.0)
E
(3.3, 3.9, 4.5; 1.0)
(1.0, 1.2, 1.6; 1.0)
V
(4.8, 5.71, 6.7; 1.0)
(1.4, 1.99, 2.3; 1.0)
SE
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(0, 0, 0; 0)
SV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(0, 0, 0; 0)
EV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(1.4, 1.519, 1.6; 0.202)
SEV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(0, 0, 0; 0)Figure 5
The fuzzy number representation of each attribute of each species.According to Step  5 in Section3.4.5, we can obtain BPAs for each attribute of a Setosa instance (5.1,3.5,1.4,0.2) shown in Table 2.Table 2
BPAs for each attribute of a Setosa instance.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
PL
PW
S
0.3232
0.1828
0.8279
0.8321
E
0.2790
0.1369
0.1536
0.1595
V
0.2104
0.1579
0.0185
0.0084
SE
0.0717
0.1369
0
0
SV
0
0.1579
0
0
EV
0.1157
0.1138
0
0
SEV
0
0.1138
0
0
Ø
0
0
0
0After conflict resolution (if needed), these BPAs in Table2 could be combined with GCR. The results are as follows: (24)mS=0.9655,mE=0.0344,mV=0.0002,mSE=0,mSV=0,mEV=0,mSEV=0,mØ=0.As can be seen, the combination result illustrates that the test instance (5.1,3.5,1.4,0.2) belongs to speciessetosa, which is consistent with the actual situation.


### 4.2. To Recognize Unknown Species of Iris Dataset

In order to check the proposed method’s ability to recognize the unknown species of data in an open world, triangular fuzzy number models are constructed only by two species of Iris dataset selected randomly from the three species this time. Thus, the remaining species of Iris dataset could be regarded as test sets, which are unknown to the recognition system. For example, we randomly selected 30 instances from Setosa (S) and Versicolour (E), respectively, as training samples to construct triangular fuzzy number model and the remaining 20 instances in each species as test samples. And parameters should also be set as the optimized settings obtained in the training process. The training samples’ triangular fuzzy number model is shown in Table3.Table 3
Fuzzy number model constructed by 60 Iris data instances.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
S
(4.7, 5.19, 5.7; 1.0)
(3.1, 3.62, 4.4; 1.0)
E
(5.1, 5.97, 6.7; 1.0)
(2.5, 2.84, 3.1; 1.0)
SE
(5.1, 5.478, 5.7; 0.4383)
(0, 0, 0; 0)
Item
Attributes
PL
PW
S
(1.3, 1.5, 1.7; 1.0)
(0.2, 0.28, 0.4; 1.0)
E
(3.0, 4.23, 5.0; 1.0)
(1.1, 1.36, 1.7; 1.0)
SE
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(0, 0, 0; 0)For a known Setosa instance(4.9,3.1,1.4,0.2), we can obtain BPAs for each attribute in Table 4, according to Step  5 in Section 3.4.5.Table 4
BPAs for each attribute of a Setosa instance.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
PL
PW
S
0.4448
0.3888
0.8036
0.8256
E
0.3352
0.3888
0.1964
0.1559
SE
0.2200
0.2224
0
0
Ø (V)
0
0
0
0.0185After conflict resolution (if needed), these BPAs in Table4 should be combined with GCR. The results are as follows: (25)mS=0.9629,mE=0.0371,mSE=0,mØ=0.As can be seen, the combination result illustrates that the test instance (4.9,3.1,1.4,0.2) belongs to speciessetosa.Similarly, to recognize an instance from the open world, we can obtain BPAs for each attribute of a Virginica (V) instance (unknown species)(6.3,3.3,6.0,2.5) in Table 5. As can be seen from Table 5, the difference function difa (see (18)) and pessimistic function (see (19)) indeed recognized this instance as a member of species V.Table 5
BPAs for each attribute of a Virginica instance.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
PL
PW
S
0.0118
0.2214
0
0
E
0.0434
0.0188
0.0011
0.0001
SE
0.0313
0.0983
0
0
Ø (V)
0.9136
0.6615
0.9989
0.9999After conflict resolution (if needed), these BPAs in Table5 should be combined again with GCR. The results are as follows: (26)mS=0.0009,mE=0.3955,mSE=0,mØ=0.6036.And the recognition result suggests that the test instance (6.3,3.3,6.0,2.5) is an unknown species of Iris datasets.In order to further illustrate the validity and accuracy of the proposed method, the same experiments have been done 100 times. And to be satisfied, the average recognition rate about known-species Iris dataset (in closed world) is up to81.55% and the average recognition rate about unknown-species Iris dataset (in open world) is up to 73.40%. Several unrecognized data in one experiment are shown in Table 6. As can be seen from Table 6, two instances of species E were recognized as species V, and two datasets of species V were recognized as species E and Ø (that is, species S), respectively. And two instances of species Ø (species S) were recognized as species E.Table 6
Unrecognized instances in an experiment.
SL
SW
PL
PW
Sample species
Recognition result
5.9
3.2
4.8
1.8
E
V
6.7
3.1
4.7
1.5
E
V
7.7
2.6
6.9
2.3
V
Ø
6.1
2.6
5.6
1.4
V
E
5.0
3.0
1.6
0.2
Ø
E
5.4
3.4
1.5
0.4
Ø
EIt is not difficult to explain the wrong results. From Table1 and Figure 5 we can see that only attributes PL and PW of speciessetosa are totally separated from species E and species V, and the two remaining attributes are all intersected with others. At the same time, species E and species V intersect with each other for each of attributes. Especially since the length of interval overlapping in the SL and SW attribute is large, all the attributes of some data intersect with each other and it is difficult to distinguish these attributes using pessimistic function. Even so, the simulation examples show that the average recognition rate for the instances of the known species is up to 81.55% and the average recognition rate of the unknown-species instances is up to 73.40%. Moreover, during the process of recognition, the number of training samples is small (only 30 instances in each species), and test samples are totally separated from training samples. It scientifically proves that the proposed method to determine BPA has great effectiveness and could work well with GET.


