A Method to Identify the Incomplete Framework of Discernment in Evidence Theory

Dempster-Shafer evidence theory is a very useful tool in dealing with the decision-making of uncertain information. However, the classical evidence theory is no longer applicable when the frame of discernment (FOD) is incomplete. Moreover, incomplete FOD is an important reason for the emergence of conflict. So it is necessary to identify whether the FOD of the systemis complete or not. In this paper, a method is proposed to identify the incomplete FOD under framework of the generalized evidence theory dealing with incomplete information. Within the proposed method, pieces of evidence are generated from the attributes of each sample firstly; then three criteria are used to identify weather the FOD is incomplete according to these evidence. The main parameters of the criteria are the amount of empty set being a focal element in generated evidence, the mass of 0 in the weighted average evidence from generated evidence, and the mass of empty set in the combination of generated evidence. Some experiments are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.