Uncertainty Modeling in Risk Assessment Based on Dempster–Shafer Theory of Evidence with Generalized Fuzzy Focal Elements

Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence is one of the important tools for decision making under uncertainty. It is more useful in situations when cost of technical difficulties is involved or uniqueness of the situation under study makes it difficult/impossible to cover enough observations to quantify the models with real data. Consequently, experts provide opinions in terms of basic probability assignment for focal elements. Usually, it is seen that experts provide basic probability assignment for interval (or crisp) focal elements. However, due to presence of uncertainty focal elements can sometimes be treated as normal/generalized triangular fuzzy number (TFN in short) instead of intervals or crisp sets. TFN encodes only most likely value (mode) and the spread. This paper presents an attempt to combine Dempster–Shafer structures (DSS in short) with generalized/normal fuzzy focal elements using possibilistic sampling technique. To this end, human health risk assessment is carried out under such setting.