Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Information Sciences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ins

Three-way decision on information tables q

Xiaonan Li a,⇑, Xuan Wang a, Bingzhen Sun b, Yanhong She c, Lu Zhao a
a
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Xidian University, 710071 Xi’an, China
b
School of Economics and Management, Xidian University, 710071 Xi’an, China
c
School of Science, Xi’an Shiyou University, 710065 Xi’an, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The model of three-way decision on two universes generalizes various two-universe mod-
Received 6 March 2020 els of rough sets, and it is in fact defined on 0–1 tables, i.e. binary information tables. This
Received in revised form 21 July 2020 paper generalizes the model of three-way decision from 0–1 tables to general information
Accepted 23 July 2020
tables. The framework of three-way decision on general information tables is presented
Available online 6 August 2020
and the connection of existing related models is investigated. In our models, every element
in the set of objects is assigned to a value and we can construct a tri-partition of the object
Keywords:
set according to a pair of thresholds. We present a fundamental result of the models, which
Three-way decision
Rough sets
induces two concepts: the fundamental sequence and pair. On the one hand, the funda-
Information tables mental result shows that there exist finitely many pairs of thresholds. That is, we need only
to consider the case of finitely many tri-partitions. On the other hand, it describes how the
positive region varies based on thresholds and induces a concept of positive region tower.
Finally, we evaluate these finite tri-partitions by the weighted entropy, which is a new
measure defined as a variant of information entropy. An optimal tri-partition can be
obtained according to weighted entropies of the finite tri-partitions.
Ó 2020 Published by Elsevier Inc.

1. Introduction

In rough set theory [22], an object can be represented approximately by two methods. One is by a pair of so-called lower
and upper approximations, and another is based on positive, boundary and negative regions, i.e. three pair-wise disjoint
regions. The representation with three regions motivates the birth of a new theory, three-way decision [37–39]. Three-
way decision theory extends rough set research and develops very rapidly in the past ten years. Recent studies present a
more generalized understanding of three-way decision, i.e. thinking in threes, which include thinking in three parts, three
elements, three categories, three views, three dimensions, three levels, three steps, three periods, and many others [42].
These explanations of threes make three-way decision become a universally applicable theory and a practically computa-
tional paradigm [11].
The classical Pawlak’s rough set model has been generalized to many cases. In 1992, the first so-called two-universe
model was introduced by Wong et al.[33]. Many related studies were published subsequently (see, e.g. [16,18,19,35]). These
studies mainly vary in approximation operators. That is, different authors define various upper and lower approximations for

q
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61772019, 61976244, 61906154) and the China Postdoctoral Science
Foundation (No. 2016M602851).
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lxn2007@163.com (X. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2020.07.064
0020-0255/Ó 2020 Published by Elsevier Inc.
26 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

