The Connections Between Attribute-Induced and Object-Induced Decision Rules in Incomplete Formal Contexts

For a given incomplete context, object-induced approximate concepts have been defined, and this type of approximate concept can induce a type of decision rule. Based on the duality principle, another set of approximate concepts can be defined from the perspective of attributes, i.e., attribute-induced approximate concepts. Although object induced approximate concepts and attribute induced approximate concepts are symmetrical by duality principle, their induced decision rules exhibit different properties and the connections between attribute induced decision rules and object induced decision rules in incomplete formal contexts are not clear. To this end, a type of attribute-induced approximate concept and a method of extracting attribute-induced decision rules are presented. More importantly, it is revealed that given a type of decision rules, there must be corresponding decision rules of the other type, and both of them can provide some useful information, but they are not equivalent to each other. In other words, each type of decision rule can provide some unique and irreplaceable information.