Using the transferable belief model and a qualitative possibility theory approach on an illustrative example: The assessment of the value of a candidate

The problem of assessing the value of a candidate is viewed here as a multi ple combination problem. On the one hand, a candidate can be evaluated acco rding to different criteria, and on the other hand, several experts are sup posed to assess the value of candidates according to each criterion. Criter ia 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 rather qualitative. The problem is discussed within two frameworks, the transferable belief model (TBM) and the qualitative possibility theory (QP T). They respectively offer a quantitative and a qualitative setting for ha ndling the problem, thus providing a way to emphasize what are the underlyi ng assumptions in each approach. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.