their two-universe models respectively. Besides, two-universe rough sets were also generalized to fuzzy setting (see, e.g.
[15,30,36]). It is interesting to consider two-universe rough sets from a viewpoint of three-way decision. In [13], three-
way decision on two universes was studied. All existing two-universe models are defined on (fuzzy) binary relations. In fact,
a binary relation is equivalent to a 0–1 table, i.e. a two-value information table. Thus, it is natural for us to study three-way
decision on general information tables. In this paper, we construct two models of three-way decision on general information
tables and point out that our models unify existing two-universe models.
How to determine thresholds is an important problem in three-way decision. In [38,39], Yao provided a systematic
method for deriving the required thresholds based on the well-established Bayesian decision procedure. However, the
Bayesian approach needs many parameters of losses which are difficult to be obtained. In this paper, we present a new
method for computing thresholds and no parameters are needed to compute. Let U be a set of n objects, A a set of attri-
butes, and V a the set of attribute values of a 2 A. An information table can be determined by a function r : U!Pa2A V a ,
where Pa2A V a is the Cartesian product of fV a ja 2 Ag. Based on given information v ð2 Pa2A V a Þ, we can construct an optimal
tri-partition of U and make a decision. Specifically, we first use an evaluation function to give every element of U a value.
Based on these values, we can see that every pair of thresholds induces a tri-partition. Then we use a measure to evaluate
all possible tri-partitions and choose the optimal one. Note that there seem to be infinitely many pairs of thresholds in
[0,1], but actually we need only to consider finitely many possibilities. In fact, we need to compute the measure values
of nðn1
2
Þ
tri-partitions at most. Thus, once the evaluation function and measure are determined, the optimal tri-partition
can be obtained directly.
Two main contributions of this paper have been presented. The following three points also deserve attention. First, sub-
sethood measures are important evaluation functions and are used in most of the two-universe rough set models. How-
ever, construction of evaluation functions should depend on specific problems. In examples of this paper, we construct
two evaluation functions according to specific problems, and point out that they are not subsethood measures. Second,
we introduce the weighted entropy, instead of the accuracy of approximation in [13], to measure tri-partitions. On the
one hand, the accuracy of approximation depends on the boundary region and we can not give a compelling explanation.
On the other hand, information entropy [4,20] and its variants, such as rough entropy [8,9], combination entropy [24] and
conditional entropy [31], have been used to measure information in rough set theory. Based on these measures, we pro-
pose a new measure as a variant of information entropy to evaluate tri-partitions induced by all possible pairs of thresh-
olds. Finally, we present a fundamental result about the structure of three-way decision models on information tables. The
result shows how the positive region varies based on the thresholds and why some well-known results concerning two-
universe models hold.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 is an overview of abstract models of three-way decision and
information tables. Besides, we introduce models of three-way decision on 0–1 tables. In Section 3.1, we define models of
three-way decision on information tables. Section 3.2 studies properties of the models. More importantly, we present a
structure theorem of the standard model, which induces some interesting results. These properties lay solid foundations
for two algorithms in Section 4. Section 3.3 studies the connection of new models and other related models. In Section 4.1,
we investigate two kinds of measures: one is the evaluation function and another is for tri-partitions. Based on these two
measures, we can divide the object set of an information table into three parts. Section 4.2 presents two algorithms for opti-
mal three regions. Besides, two examples are also given to illustrate the algorithms. A concluding remark is given in the last
section.

2. Three-way decision and information tables

This section presents some fundamental definitions on three-way decision and information tables. Besides, remarks will
be given to explain important issues and clarify related notions.

2.1. Three-way decision

The first formalized definition of three-way decision [40] was introduced in 2012, though the term three-way decision had
appeared three years ago [37].

Definition 2.1. Suppose that U is a nonempty finite universe and L is a poset set. A function f : U!L is called an evaluation
function. Let Lþ ; L be two subsets of L with Lþ \ L ¼ £, called the designated values for acceptance and rejection


respectively. Then we call U; f ; Lþ ; L a three-way decision model. The positive, negative, and boundary regions induced by

þ 

U; f ; L ; L are as follows:
8  
>
> POSðLþ ;L Þ ð f Þ ¼ x 2 Ujf ðxÞ 2 Lþ ;
>
<
NEGðLþ ;L Þ ð f Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujf ðxÞ 2 L g;
>
>  
>
: BN þ  ð f Þ ¼ x 2 Ujf ðxÞ R Lþ ^ f ðxÞ R L :
ðL ;L Þ
 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43 27

Remark 2.2. The above definition is a revised version of Definition 3 in [40], where Yao also proposed a generalized version
of Definition 3, i.e. using two evaluation functions instead of one evaluation function (see Definitions 1 and 2 in [40]). Since a
single evaluation function works in most cases, we do not refer to the two-function case. For more remarks on Yao’s original
definitions, see [10].
Usually, L in Definition 2.1 is a totally ordered set. Then the two sets of designated values Lþ and L can be determined by
a pair of thresholds a and b. In this case, a model of three-way decision can be described as follows:

Definition 2.3. Suppose that U is a nonempty finite set and L is a totally ordered set. Let f ða;bÞ : U!L be a function with
 
a; b 2 L and b < a, then we call the pair U; f ða;bÞ a three-way decision model.
 
