Title
An exploration of alternative approaches to the representation of uncertainty in model predictions
Abstract
Several simple test problems are used to explore the following approaches to the representation of the uncertainty in model predictions that derives from uncertainty in model inputs: probability theory, evidence theory, possibility theory, and interval analysis. Each of the test problems has rather diffuse characterizations of the uncertainty in model inputs obtained from one or more equally credible sources. These given uncertainty characterizations are translated into the mathematical structure associated with each of the indicated approaches to the representation of uncertainty and then propagated through the model with Monte Carlo techniques to obtain the corresponding representation of the uncertainty in one or more model predictions. The different approaches to the representation of uncertainty can lead to very different appearing representations of the uncertainty in model predictions even though the starting information is exactly the same for each approach. To avoid misunderstandings and, potentially, bad decisions, these representations must be interpreted in the context of the theory/procedure from which they derive.
Year
DOI
Venue
2004
10.1016/j.ress.2004.03.025
Reliability Engineering & System Safety
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Aleatory uncertainty,Epistemic uncertainty,Evidence theory,Interval analysis,Monte Carlo analysis,Possibility theory,Probability theory
Journal
85
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
1
0951-8320
56
PageRank 
References 
Authors
5.44
10
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Jon Helton140988.62
Jay D. Johnson226034.81
William L. Oberkampf323735.63