TY - JOUR
T1 - The centroid or consensus of a set of objects with qualitative attributes
AU - Guzman-Arenas, Adolfo
AU - Cuevas, Alma Delia
AU - Jimenez, Adriana
N1 - Funding Information:
Work was in part supported by CONACYT Grant 43377 and by SNI .
PY - 2011/5
Y1 - 2011/5
N2 - It is clear how to compute the average of a set of numeric values; thus, handling inconsistent measurements is possible. Recently, using confusion, we showed a new way to compute the consensus (a kind of average) of a set of assertions about a non-numeric fact, such as the religion of John. This paper solves the same problem for a set of objects possessing several symbolic attributes. Suppose there is a murder, and we ask several observers about the height, sex, hair color and ethnicity of the killer. They report divergent observations. What is the most likely portrayal of the assassin? Given a bag of assertions about an object described by qualitative features, this paper tells how to assess the most plausible or "consensus" object description. It is the most likely description to be true, given the available information. It is the "centroid" of the bag. We also compute the inconsistency of the bag: how far apart the testimonies in the bag are. All observers are equally credible, so differences arise from perception errors, and from the limited accuracy of the individual findings.
AB - It is clear how to compute the average of a set of numeric values; thus, handling inconsistent measurements is possible. Recently, using confusion, we showed a new way to compute the consensus (a kind of average) of a set of assertions about a non-numeric fact, such as the religion of John. This paper solves the same problem for a set of objects possessing several symbolic attributes. Suppose there is a murder, and we ask several observers about the height, sex, hair color and ethnicity of the killer. They report divergent observations. What is the most likely portrayal of the assassin? Given a bag of assertions about an object described by qualitative features, this paper tells how to assess the most plausible or "consensus" object description. It is the most likely description to be true, given the available information. It is the "centroid" of the bag. We also compute the inconsistency of the bag: how far apart the testimonies in the bag are. All observers are equally credible, so differences arise from perception errors, and from the limited accuracy of the individual findings.
KW - Confusion
KW - Consensus
KW - I.2.4 Knowledge representation
KW - Inconsistency
KW - Qualitative values
KW - Truth discovery
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79051471612&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.eswa.2010.09.169
DO - 10.1016/j.eswa.2010.09.169
M3 - Artículo
SN - 0957-4174
VL - 38
SP - 4908
EP - 4919
JO - Expert Systems with Applications
JF - Expert Systems with Applications
IS - 5
ER -