Skip to main content
Log in

A generalization of p-boxes to affine arithmetic

  • Published:
Computing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We often need to deal with information that contains both interval and probabilistic uncertainties. P-boxes and Dempster–Shafer structures are models that unify both kind of information, but they suffer from the main defect of intervals, the wrapping effect. We present here a new arithmetic that mixes, in a guaranteed manner, interval uncertainty with probabilities, while using some information about variable dependencies, hence limiting the loss from not accounting for correlations. This increases the precision of the result and decreases the computation time compared to standard p-box arithmetic.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Berleant D, Goodman-Strauss C (1998) Bounding the results of arithmetic operations on random variables of unknown dependency using intervals. Reliab Comput 4(2): 147–165

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Busaba J, Suwan S, Kosheleva O (2010) A faster algorithm for computing the sum of p-boxes. J Uncertain Syst 4(4): 244–249

    Google Scholar 

  3. Comba JLD, Stolfi J (1993) Affine arithmetic and its applications to computer graphics. SEBGRAPI’93

  4. Ferson S (2002) RAMAS Risk Calc 4.0 Software: risk assessment with uncertain numbers. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton

    Google Scholar 

  5. Ferson S, Kreinovich V, Ginzburg L, Myers D, Sentz K (2003) Constructing probability boxes and Dempster–Shafer structures. Tech. Rep. SAND2002-4015

  6. Ferson S, Nelsen R, Hajagos J, Berleant D, Zhang J, Tucker W, Ginzburg L, Oberkampf W (2004) Dependence in probabilistic modelling, Dempster–Shafer theory and probability bounds analysis. Tech. rep., Sandia National Laboratories

  7. Frank MJ, Nelsen RB, Schweizer B (1987) Best-possible bounds for the distribution of a sum, a problem of Kolmogorov. Prob Theory Rel Fields 74: 199–211. doi:10.1007/BF00569989

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Ghorbal K, Goubault E, Putot S (2010) A logical product approach to zonotope intersection. In: CAV, LNCS, vol 6174

  9. Goubault E, Putot S (2009) A zonotopic framework for functional abstractions. In: CoRR. abs/0910.1763

  10. Goubault E, Putot S (2011) Static analysis of finite precision computations. In: VMCAI, LNCS, vol 6538, pp 232–247

  11. Limbourg P, Savi R, Petersen J, Kochs HD (2007) Fault tree analysis in an early design stage using the Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence. In: ESREL 2007, pp 713–722

  12. Makino K, Berz M (2003) Taylor models and other validated functional inclusion methods. Int J Pure Appl Math 4(4): 379–456

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Nelsen R (1999) An introduction to copulas. In: Lecture notes in statistics. Springer, Berlin

  14. Regan HM, Ferson S, Berleant D (2004) Equivalence of methods for uncertainty propagation of real-valued random variables. Int J Approx Reason 36(1): 1–30

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Sanders WH, Meyer JF (2000) Stochastic activity networks: Formal definitions and concepts. In: European Educational Forum, pp 315–343

  16. Shafer G (1976) A mathematical theory of evidence. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Sun J, Huang Y, Li J, Wang JM (2008) Chebyshev affine arithmetic based parametric yield prediction under limited descriptions of uncertainty. In: ASP-DAC ’08. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Angeles, pp 531–536

  18. Terejanu G, Singla P, Singh T, Scott PD (2010) Approximate interval method for epistemic uncertainty propagation using polynomial chaos and evidence theory. In: American Control Conference

  19. Vignes J (1993) A stochastic arithmetic for reliable scientific computation. Math Comput Simul 35(3): 233–261

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  20. Williamson RC, Downs T (1990) Probabilistic arithmetic I: numerical methods for calculating convolutions and dependency bounds. J Approx Reason 4(2): 89–158

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Zhang J, Berleant D (2005) Arithmetic on random variables: squeezing the envelopes with new joint distribution constraints. In: ISIPTA, pp 416–422

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Olivier Bouissou.

Additional information

The authors have presented the results of this paper during the SCAN 2010 conference in Lyon, September 2010. This work is partially funded by the ANR project ANR09BLAN034502.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bouissou, O., Goubault, E., Goubault-Larrecq, J. et al. A generalization of p-boxes to affine arithmetic. Computing 94, 189–201 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-011-0182-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-011-0182-8

Keywords

Mathematics Subject Classification (2010)

Navigation