Assessing the value of a candidate. Comparing belief function and possibility theories

Thomson-CSF, Corporate Research Laboratory Domaine de Corbeville 91404 Orsay, France The problem of assessing the value of a candidate is viewed here as a multiple combination problem. On the one hand a candidate can be evaluated according to different criteria, and on the other hand several experts are supposed to assess the value of candidates according to each criterion. Criteria are not equally important, experts are not equally competent or reliable. Moreover levels of satisfaction of criteria, or levels of confidence are only assumed to take their values in linearly ordered scales, whose nature is often qualitative. The problem is discussed within two frameworks, the transferable belief model and the qualitative possibility theory. They respectively offer a quantitative and a qualitative setting for handling the problem, providing thus a way to compare the nature of the underlying assumptions.