Formal Concept Analysis and Logic

Formal Concept Analysis and Logic

Technische Universität Dresden
Institut für Theoretische Informatik
Lehrstuhl für Automatentheorie

Felix Distel

Course Description

This course covers the field of Formal Concept Analysis with a particular focus on its applications in logics and artificial intelligence. Formal Concept Analysis is a technique for analyzing data using a formal mathematical approach. It is closely related to

Data Mining as both FCA and Data Mining provide methods to structure and analyze data
Logics and AI as FCA formalisms use a semantics that is comparable to propositional or Horn logics, and
Order Theory whose terminology is used in FCA.

The course will provide an introduction to the basic notions of formal concept analysis. We will then look into recent applications of formal concept analysis in artificial intelligence with a particular focus on Description Logics.

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of propositional logic is required. Previous knowledge of order theory is helpful but not required.

Organization

The lecture takes place weekly in room E005: Mondays 13:00-14:30 (DS 4)

Credits / Examinations

Students from tho Bachelor Informatik can use this lecture for the modules INF-B-510 and INF-B-520. In order to obtain the credits students need to pass a 20 minute oral exam. Students from the Master Informatik and Diplom Informatik (Ordnung 2010) programs can use this lecture for the modules INF-BAS6 and INF-VERT6
Students from the Computational Logic program can use this lecture for the modules KR and TCSL

In order to get the credits, students must pass an oral examination at the end of the semester.

Exercises

An exercise session will be held fortnightly Mondays 09:20-10:50 (DS 2) in E005 (starting from April 23).

All students are encouraged to present their solutions to the exercises, as they are useful for a better understanding of the lecture material.

Exercise sheets will be available online approx. one week before the session.

Literature

All the material necessary for successfully aproving the course will be presented during the lectures. As there is no available script, students are strongly recommended to copy the material written on the blackboard during lecture time.

For an introduction to Formal Concept Analysis, consult:

Ganter, B. and Wille, R. Formal Concept Analysis: Mathematical Foundations Springer, 1997

Felix Distel