New probabilistic transformation of imprecise belief structure

The case when the source of information provides precise belief function/mass, within the generalized power space, has been studied by many people. However, in many decision situations, the precise belief structure is not always available. In this case, an interval-valued belief degree rather than a precise one may be provided. So, the probabilistic transformation of imprecise belief function/mass in the generalized power space including Dezert-Smarandache （DSm） model from scalar transformation to sub-unitary interval transformation and, more generally, to any set of sub-unitary interval transformation is provided. Different from the existing probabilistic transformation algorithms that redistribute an ignorance mass to the singletons involved in that ignorance pro- portionally with respect to the precise belief function or probability function of singleton, the new algorithm provides an optimization idea to transform any type of imprecise belief assignment which may be represented by the union of several sub-unitary （half-） open intervals, （half-） closed intervals and/or sets of points belonging to [0,1]. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the detailed implementation process of the new probabilistic transformation approach as well as its validity and wide applicability.

Robust and Efficient Reliability Estimation for Exponential Distribution

In modeling reliability data,the exponential distribution is commonly used due to its simplicity.For estimating the parameter of the exponential distribution,classical estimators including maximum likelihood estimator represent the most commonly used method and are well known to be efficient.However,the maximum likelihood estimator is highly sensitive in the presence of contamination or outliers.In this study,a robust and efficient estimator of the exponential distribution parameter was proposed based on the probability integral transform statistic.To examine the robustness of this new estimator,asymptotic variance,breakdown point,and gross error sensitivity were derived.This new estimator offers reasonable protection against outliers besides being simple to compute.Furthermore,a simulation study was conducted to compare the performance of this new estimator with the maximum likelihood estimator,weighted likelihood estimator,and M-scale estimator in the presence of outliers.Finally,a statistical analysis of three reliability data sets was conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed estimator.

Reliability analysis based on a novel density estimation method for structures with correlations

Estimating the Probability Density Function（PDF） of the performance function is a direct way for structural reliability analysis,and the failure probability can be easily obtained by integration in the failure domain.However,efficiently estimating the PDF is still an urgent problem to be solved.The existing fractional moment based maximum entropy has provided a very advanced method for the PDF estimation,whereas the main shortcoming is that it limits the application of the reliability analysis method only to structures with independent inputs.While in fact,structures with correlated inputs always exist in engineering,thus this paper improves the maximum entropy method,and applies the Unscented Transformation（UT） technique to compute the fractional moments of the performance function for structures with correlations,which is a very efficient moment estimation method for models with any inputs.The proposed method can precisely estimate the probability distributions of performance functions for structures with correlations.Besides,the number of function evaluations of the proposed method in reliability analysis,which is determined by UT,is really small.Several examples are employed to illustrate the accuracy and advantages of the proposed method.