D-SIFT: A Dynamic Simple Intuitive FCA Tool

This paper introduces D-SIFT, a Web-based browser application that provides untrained users in Formal Concept Analysis with practical and intuitive access to core analysis functionality in Formal Concept Analysis. D-SIFT is an information systems architecture that supports natural search processes over a predefined database schema and its attribute values. This enables the user to build concept lattices interactively through the selection and refinement of dynamic definitions of search boundaries (via interaction with an object “zoom” feature), and dynamic selection of search scales (via interaction with an attribute “filter” feature), based on the attribute values contained within the database. The paper investigates the claim that D-SIFT systems are an advance on the search and analysis paradigm of the Toscana-system workflow. In detail, the paper presents the architecture of the D-SIFT browser and illustrates the resulting D-SIFT-systems on an example database. The two examples illustrate the generality of system integration outcomes from D-SIFT. The Conceptual Information Systems that result from applying the D-SIFT architecture present a new workflow for building and interacting with Formal Concept Analysis-based information systems. The workflow more closely aligns with dynamic schema interaction, a popular technique used in conceptual modeling.