Multi-level subjective effects-based assessment

In this paper we develop a multi-level subjective effects-based assessment method. This method takes subjective assessments regarding activities and effects of a plan as inputs. From these assessments and a cross impact matrix that represents the impact between all elements of the plan we calculate combined assessments for all plan elements. For each activity (and effect) we calculate how much additional assessment value is needed to reach the assessment of the higher-level effect without its local assessment. The discrepancy between assessments received and assessments needed is an indication of relative performance of the activities. The method is based on belief functions and their combination under a generalization of the discounting operation.