Affiliations: School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China | Lab of Granular Computing, Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou 363000, China. williamfengzhu@gmail.com
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Lab of Granular Computing, Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou 363000, China.
Abstract: Rough sets are efficient to extract rules from information systems. Matroids generalize the linear independency in vector spaces and the cycle in graphs. Specifically, matroids provide well-established platforms for greedy algorithms, while most existing algorithms for many rough set problems including attribute reduction are greedy ones. Therefore, the combination between rough sets and matroids may bring new efficient solutions to those important and difficult problems. In this paper, 2-circuit matroids, abstracted from matroidal characteristics of rough sets, are studied and axiomatized. A matroid is induced by an equivalence relation, and its characteristics including the independent set and duality are represented with rough sets. Based on these rough set representations, this special type of matroid is defined as 2-circuit matroids. Conversely, an equivalence relation is induced by a matroid, and its relationship with the above induction is further investigated. Finally, a number of axioms of the 2-circuit matroid are obtained through rough sets. These interesting and diverse axioms demonstrate the potential for the connection between rough sets and matroids.
