2,025 research outputs found
Finding Academic Experts on a MultiSensor Approach using Shannon's Entropy
Expert finding is an information retrieval task concerned with the search for
the most knowledgeable people, in some topic, with basis on documents
describing peoples activities. The task involves taking a user query as input
and returning a list of people sorted by their level of expertise regarding the
user query. This paper introduces a novel approach for combining multiple
estimators of expertise based on a multisensor data fusion framework together
with the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence and Shannon's entropy. More
specifically, we defined three sensors which detect heterogeneous information
derived from the textual contents, from the graph structure of the citation
patterns for the community of experts, and from profile information about the
academic experts. Given the evidences collected, each sensor may define
different candidates as experts and consequently do not agree in a final
ranking decision. To deal with these conflicts, we applied the Dempster-Shafer
theory of evidence combined with Shannon's Entropy formula to fuse this
information and come up with a more accurate and reliable final ranking list.
Experiments made over two datasets of academic publications from the Computer
Science domain attest for the adequacy of the proposed approach over the
traditional state of the art approaches. We also made experiments against
representative supervised state of the art algorithms. Results revealed that
the proposed method achieved a similar performance when compared to these
supervised techniques, confirming the capabilities of the proposed framework
Paradox Elimination in Dempster–Shafer Combination Rule with Novel Entropy Function: Application in Decision-Level Multi-Sensor Fusion
Multi-sensor data fusion technology in an important tool in building decision-making applications. Modified Dempster–Shafer (DS) evidence theory can handle conflicting sensor inputs and can be applied without any prior information. As a result, DS-based information fusion is very popular in decision-making applications, but original DS theory produces counterintuitive results when combining highly conflicting evidences from multiple sensors. An effective algorithm offering fusion of highly conflicting information in spatial domain is not widely reported in the literature. In this paper, a successful fusion algorithm is proposed which addresses these limitations of the original Dempster–Shafer (DS) framework. A novel entropy function is proposed based on Shannon entropy, which is better at capturing uncertainties compared to Shannon and Deng entropy. An 8-step algorithm has been developed which can eliminate the inherent paradoxes of classical DS theory. Multiple examples are presented to show that the proposed method is effective in handling conflicting information in spatial domain. Simulation results showed that the proposed algorithm has competitive convergence rate and accuracy compared to other methods presented in the literature
Time-Domain Data Fusion Using Weighted Evidence and Dempster–Shafer Combination Rule: Application in Object Classification
To apply data fusion in time-domain based on Dempster–Shafer (DS) combination rule, an 8-step algorithm with novel entropy function is proposed. The 8-step algorithm is applied to time-domain to achieve the sequential combination of time-domain data. Simulation results showed that this method is successful in capturing the changes (dynamic behavior) in time-domain object classification. This method also showed better anti-disturbing ability and transition property compared to other methods available in the literature. As an example, a convolution neural network (CNN) is trained to classify three different types of weeds. Precision and recall from confusion matrix of the CNN are used to update basic probability assignment (BPA) which captures the classification uncertainty. Real data of classified weeds from a single sensor is used test time-domain data fusion. The proposed method is successful in filtering noise (reduce sudden changes—smoother curves) and fusing conflicting information from the video feed. Performance of the algorithm can be adjusted between robustness and fast-response using a tuning parameter which is number of time-steps(ts)
A Simple Proportional Conflict Redistribution Rule
One proposes a first alternative rule of combination to WAO (Weighted Average
Operator) proposed recently by Josang, Daniel and Vannoorenberghe, called
Proportional Conflict Redistribution rule (denoted PCR1). PCR1 and WAO are
particular cases of WO (the Weighted Operator) because the conflicting mass is
redistributed with respect to some weighting factors. In this first PCR rule,
the proportionalization is done for each non-empty set with respect to the
non-zero sum of its corresponding mass matrix - instead of its mass column
average as in WAO, but the results are the same as Ph. Smets has pointed out.
Also, we extend WAO (which herein gives no solution) for the degenerate case
when all column sums of all non-empty sets are zero, and then the conflicting
mass is transferred to the non-empty disjunctive form of all non-empty sets
together; but if this disjunctive form happens to be empty, then one considers
an open world (i.e. the frame of discernment might contain new hypotheses) and
thus all conflicting mass is transferred to the empty set. In addition to WAO,
we propose a general formula for PCR1 (WAO for non-degenerate cases).Comment: 21 page
Evidence Propagation and Consensus Formation in Noisy Environments
We study the effectiveness of consensus formation in multi-agent systems
where there is both belief updating based on direct evidence and also belief
combination between agents. In particular, we consider the scenario in which a
population of agents collaborate on the best-of-n problem where the aim is to
reach a consensus about which is the best (alternatively, true) state from
amongst a set of states, each with a different quality value (or level of
evidence). Agents' beliefs are represented within Dempster-Shafer theory by
mass functions and we investigate the macro-level properties of four well-known
belief combination operators for this multi-agent consensus formation problem:
Dempster's rule, Yager's rule, Dubois & Prade's operator and the averaging
operator. The convergence properties of the operators are considered and
simulation experiments are conducted for different evidence rates and noise
levels. Results show that a combination of updating on direct evidence and
belief combination between agents results in better consensus to the best state
than does evidence updating alone. We also find that in this framework the
operators are robust to noise. Broadly, Yager's rule is shown to be the better
operator under various parameter values, i.e. convergence to the best state,
robustness to noise, and scalability.Comment: 13th international conference on Scalable Uncertainty Managemen
Continuous Improvement Through Knowledge-Guided Analysis in Experience Feedback
Continuous improvement in industrial processes is increasingly a key element of competitiveness for industrial systems. The management of experience feedback in this framework is designed to build, analyze and facilitate the knowledge sharing among problem solving practitioners of an organization in order to improve processes and products achievement. During Problem Solving Processes, the intellectual investment of experts is often considerable and the opportunities for expert knowledge exploitation are numerous: decision making, problem solving under uncertainty, and expert configuration. In this paper, our contribution relates to the structuring of a cognitive experience feedback framework, which allows a flexible exploitation of expert knowledge during Problem Solving Processes and a reuse such collected experience. To that purpose, the proposed approach uses the general principles of root cause analysis for identifying the root causes of problems or events, the conceptual graphs formalism for the semantic conceptualization of the domain vocabulary and the Transferable Belief Model for the fusion of information from different sources. The underlying formal reasoning mechanisms (logic-based semantics) in conceptual graphs enable intelligent information retrieval for the effective exploitation of lessons learned from past projects. An example will illustrate the application of the proposed approach of experience feedback processes formalization in the transport industry sector
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