## 4.1. To Recognize Known Species of Iris Dataset

Before the experiment, the fully optimized parameter settings should be obtained first by training the dataset. The conflict thresholdλ can be set according to experts’ experience usually. In this experiment, λ=0.2. It means that the conflict is in the acceptable scale only if the maximum conflict between bodies of evidence is less than 0.2. Otherwise the initial BPAs should be adjusted. The difference coefficient r can be obtained by an iterative program. The difference coefficient r would be adjusted in each iterative step. When the average recognition rate of known species is up to an acceptable scale and the deviation of the average recognition rate between current step and last step was tiny enough, the parameter r would be obtained. After the training process, we have obtained the optimized parameter settings as {r=12.0,λ=0.2}. Because these optimized parameters fit the dataset well, parameters are all set as the optimized settings in the following.Following the steps in Section3.4, triangular fuzzy numbers of the training samples are built, shown in Table 1 and in Figure 5.Table 1
Fuzzy number model constructed by 90 Iris data instances.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
S
(4.4, 4.94, 5.8; 1.0)
(3.0, 3.47, 4.0; 1.0)
E
(4.9, 5.48, 6.2; 1.0)
(2.0, 2.65, 3.4; 1.0)
V
(6.1, 6.85, 7.7; 1.0)
(2.6, 2.94, 3.2; 1.0)
SE
(4.9, 5.2625, 5.8; 0.625)
(2.0, 2.65, 3.4; 1.0)
SV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(2.6, 2.94, 3.2; 1.0)
EV
(6.1, 6.151, 6.20; 0.068)
(2.6, 2.849, 3.2; 0.733)
SEV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(2.6, 2.849, 3.2; 0.733)
Item
Attributes
PL
PW
S
(1.0, 1.43, 1.9; 1.0)
(0.1, 0.24, 0.6; 1.0)
E
(3.3, 3.9, 4.5; 1.0)
(1.0, 1.2, 1.6; 1.0)
V
(4.8, 5.71, 6.7; 1.0)
(1.4, 1.99, 2.3; 1.0)
SE
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(0, 0, 0; 0)
SV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(0, 0, 0; 0)
EV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(1.4, 1.519, 1.6; 0.202)
SEV
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(0, 0, 0; 0)Figure 5
The fuzzy number representation of each attribute of each species.According to Step  5 in Section3.4.5, we can obtain BPAs for each attribute of a Setosa instance (5.1,3.5,1.4,0.2) shown in Table 2.Table 2
BPAs for each attribute of a Setosa instance.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
PL
PW
S
0.3232
0.1828
0.8279
0.8321
E
0.2790
0.1369
0.1536
0.1595
V
0.2104
0.1579
0.0185
0.0084
SE
0.0717
0.1369
0
0
SV
0
0.1579
0
0
EV
0.1157
0.1138
0
0
SEV
0
0.1138
0
0
Ø
0
0
0
0After conflict resolution (if needed), these BPAs in Table2 could be combined with GCR. The results are as follows: (24)mS=0.9655,mE=0.0344,mV=0.0002,mSE=0,mSV=0,mEV=0,mSEV=0,mØ=0.As can be seen, the combination result illustrates that the test instance (5.1,3.5,1.4,0.2) belongs to speciessetosa, which is consistent with the actual situation.


