diff --git a/content/blog/intro-dempster-shafer-possibility.md b/content/blog/intro-dempster-shafer.md similarity index 100% rename from content/blog/intro-dempster-shafer-possibility.md rename to content/blog/intro-dempster-shafer.md diff --git a/content/blog/intro-possibility-theory.md b/content/blog/intro-possibility-theory.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0b29cb --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/intro-possibility-theory.md @@ -0,0 +1,112 @@ +--- +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.