========================================================================= 6th International Conference on Belief Functions (BELIEF 2021)

Dates: October 15th-19th, 2021 Location: Shanghai, China (online participation also possible)

Final submission deadline: May 9th, 2021 Notification: June 25th, 2021 Final version: July 15th, 2021

Further information: https://www.lgi2a.univ-artois.fr/events/belief2021/

The theory of belief functions, also referred to as evidence theory or Dempster-Shafer theory, was first introduced by Arthur P. Dempster in the context of statistical inference, and was later developed by Glenn Shafer as a general framework for modelling epistemic uncertainty. These early contributions have been the starting points of many important developments, including the transferable belief model and the theory of hints. The theory of belief functions is now well established as a general framework for reasoning with uncertainty, and has well understood connections to other frameworks such as probability, possibility and imprecise probability theories. It has been applied in diverse areas such as machine learning, information fusion and risk analysis.

The BELIEF conferences (sponsored by the Belief Functions and Applications Society https://www.bfasociety.org/) are dedicated to the confrontation of ideas, the reporting of recent achievements and the presentation of the wide range of applications of this theory. The first edition of this conference series was held in Brest, France, in 2010. Later editions were held in Compiègne, France in 2012, Oxford, UK in 2014, Prague, Czech Republic in 2016, and again in Compiègne, France in 2018. The Sixth International Conference on Belief Functions (BELIEF 2021) will be located in Shanghai, China, on October 15-19, 2021, together with the 2021 International Conference on Cognitive analytics, Granular computing, and Three-way decisions (CCGT). It will be held both onsite and online due to the COVID-19 situation (see Venue and Registration below for details).

Submission and Proceedings

The proceedings of the BELIEF 2021 conference will be published by Springer-Verlag in a volume of the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNCS/LNAI) series and indexed by: ISI Web of Science; EI Engineering Index; ACM Digital Library; dblp; Google Scholar; IO-Port; MathSciNet; Scopus; Zentralblatt MATH. Previous BELIEF proceedings can be found on SpringerLink.

Authors should consult Springer’s authors’ guidelines and use their proceedings templates, either for LaTeX or for Word, for the preparation of their papers. Springer encourages authors to include their ORCIDs in their papers. In addition, the corresponding author of each paper, acting on behalf of all of the authors of that paper, must complete and sign a Consent-to-Publish form. The corresponding author signing the copyright form should match the corresponding author marked on the paper. Once the files have been sent to Springer, changes relating to the authorship of the papers cannot be made.

IJAR Special issue

Authors of selected papers from the BELIEF 2021 conference will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers for possible inclusion in a special issue of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning (https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-approximate-reaso...)

IJAR Best Paper Award

Thanks to the continued support of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, the best papers presented at the conference will be distinguished by the IJAR Best Paper Award. The prize will consist of a certificate and 1000 euros, which will be split between the winners.

Invited speakers

We are very happy to announce that the following speakers have agreed to give an invited talk at the conference:

• Associate Prof. Chunlai Zhou (Renmin University, China), title of the talk: "Basic Utility Theory for Belief Functions"
• Prof. Deqiang Han (Xi'an Jiaotong University, China), title of the talk: "Learning-based Modelized Methods for Evidence Combination"
• Prof. Zengjing Chen (Shandong University, China), title of the talk: "A Central Limit Theorem for Sets of Probability Measures"
• Prof. Van-Nam Huynh (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan), title of the talk: "Machine Learning coupled with Evidential Reasoning for User Preferences"

Tutorials

The program of this edition of the BELIEF conference will include tutorials from experts on belief functions and their applications. Confirmed tutorials:

• "Generalized Dempster-Shafer theory based on random fuzzy sets" (Prof. Thierry Denoeux, Université de technologie de Compiègne, France)
• "Introduction to information fusion in belief function theory" (Prof. Frédéric Pichon, Université d’Artois, Béthune, France).

Venue and Registration

To accommodate for the uncertainties surrounding travel possibilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, participants have two options to attend the conference: either online or onsite.

The onsite event will take place at the Gu Cun Park Hotel (No.4788 Hu Tai Road, Baoshan District, Shanghai). The registration fee for the onsite participants will include the following items:

• Full attendance to the two conferences (BELIEF/CCGT), including keynote talks and tutorials
• Online BELIEF 2021 conference proceedings
• Gala dinner
• Welcome reception
• Conference bag
• Coffee breaks and lunches We expect most keynote talks to be given onsite (and tutorials to be given online).

Online participants will be able to join and participate to the onsite event via an online platform. They will benefit from a discounted registration fee, which will include the following items:

• Full attendance to the two conferences (BELIEF/CCGT), including keynote talks and tutorials
• Online BELIEF 2021 conference proceedings

Students (BFAS Grants)

The onsite and online student registration fees will be reduced in comparison to the standard onsite and online registration fees. Furthermore, the Belief functions and Applications Society (BFAS) is offering a number of grants to allow students with limited funding opportunities to present their work at the conference. The grant covers the registration fee (online or onsite fee depending on the chosen mode of participation by the student). Candidates should send the following information:

• CV
• recommendation letter from supervisor
• copy of paper accepted at BELIEF 2021 to the secretary of BFAS, Dr. Anne-Laure Jousselme (anne-laure.jousselme(a)cmre.nato.int)

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BELIEF-CCGT Conference co-chairs

Thierry Denoeux (Université de Technologie de Compiègne, France), Duoqian Miao (Tongji University, Shanghai, China), Yiyu Yao (University of Regina, Canada).

BELIEF 2021 Program Committee co-chairs

Zhunga Liu (liuzhunga(a)nwpu.edu.cn, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China), Frédéric Pichon (frederic.pichon(a)univ-artois.fr, Université d'Artois, Béthune, France).

BELIEF 2021 Steering committee

Eric Lefevre (Université d'Artois, France), Zhunga Liu (Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China), David Mercier (Université d'Artois, France), Frédéric Pichon (Université d'Artois, France), Zhihua Wei (Tongji University, Shanghai, China), Xiaodong Yue (Shanghai University, China)

BELIEF 2021 Organization chair

Xiaodong Yue, Shanghai University, China

The organizers would be grateful if you could inform potentially interested participants of this conference.