defined by a triple (A
1
, A
2
, A
3
), such that A
1
⊆ K
1
,
A
2
⊆ K
2
, and A
3
⊆ K
3
, and A
1
× A
2
× A
3
⊆ Y.
The sets A
1
, A
2
, A
3
are called objects, attributes, and
mode, respectively. The set of all concepts in a par-
tially ordered triadic context forms a complete lattice,
also called a conceptual lattice.
From triadic contexts, it is possible to obtain asso-
ciation rules of the Biedermann Conditional Attribute
Association Rule (BCAAR) and Biedermann Attri-
butional Condition Association Rule (BACAR) types
(Biedermann, 1999):
1. BCAAR: (A1 → A2)B(sup, con f ), where A1 and
A2 are subsets of attributes, (A1, A2 ⊆ K2), and B
is a condition, (B ⊆ K3). If the subset of attributes
A1 occurs with the condition B, then A2 will also
occur, with support (sup) and confidence (con f ).
2. BACAR: (B1 → B2)A(sup, con f ). Here, B1 and
B2 are conditions, (B1, B2 ⊆ K3), and A is a sub-
set of attributes, (A ⊆ K2). If B1 occurs for the
attributes A, then the condition B2 will also occur,
with support (sup) and confidence (con f ).
2.3 Longitudinal Database
Longitudinal studies in health typically record obser-
vations related to clinical, symptomatic, psychologi-
cal, emotional, environmental, among other data. De-
pending on the type of study, the database may in-
clude the addition of new individuals from the study
population and even add new variables of interest to
the study. Longitudinal databases are sets of records
where the time period (wave) is a parameter of analy-
sis. In these databases, one can observe the variation
of attributes and characteristics, monitoring their up-
dates during the waves. This opens up possibilities
to explore cause-and-effect relationships, making this
area of study relevant.
Table 3 shows part of the database considered in
this work. It presents the variation of attributes (P1,
P2, and P3) for an employee (Object) over two waves
(t1 and t2), making it possible to observe how the
data behaves between these time periods. For exam-
ple, attribute P1 changed from a satisfaction level of
6 (high) to 3 (intermediate) between the first and sec-
ond waves. In this work, we extract association rules
that allow evaluating changes in satisfaction and well-
being relationships among employees in a company
after the implementation of the ABW approach.
3 RELATED WORKS
The articles (Lana et al., 2022) and (Noronha et al.,
2022) are likely the first works to explore triadic anal-
ysis in describing longitudinal studies in the field of
health. The first article focuses on analyzing the effec-
tiveness of prevention methods against COVID-19 in-
fection, while the second work delves into pattern dis-
covery related to human aging by observing the clin-
ical and environmental evolution of individuals over
time.
In the realm of TCA-related work, there is the
study by (Zhuk et al., 2014), where a series of ex-
periments compared the results and performance of
algorithms for triadic context analysis. Additionally,
one can mention the work by (Missaoui and Emami-
rad, 2017), where the Lattice Miner tool is proposed
to generate triadic association rules, including impli-
cations.
In the context of ABW, numerous studies propose
various methodologies to assess its impact. The ma-
jority of these studies benefit from longitudinal re-
search, utilizing the variation of performance metrics
over time as an analytical tool. The works by (Rolf
¨
o
et al., 2018) and (Blok et al., 2012), both longitudinal
in nature, provide a good introductory understanding
of the theme and detail case studies of implementing
this type of approach in work environments, as well
as the adoption of more flexible practices. In these
studies, employees are subjected to questionnaires,
and the responses are used to define comparison met-
rics. The obtained results offer values and references
for comparison and composition of the triadic context
presented in this article.
The present work differs from previous studies
such as (Arundell et al., 2018) and (Haapakangas
et al., 2019), which utilized Linear Mixed Mod-
els (LMM), and (Haapakangas et al., 2018) and
(B
¨
acklander and Richter, 2022), which used Linear
Regression models, by addressing Formal Concept
Theory. Although all of them are longitudinal studies
and share similar data collection methods (question-
naires), the study proposed in this article differs in its
utilization of FCA (Formal Concept Analysis) as the
foundation of the methodology.
4 METHODOLOGY
The methodology proposed in this work aims to de-
scribe temporal associations between questionnaire
variables concerning the level of satisfaction with the
implementation of ABW and the new type of work-
place organization.
Triadic Rules for Analysis of Productive and Well-Being Social in Activity-Based Working Environments
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