Two basic algorithms in concept analysis

Bernhard Ganter

pp. 312-340

in: Lonard Kwuida, Bar Sertkaya (eds), Formal concept analysis, Berlin, Springer, 2010

Abstract

We describe two algorithms for closure systems. The purpose of the first is to produce all closed sets of a given closure operator. The second constructs a minimal family of implications for the "logic" of a closure system. These algorithms then are applied to problems in concept analysis: Determining all concepts of a given context and describing the dependencies between attributes. The problem of finding all concepts is equivalent, e.g., to finding all maximal complete bipartite subgraphs of a bipartite graph.