Uncertainty Management

The purpose of this fairly nontechnical introduction to uncertainty management is to identify various forms of uncertainty, and to survey methods for managing some of these uncertainties. Our emphasis is on topics that may not be familiar to software engineers or, to a lesser extent, to knowledge engineers. These topics include Bayesian estimation, fuzziness, time Petri nets, rough sets, belief and evidence, and possibility theory. Uncertainty management has been studied in the contexts of information systems and of arti cial intelligence. We attempt to present a balanced view of the contributions from both areas.