An application-oriented view of modeling uncertainty

Uncertainty is involved in many real phenomena. Whether one considers uncertainty explicitly when modeling such a phenomenon is one of the modeling decisions, the result of which will depend on the context. IF, however, the modeler decides to consider uncertainty, he or she will have to select the method for modeling it. Some scientists claim that one theory e.g. probability theory, is sufficient to model all. kinds of uncertainty. Here it is claimed, however, that the choice of the appropriate method is context dependent and an approach is suggested to determine context-dependently a suitable method to model uncertainty. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.