A comprehensive survey on formal concept analysis, its research trends and applications

During the recent past, FCA has received significant attention from the research communities of various fields. Further, the theory of FCA is being extended into different frontiers and being augmented with other knowledge representation frameworks. In this backdrop, this paper aim to provide an understanding on necessary mathematical background for each extension of FCA like FCA with granular computing, fuzzy setting, interval–valued, possibility theory, triadic, factor concepts and handling incomplete data. Subsequently, the paper illustrates emerging trends for each extension with applications. To achieve this, we summarize more than 350 recent (published after 2011) research papers indexed in Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Springer–link and few authoritative fundamental papers.