In Definition 2.3, f ða;bÞ is an evaluation function of U; f ða;bÞ . If there is no confusion, we often omit the subscript and use f
to denote the evaluation function. The pair of thresholds a and b, together with the evaluation function f induces a tri-
partition of U, i.e.
8   n o
> POS f ða;bÞ ¼ x 2 Ujf ða;bÞ ðxÞ P a ;
>
>
>
<   n o
NEG f ða;bÞ ¼ x 2 Ujf ða;bÞ ðxÞ 6 b ;
>
>   n o
>
>
: BN f
ða;bÞ ¼ x 2 Ujb < f ða;bÞ ð xÞ < a :

Remark 2.4. From the definition we can see two important components of the model: the evaluation function and the
thresholds. On the one hand, many problems can be boiled down to evaluation-and-threshold based problems. On the other
hand, choosing evaluation functions and determining thresholds are usually important topics in a general problem-solving
process, not only in three-way decision theory. In [41], Yao listed some classes of evaluation functions for three-way decision
models, such as possibility functions, fuzzy membership functions, Bayesian confirmation functions, similarity measures,
and subsethood measures. As for thresholds, Yao [41] also gave a suggestion: an optimization framework can be designed to
compute and interpret a pair of thresholds. This paper will follow Yao’s idea and determine thresholds via an optimization
problem.

Example 2.5. (Rough sets [22]) Let U be a finite nonempty universal set of objects and R an equivalence relation on U. For
any x 2 U, the subset ½xR ¼ f y 2 UjxRyg denotes a neighborhood of x. The pair ðU; RÞ is called a Pawlak approximation space.
For X # U, the lower and upper approximations of X are respectively defined as follows:
(  
aprR ð X Þ ¼ x 2 Uj½xR # X ;
 
aprR ð X Þ ¼ x 2 Uj½xR \ X – £ :

A subset X of U is called a rough set if apr R ð X Þ – aprR ð X Þ. The lower and upper approximations can induce a tri-partition of
U,
8  
>
> POSR ð X Þ ¼ x 2 Uj½xR # X ¼ aprR ð X Þ;
>
< n o
NEGR ð X Þ ¼ x 2 Uj½xR # X C ¼ ðaprR ð X ÞÞC ;
>
> n o
>
: BN ð X Þ ¼ x 2 Uj½x  Xand½x  X C ¼ apr ð X Þ  apr ð X Þ:
R R R R R

Obviously, X is a rough set if the boundary region BN R ð X Þ – £. We now show that the rough set model is a special model
of three-way decision. For this purpose, we need only to construct an evaluation function to induce the aforementioned tri-
X
secting. Define f R : U!½0; 1 as follows:

X j½xR \ Xj
f R ð xÞ ¼ :
j ½ x R j
 
X
Then for the three-way decision model U; f Rð1;0Þ , we have
8  
>
>
X
POS f R ð1;0Þ ¼ POSR ð X Þ;
>
>
<  
X
NEG f R ð1;0Þ ¼ NEGR ð X Þ;
>
>  
>
>
: BN f X
R ð1;0Þ ¼ BN R ð X Þ:
28 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

2.2. Rough sets on two universes

In Example 2.5, R is a binary relation from U to U. Wong et al. [33] first considered the lower and upper approximations on
a binary relation from U to V, and defined the so-called two-universe model.

Definition 2.6. ([18,33]) Let U and V be two universes, and R be a binary relation from U to V. The ordered triple ðU; V; RÞ is
called an (two-universe) approximation space. For any Y # V, the lower and upper approximations of Y are respectively
defined as follows:

aprR ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 UjRðxÞ # Y g;
aprR ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 UjRðxÞ \ Y – £g:
Similar to the case of one universe, an equivalent description of approximations is the following trisecting:
8
> POSR ðY Þ ¼ aprR ðY Þ;
<
NEGR ðY Þ ¼ ðaprR ðY ÞÞc ;
>
:
BNR ðY Þ ¼ aprR ðY Þ  aprR ðY Þ:

Remark 2.7. A binary relation R from U to V can be depicted by a table with 0 and 1 (see Table 1). If (ui ; v j )2 R, then the i  j
location in the table is 1. Otherwise, it is 0. Wong et al.’s original definition [33] was defined on a compatible relation and Liu
[18] generalized Wong et al.’s definition to a general binary relation. It is easy to check that R is compatible if and only if the
related 0–1 table has no zero-rows and zero-columns [13]. Zero-rows and zero-columns give us no information and thus we
in this paper deal with information tables without zero-rows and zero-columns.

