diff --git a/content/blog/intro-dempster-shafer.md b/content/blog/intro-dempster-shafer-possibility.md similarity index 100% rename from content/blog/intro-dempster-shafer.md rename to content/blog/intro-dempster-shafer-possibility.md diff --git a/content/blog/intro-possibility-theory.md b/content/blog/intro-possibility-theory.md deleted file mode 100644 index b0b29cb..0000000 --- a/content/blog/intro-possibility-theory.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,112 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: "Introduction to Possibility Theory" -date: 2024-10-30T10:25:31-04:00 -draft: false -tags: [] -math: true -medium_enabled: false ---- - -Possibility theory is a subset of Dempster-Shafer theory (DST). If you're not already familiar with DST, I recommend you check out my [previous blog post](/blog/intro-dempster-shafer/) since we'll reuse a lot of the same concepts. - ---- - -In Dempster-Shafer theory we start off with a mass function $m$ which is defined over all subsets of our event space $\Omega$. When approximating $m$, we need to make $2^\Omega$ estimates. This can be quite costly depending on the size of $\Omega$. - -Possibility theory makes the estimation of $m$ tractable at the cost of expressivity. As a subset of DST, the mass function is positive only on a sequence of nested subsets. Recall that a set represents a disjunctive observation. That is, $\\{w, g\\}$ represents $w \vee g$. - -Take for example, the following observations -$$ -obs = c, w \vee c, w \vee c \vee g -$$ -We can use possibility theory to reason about these since $c \subseteq \\{w, c\\} \subseteq \\{w, c, g\\}$ We cannot, however, use possibility theory to reason about -$$ -obs = c, w \vee c, g \vee c -$$ -since $\\{w, c\\} \not\subseteq \\{g, c\\}$. - -Informally, possibility theory describes uncertainty through ordering the plausibility of elementary events and constraints uncertainty such that the elementary events that are not the most plausible are never necessary. - -## Properties of Possibility Theory - -Let's walk through an example so that we can illustrate different properties of possibility theory. -$$ -obs = w \vee c \vee g, c, c, w \vee c -$$ -From this, we can derive the following mass function -$$ -m(\\{c\\}) = \frac{1}{2}, m(\\{w, c\\}) = \frac{1}{4}, m(\\{w, c, g\\}) = \frac{1}{4} -$$ -The plausibility values are as follows: -$$ -Pl(\\{g\\}) = \frac{1}{4}, Pl(\\{w\\}) = \frac{1}{2}, Pl(\\{c\\}) = 1 \\\\ -Pl(\\{w, g\\}) = \frac{1}{2}, Pl(\\{w, c\\}) = 1, Pl(\\{g, c\\}) = 1 \\\\ -Pl(\\{w, c, g\\}) = 1 -$$ -This leads us to the first property regarding plausibility: -$$ -Pl(A \cup B) = max(Pl(A), Pl(B)) \tag{0.1} -$$ -In order to build an intuition of this formula, let's look at the mass function pictorally. - -![](/files/images/blog/focalsets.svg) - -Other than the concentric rings shown, all other subsets of $\Omega$ have a mass value of zero. When computing the plausibility value graphically, we start at the outer edge of the ring and keep summing inwards until we hit a ring that does not intersect with our set. Therefore, when it comes to the union of two sets, we keep summing until neither $A$ or $B$ intersect with the ring. - -Now let's analyze necessity: -$$ -N(\\{w\\}) = 0, N(\\{g\\}) = 0, N(\\{c\\}) = \frac{1}{2} \\\\ -N(\\{w, g\\}) = 0, N(\\{w, c\\}) = \frac{3}{4}, N(\\{c, g\\}) = \frac{1}{2} \\\\ -N(\\{w, g, c\\}) = 1 -$$ -The necessity of two sets intersected is smallest necessity of the individual sets. -$$ -N(A \cap B) = min(N(A), N(B)) \tag{0.2} -$$ -Pictorially when calculating the necessity of a set, we start from the inner circle and sum until the ring is no longer a subset of the set. - -Necessity is also related to plausibility -$$ -N(A) = 1 - Pl(\bar{A}) \tag{0.3} -$$ -where $\bar{A}$ is the compliment of $A$ with respect to $\Omega$. - -Recall from my last blog post that $N(\\{a\\}) = m(\\{a\\})$ for all $a \in \Omega$. Therefore, given the plausibility of elementary events, we can use equations 0.1 and 0.3 to uniquely determine the mass function. - -## Deriving mass function from plausibility values - -Consider the following plausibility values -$$ -Pl(\\{c\\}) = 1, Pl(\\{w\\}) = b_1, Pl(\\{g\\}) = b_2 -$$ -From this, we can derive the other plausibility values from Equation 0.1: -$$ -Pl(\\{c, w\\}) = 1, Pl(\\{c, g\\}) = 1, Pl(\\{w, g\\}) = max(b_1, b_2) \\\\ -Pl(\\{c, w, g\\}) = 1 -$$ -Using Equation 0.3, we can derive the necessity values -$$ -N(\\{c\\}) = 1 - max(b_1, b_2), N(\\{w\\}) = 0, N(\\{g\\}) = 0 \\\\ -N(\\{c, g\\}) = 1 - b_1, N(\\{c, w\\}) = 1 - b_2, N(\\{w, g\\}) = 0 \\\\ -N(\\{c, w, g\\}) = 1 -$$ -In order to calculate the mass values, I often work backwards starting from smaller sets from the necessity definition. -$$ -N(A) = \sum_{B \subseteq A}{m(B)} -$$ -Therefore in our example, -$$ -m(\\{w\\}) = 0, m(\\{g\\}) = 0 \\\\ -m(\\{c\\}) = 1 - max(b_1, b_2) \\\\ -m(\\{c, w\\}) = max(b_1, b_2) - b_2 \\\\ -m(\\{c, g\\}) = max(b_1, b_2) - b_1 \\\\ -m(\\{g, w\\}) = 0 \\\\ -m(\\{g, w, c\\}) = b_1 + b_2 - max(b_1, b_2) -$$ -You can verify that indeed the sum of all the mass values are equal to 1. - -## Conclusion - -Possibility theory is a subset of Dempster-Shafer theory that makes estimation tractable. Instead of needing to come up with $2^{|\Omega|}$ estimates to approximate the mass function, we only need to come up with $|\Omega|$ plausiblity values in order to derive the rest of the mass function. - -This makes it a useful representation of uncertainty computationally, when we want to model imprecise sensor data or make use of qualitative or subjective measurements.