Quantification of conflict in Dempster-Shafer framework: A new approach

Uncertainty in Dempster-Shafer framework can be considered to consist of two components; one arising due to randomness, and the other arising due to the lack of specificity in evidence. One facet of uncertainty due to random: ness is conflict in the evidence. Here we establish the need for a new measure of conflict and follow a fresh approach to achieve the same. We view the conflict between propositions as being proportional to the 'distance'' between them. We expect this ''distance'' to obey the laws of a metric. With this motivation we formulate a set of axioms that we expect a metric distance to satisfy, in order to quantify the conflict between two propositions. Based on this we derive a unique expression for the conflict between propositions. The average of conflict between propositions gives a measure of fetal conflict in the body of evidence. We then prove various properties of this conflict measure.