Abstract
Dempster's rule of combination is the standard way of combining multiple pieces of evidence given by independent sources of information. However, it aroused great controversy about the validity and many alternative combinations were proposed. The paper reconsiders the model of combination which Dempster discussed in the original paper, and points out that it confuses the independence among information sources with the independence among bodies of evidence. Then, it proposes a new model of combination which introduces belief spaces, as well as a new combination called combination by compromise. The comparison with the other methods shows that the proposed is one of the most desirable combinations.
