Efficient breadth-first reduct search

Abstract

This paper formulates the problem of determining all reducts of an information system as a graph search problem. The search space is represented in the form of a rooted graph. The proposed algorithm uses a breadth-first search strategy to search for all reducts starting from the graph root. It expands nodes in breadth-first order and uses a pruning rule to decrease the search space. It is mathematically shown that the proposed algorithm is both time and space efficient.