## 4.2. To Recognize Unknown Species of Iris Dataset

In order to check the proposed method’s ability to recognize the unknown species of data in an open world, triangular fuzzy number models are constructed only by two species of Iris dataset selected randomly from the three species this time. Thus, the remaining species of Iris dataset could be regarded as test sets, which are unknown to the recognition system. For example, we randomly selected 30 instances from Setosa (S) and Versicolour (E), respectively, as training samples to construct triangular fuzzy number model and the remaining 20 instances in each species as test samples. And parameters should also be set as the optimized settings obtained in the training process. The training samples’ triangular fuzzy number model is shown in Table3.Table 3
Fuzzy number model constructed by 60 Iris data instances.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
S
(4.7, 5.19, 5.7; 1.0)
(3.1, 3.62, 4.4; 1.0)
E
(5.1, 5.97, 6.7; 1.0)
(2.5, 2.84, 3.1; 1.0)
SE
(5.1, 5.478, 5.7; 0.4383)
(0, 0, 0; 0)
Item
Attributes
PL
PW
S
(1.3, 1.5, 1.7; 1.0)
(0.2, 0.28, 0.4; 1.0)
E
(3.0, 4.23, 5.0; 1.0)
(1.1, 1.36, 1.7; 1.0)
SE
(0, 0, 0; 0)
(0, 0, 0; 0)For a known Setosa instance(4.9,3.1,1.4,0.2), we can obtain BPAs for each attribute in Table 4, according to Step  5 in Section 3.4.5.Table 4
BPAs for each attribute of a Setosa instance.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
PL
PW
S
0.4448
0.3888
0.8036
0.8256
E
0.3352
0.3888
0.1964
0.1559
SE
0.2200
0.2224
0
0
Ø (V)
0
0
0
0.0185After conflict resolution (if needed), these BPAs in Table4 should be combined with GCR. The results are as follows: (25)mS=0.9629,mE=0.0371,mSE=0,mØ=0.As can be seen, the combination result illustrates that the test instance (4.9,3.1,1.4,0.2) belongs to speciessetosa.Similarly, to recognize an instance from the open world, we can obtain BPAs for each attribute of a Virginica (V) instance (unknown species)(6.3,3.3,6.0,2.5) in Table 5. As can be seen from Table 5, the difference function difa (see (18)) and pessimistic function (see (19)) indeed recognized this instance as a member of species V.Table 5
BPAs for each attribute of a Virginica instance.
Item
Attributes
SL
SW
PL
PW
S
0.0118
0.2214
0
0
E
0.0434
0.0188
0.0011
0.0001
SE
0.0313
0.0983
0
0
Ø (V)
0.9136
0.6615
0.9989
0.9999After conflict resolution (if needed), these BPAs in Table5 should be combined again with GCR. The results are as follows: (26)mS=0.0009,mE=0.3955,mSE=0,mØ=0.6036.And the recognition result suggests that the test instance (6.3,3.3,6.0,2.5) is an unknown species of Iris datasets.In order to further illustrate the validity and accuracy of the proposed method, the same experiments have been done 100 times. And to be satisfied, the average recognition rate about known-species Iris dataset (in closed world) is up to81.55% and the average recognition rate about unknown-species Iris dataset (in open world) is up to 73.40%. Several unrecognized data in one experiment are shown in Table 6. As can be seen from Table 6, two instances of species E were recognized as species V, and two datasets of species V were recognized as species E and Ø (that is, species S), respectively. And two instances of species Ø (species S) were recognized as species E.Table 6
Unrecognized instances in an experiment.
SL
SW
PL
PW
Sample species
Recognition result
5.9
3.2
4.8
1.8
E
V
6.7
3.1
4.7
1.5
E
V
7.7
2.6
6.9
2.3
V
Ø
6.1
2.6
5.6
1.4
V
E
5.0
3.0
1.6
0.2
Ø
E
5.4
3.4
1.5
0.4
Ø
EIt is not difficult to explain the wrong results. From Table1 and Figure 5 we can see that only attributes PL and PW of speciessetosa are totally separated from species E and species V, and the two remaining attributes are all intersected with others. At the same time, species E and species V intersect with each other for each of attributes. Especially since the length of interval overlapping in the SL and SW attribute is large, all the attributes of some data intersect with each other and it is difficult to distinguish these attributes using pessimistic function. Even so, the simulation examples show that the average recognition rate for the instances of the known species is up to 81.55% and the average recognition rate of the unknown-species instances is up to 73.40%. Moreover, during the process of recognition, the number of training samples is small (only 30 instances in each species), and test samples are totally separated from training samples. It scientifically proves that the proposed method to determine BPA has great effectiveness and could work well with GET.


## 5. Conclusion

In the application of data fusion, the generalized evidence theory (GET) has more advantages than the classical Dempster-Shafer evidence theory due to its ability to deal with evidence conflict when the frame of discernment is incomplete. How to determine the generalized basic probability assignment (GBPA) in an open world is still an open issue. A method to construct GBPA is proposed in this paper. This method uses training samples to build triangular fuzzy number models for each attribute of the multiattribute dataset. Then, the differentiation function and the similarity function are defined. The initial GBPAs are generated by the similarity function, and bodies of evidence are fused with Dempster’s rule or the generalized combination rule (GCR) according to the actual target environment. This method makes full use of the advantages of GET to deal with these targets in the open world. In order to reduce the impact of conflicting evidence on the fusion results, the distance between each body of evidence is calculated and conflict resolution is to be done in the initial stage of determining GBPAs to eliminate human interference and environment noise. Several numerical examples show that the method is concise and effective, and this method has a very significant data processing capacity of small samples based on a good theoretical foundation. The proposed method to obtain GBPA can effectively overcome the problem of subjectivity, which has strong generality. The classification of Iris data is used to illustrate the efficiency and the low computational complexity of the proposed method. This method will help to promote GET and use GCR effectively.



---

*Source: 3878634-2016-05-24.xml*