Taxonomy, Structure, and Implementation of Evidential Reasoning

The fundamental elements of evidential reasoning problems are described, followed by a discussion of the structure of various types of problems. Bayesian inference networks and state space formalism are used as the tool for problem representation. A human-oriented decision making cycle for solving evidential reasoning problems is described and illustrated for a military situation assessment problem. The implementation of this cycle may serve as the basis for an expert system shell for evidential reasoning; i.e. a situation assessment processor.