Factorizing Lattices by Interval Relations

Abstract

This work investigates the factorization of finite lattices to implode selected intervals while preserving the remaining order structure. We examine how complete congruence relations and complete tolerance relations can be utilized for this purpose and answer the question of finding the finest of those relations to implode a given interval in the generated factor lattice. To overcome the limitations of the factorization based on those relations, we introduce a new lattice factorization that enables the imploding of selected disjoint intervals of a finite lattice. To this end, we propose an interval relation that generates this factorization. To obtain lattices rather than arbitrary ordered sets, we restrict this approach to so-called pure intervals. For our study, we will make use of methods from Formal Concept Analysis (FCA). We will also provide a new FCA construction by introducing the enrichment of an incidence relation by a set of intervals in a formal context, to investigate the approach for lattice-generating interval relations on the context side.