Example 2.8. Consider the binary relation shown in Table 1. Suppose that U is a set of diseases and V a set of symptoms. If
the disease ui has the symptom v j , then the i  j location is 1. Otherwise, it is 0. If Y ¼ fv 2 ; v 3 ; v 4 ; v 5 g, then
8
< POSR ðY Þ ¼ fu3 ; u6 g;
>
NEGR ðY Þ ¼ fu1 g;
>
:
BNR ðY Þ ¼ fu2 ; u4 ; u5 g:
We can interpret the above results as follows: a patient with the symptom set Y suffers from diseases u3 and u6 , does not
have the disease u1 , and may or may not have the diseases u2 ; u4 and u5 .

Remark 2.9.

(1) The above example is merely to illustrate the two-universe model. Disease diagnosis is actually much more compli-
cated than a direct decision based on data.
(2) In Example 2.8, there is only one element in the neighborhood of u2 that belongs to Y, but four elements in the neigh-
borhood of u4 are in Y. Since v 6 2 Rðu4 Þ and v 6 R Y, we put u4 into BN R ðY Þ. Though u2 and u4 locate in the uncertain area
BN R ðY Þ, they have different situations. The inclusion relation makes the two-universe model lack of fault tolerance. The
following three-way decision model on two universes in Section 2.3 uses a pair of thresholds instead of inclusion relation
to construct three regions and solves the problem of fault tolerance in some degree.

At last of this subsection, we give a remark on the term two-universe model.

Remark 2.10. There are many notions related to two universes in rough set theory, such as rough set models on two
universes [18,23], rough approximation operators on two universes [14], rough fuzzy approximations on two universes [15],
and the model of rough set over dual-universe [35]. First, a two-universe model concern a binary relation from U to V. As the
two-universe model, the Pawlak model is also defined on a binary relation. From a viewpoint of binary relation, the Pawlak

Table 1
A binary relation R.

UnV v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6
u1 1 0 0 0 0 1
u2 0 1 0 0 0 1
u3 0 0 1 1 0 0
u4 0 1 1 1 1 1
u5 1 1 0 0 0 1
u6 0 0 1 0 0 0
 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43 29

model is also a two-universe model, where the two universes are equal. Thus, the term two universes is redundant. Maybe it
is suitable to call these models relation-based models. Second, it is well known that partitions and equivalence relations are
really the same thing in some sense. However, unlike equivalence relations, the concept of partition is related to one
universe. If we consider the Pawlak model as an induced concept from a partition of a universe, we can define a two-universe
model naturally based on the Cartesian product of two universes. Finally, there exist several possible definitions of rough set
[1,2]. The related topics for two-universe models are also worthy of consideration in future.

2.3. Three-way decision on 0–1 tables

In [13], the model of three-way decision on 0–1 tables was introduced, and it generalized the two-universe model (Def-
inition 2.6).

Definition 2.11. ([13]) Let U and V be two non-empty finite sets, r : U!2V be a set-valued function (named a relation
 
function). The function e : 2V  2V !½0; 1 is called an evaluation function. Assume that 0 6 b < a 6 1, then W ¼ U; V; r; eab
is called a model of three-way decision on two universes. For any Y # V, the positive, negative and boundary regions of Y are
respectively defined by
8 a
< POS ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 UjeðrðxÞ; Y Þ P ag;
>
NEGb ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 UjeðrðxÞ; Y Þ 6 bg; ð2:2Þ
>
: a
BNb ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujb < eðrðxÞ; Y Þ < ag:

Remark 2.12.

