IMPRECISE SECOND-ORDER MODEL FOR A SYSTEM OF INDEPENDENT RANDOM VARIABLES.

A new hierarchical uncertainty model for combining different evidence about a system of statistically independent random variable is studied in the paper. It is assumed that the first-order level of the model is represented by sets of lower and upper previsions (expectations) of random variables and the second-order level is represented by sets of lower and upper probabilities which can be viewed as confidence weights for interval-valued expectations of the first-order level. The model is rather general and allows us to compute probability bounds and "average" bounds for previsions of a function of random variables. A numerical example illustrates this model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]