Approximating the combination of belief functions using the fast Möbius transform in a coarsened frame Original Research Article

A method is proposed for reducing the size of a frame of discernment, in such a way that the loss of information content in a set of belief functions is minimized. This method may be seen as a hierarchical clustering procedure applied to the columns of a binary data matrix, using a particular dissimilarity measure. It allows to compute approximations of the mass functions, which can be combined efficiently in the coarsened frame using the fast Möbius transform algorithm, yielding inner and outer approximations of the combined belief function.