In-close, a fast algorithm for computing formal concepts
(2009)Abstract
This paper presents an algorithm, called In-Close, that uses
incremental closure and matrix searching to quickly compute all formal
concepts in a formal context. In-Close is based, conceptually, on a
well known algorithm called Close-By-One. The serial version of a
recently published algorithm (Krajca, 2008) was shown to be in the
order of 100 times faster than several well-known algorithms, and
timings of other algorithms in reviews suggest that none of them are
faster than Krajca. This paper compares In-Close to Krajca, discussing
computational methods, data requirements and memory considerations.
From experiments using several public data sets and random data, this
paper shows that In-Close is in the order of 20 times faster than
Krajca. In-Close is small, straightforward, requires no matrix pre-
processing and is simple to implement. 1