(1) The model W should be denoted by ðU; V; r; e; a; bÞ, and eab is, strictly speaking, undefined. For simplicity, we use eab to
denote an evaluation function e with a pair of thresholds a and b.
(2) The set-valued function r : U!2V can induce a binary relation Rr from U to V by ðx; yÞ 2 Rr if and only if
y 2 rðxÞð8x 2 U; y 2 V Þ. Conversely, a binary relation R ð # U  V Þ can also induce a set-valued function rR : U!2V by
rR ðxÞ ¼ RðxÞ ð8x 2 U Þ. Obviously, RrR ¼ R and r Rr ¼ r hold. Thus the binary relation R in Definition 2.6 and the function r
in Definition 2.11 actually give us the same information. They both determine a 0–1 table, and we denote it by I (i.e.,
   
I ¼ fU; V; r gÞ. We also abbreviate U; V; r; eab to I; eab , and call it a model of three-way decision on I.
(3) Besides the function r in Definition 2.11, we can determine a 0–1 table by the following two approaches. First, a func-
tion f : U  V!f0; 1g can determine a 0–1 table. Second, for every a 2 V, we define a function f a : U!f0; 1g as follows:
f a ðxÞ ¼ f ðx; aÞð8x 2 U Þ. Obviously, a sequence of functions ff a ga2V can also determine a 0–1 table. Thus we can write
 
I ¼ fU; V; f g or I ¼ U; V; ff a ga2V . These three equivalent forms of 0–1 tables will be generalized to information tables
in the next section.
(4) In rough set theory, one of the most important numerical characteristics is the following coefficient:
japrR ð X Þj
qð X Þ ¼ :
japrR ð X Þj
 
Similarly, we can define the accuracy of approximation in W ¼ I; eab :

japrW ðY Þj jPOSa ðY Þj
qab ðY Þ ¼ ¼ ð8Y # V Þ:
japrW ðY Þj jPOSa ðY Þ [ BNab ðY Þj

In [13], we used the accuracy of approximation to evaluate tri-partitions and chose the optimal one. In the next section, we
will define a new measure to replace it.

Example 2.13. (Continued from Example 2.8) Consider the 0–1 table in Table 1 again. Define an evaluation function e1 as
follows:
jX \ Yj
e1 ð X; Y Þ ¼ ð 8X; Y # V Þ:
jXj
Suppose that Y ¼ fv 2 ; v 3 ; v 4 ; v 5 g, we can check that1

1
Note that 1 P a > b P 0, i.e. the domain of a is (0,1]. So we need not consider the case a ¼ 0.
30 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

From Table 2, we can see that a determines the positive region. The four values of a divide (0,1] into four subintervals, i.e.
(0,1/3], (1/3,1/2], (1/2,4/5] and (4/5,1]. Note that every value in a subinterval can induce the same positive region. The accu-
racy of approximation of every tri-partition is listed in Table 3.

3. Three-way decision on information tables

In this section, we first introduce the concept of three-way decision on information tables, which gives a generalization of
the model of three-way decision on 0–1 tables. Then we present some related two-universe models and study the relation-
ship of these models.

3.1. A model of three-way decision on an information table

We begin this section by the definition of information table.

Definition 3.1. An information table is formally represented by a tuple: I=fU; A; fV a ja 2 Ag; ff a : U!V a ja 2 Agg, where U is a
set whose elements are called objects, A is a set of attributes, V a is the set of attribute values of a 2 A, and f a is a function that
maps each object to a unique value in V a . All sets here are finite nonempty.

Remark 3.2. The term information table has other alternative names, such as information system, attribute–value system,
descriptive system, and knowledge representation system. One of the most used terms in rough set theory is information sys-
tem. Because information system has a wide meaning outside the community of rough set, following Ciucci’s advice [2], we
use the name information table.

Remark 3.3. Another familiar equivalent description of information table is to use a function f : U  A!V instead of
S
ff a : U!V a ja 2 Ag in Definition 3.1, where U  A is the Cartesian product of U and A, and V ¼ a2A V a , i.e.
I=fU; A; fV a ja 2 Ag; f g (see, e.g. [2,26,27]). Obviously, f can also be substituted by the following function r : U!Pa2A V a ,
where Pa2A V a is the Cartesian product of fV a ja 2 Ag. So we can write I=fU; A; fV a ja 2 Ag; rg. These three forms of I generalize
the three equivalent descriptions of 0–1 tables (see Remark 2.12). Some authors also simply use fU; Ag to denote an infor-
mation table (see, e.g. [6,25]). We will use these signs alternatively for convenience.

