Knowledge discovery and updating under the evolution of network formal contexts based on three-way decision

Three-way concept analysis was proposed by the combination of three-way decision and formal concept analysis. Since it can provide more information than formal concept analysis, the new model has been widely used in the field of knowledge discovery. However, three-way concept analysis mainly deals with object-attribute data. If there is structure information between objects, how to remould traditional three-way concepts to describe both object-object information and object-attribute information is a topic worthy of discussion. To analyze object-object information and object-attribute information at the same time, we first propose the notion of a network formal context, and then define global network OE-concept and local network OE-concept. After that we investigate knowledge discovery based on the global network OE-concept and local network OE-concept. We further discuss the dynamic updating mechanism of global network OE-concept and local network OE-concept under the evolution of a network formal context. The corresponding algorithms are designed to update old network OE-concepts, and the time complexity is analyzed. Note that the classical formal context itself can also represent a network formal context, so in order to show the necessity of the proposed network formal context and network OE-concepts, we clarify the advantages of the network formal context and network OE-concepts from the aspects of knowledge representation, efficiency of computing network OE-concepts, dynamic updating of concepts and stability analysis of concepts. In addition, we conduct some experiments to argue that knowledge discovery of local network OE-concepts is better than that of global network OE-concepts as well as the classical OE-concepts. Meanwhile, the experimental results also show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed network OE-concept updating methods. (C) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Three-way concept analysis, a combination of three-way decision and formal concept analysis, has been widely used in knowledge discovery due to its ability to provide more information than traditional methods. However, traditional three-way concept analysis primarily deals with object-attribute data, and the analysis of object-object information with structural information remains an important topic. In this study, we propose a network formal context and define global network OE-concepts and local network OE-concepts to simultaneously analyze object-object and object-attribute information. We further investigate knowledge discovery based on these concepts and discuss the dynamic updating mechanism under the evolution of a network formal context. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed network OE-concept updating methods.