Characterizations of Planar Lattices by Left-relations

Recently, Formal Concept Analysis has proven to be an efficient method for the analysis and representation of information. However, the possibility to visualize concept hierarchies is being affected by the difficulty of drawing attractive diagrams automatically. Reducing the number of edge crossings seems to increase the readability of those drawings. This dissertation concerns with a mandatory prerequisite of this constraint, namely the characterization and visual representation of planar lattices. The manifold existing approaches and algorithms are thereby considered under a different point of view. It is well known that exactly the planar lattices (or planar posets) possess an additional order ``from left to right''. Our aim in this work is to define left-relations and left-orders more precisely and to describe several aspects of planar lattices with their help. The three approaches employed structure the work in as many parts: Left-relations on lattices allow a more efficient consideration of conjugate orders since they are uniquely determined by the sorting of the meet-irreducibles. Additionally, the restriction on the meet-irreducibles enables us to achieve an intuitive description of standard contexts of planar lattices similar to the consecutive-one property. With the help of left-relations on diagrams, planar lattices can indeed be drawn without edge crossings in the plane. Thereby, lattice-theoretically found left-orders can be detected in the graphical representation again. Furthermore, we modify the left-right-numbering algorithm in order to obtain attribute-additive and plane drawings of planar lattices. Finally, we will consider left-relations on contexts. They turn out to be fairly similar structures to the Ferrers-graphs. Planar lattices can be characterized by a property of these graphs, namely the bipartiteness. We will constructively prove this result. Subsequently, we can design an efficient algorithm that finds all non-similar plane diagrams of a lattice.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Technische Universität Dresden

Year

2009

Author dc:creator

• Zschalig, Christian

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ganter, Bernhard
• Baumann, Ulrike
• Schroeder, Bernd

• lattice theory
• planarity
• Verbandstheorie
• Planarität