Truncated distributive lattices: Conceptual structures of simple-implicational theories (Q1826509)

A truncated distributive lattice is a lattice \(L\) with 0 such that there is a distributive lattice \(D\) in which \(L\setminus\{0\}\) is a proper order filter. A simple-implicational theory is a triple \(\mathcal{T}=(M,R,\mathcal{A})\), where \(M\) is a non-empty set, \(R\) is a binary relation on \(M\), and \(\mathcal{A}\) is a set of subsets of \(M\) having certain properties. Every simple-implicational theory determines a formal context, called a simple-implicational scale. In the paper it is shown that the finite distributive lattices are up to isomorphism the concept lattices of finite simple-implicational scales. This indicates the role of truncated distributive lattices in the formal concept analysis. The paper is a survey on this area, illustrated by appropriate motivating examples.