Example 3.4. Let U be a set of houses and A a set of attributes. An information table I=fU; Ag concerning houses is given in
Table 4. Note that every attribute value of an object in I exists. And sometimes I also is called a complete information table,
corresponding to an incomplete one whenever some attribute values are missing [6,17,25]. We do not refer to incomplete
information tables in this paper, and the information table I in this example will be discussed throughout the paper.

Table 2
The values of POSa ðY Þ.

ui e1 ðr ðui Þ; Y Þ a POSa ðY Þ
u3 1 a¼1 fu3 ; u6 g
u6 1
u4 4/5 ! a ¼ 4=5 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 g
u2 1/2 a ¼ 1=2 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 g
u5 1/3 a ¼ 1=3 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 ; u5 g
u1 0

Table 3
The values of qab ðY Þ.

a POSa ðY Þ b POSa ðY Þ [ BN ab ðY Þ qab ðY Þ

a¼1 fu3 ; u6 g b ¼ 4=5 fu3 ; u6 g 1
b ¼ 1=2 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 g 2/3
b ¼ 1=3 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 g 1/2
b¼0 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 ; u5 g 2/5
a ¼ 4=5 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 g b ¼ 1=2 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 g 1
b ¼ 1=3 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 g 3/4
b¼0 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 ; u5 g 3/5
a ¼ 1=2 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 g b ¼ 1=3 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 g 1
b¼0 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 ; u5 g 4=5
a ¼ 1=3 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 ; u5 g b¼0 fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 ; u5 g 1
 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43 31

Table 4
An information table.

UnA a1 ðsizeÞ a2 ðlocationÞ a3 ð gardenÞ a4 ð priceÞ a5 ðageÞ

u1 small east no moderate new

u2 big south no moderate old
u3 middle west yes high old
u4 middle south no low new
u5 big north no moderate old
u6 middle north no low new
u7 big south yes high new
u8 middle south no moderate new
u9 small east yes moderate old
u10 middle north yes high new

Definition 2.11 introduces a model of three-way decision on a 0–1 table, and now we consider a general case.

Definition 3.5. Let I=fU; A; fV a ja 2 Ag; rg be an information table, and

e : Pa2A V a  Pa2A V a !L
 
a function, where L is a totally ordered set. Assume that b; a 2 L and b < a, then W ¼ I; eab is called a model of three-way
decision on I and e is named an evaluation function. For any v 2 Pa2A V a , a tri-partition induced by v is respectively defined
by
8
< POS ðv Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujeðr ðxÞ; v Þ P ag;
a
>
NEGb ðv Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujeðr ðxÞ; v Þ 6 bg; ð3:1Þ
>
: a
BNb ðv Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujb < eðr ðxÞ; v Þ < ag;

where a tri-partition means that POSa ðv Þ; NEGb ðv Þ and BN ab ðv Þare pair-wise disjoint and their union is U.

Remark 3.6.

(1) The symbols POSa ðv Þ; NEGb ðv Þ and BN ab ðv Þcame from rough set theory, and also appeared in the early literature on
three-way decision [37,40]. And now many authors replace these three symbols with the more general ones Part I, Part
II and Part III. Since the original explanation of the tri-partition in rough set theory fits our new model in some degree, we
still use the old symbols.
Q iQ
¼n
(2) Let A ¼ fa1 ; a2 ; . . . ; an g. Then a2A V a can be denoted by V i (V i is short for V ai ), which in fact is the set of all n-tuples
i¼1
ðx1 ; x2 ; . . . ; xn Þ such that xi 2 V i for each i. Let v = ðv 1 ; v 2 ; . . . ; v n Þ, then the ith coordinate of v is the value of the attribute ai ,
i.e. ai ¼ v i . We also denote v by ða1 ¼ v 1 ; a2 ¼ v 2 ; . . . ; an ¼ v n Þ if the aforementioned symbol may cause confusion.
   
(3) If L is [0,1], we call the model W ¼ I; eab a standard model. In the following, I; eab is a standard model unless other-
wise specified.

Remark 3.7. Once v is determined, e in Definition 3.5 actually becomes a function from U to L, and we can denote it by ev .
We now enlarge the scope of ev . Sometimes, we do not know all coordinates of v , and we can denote the missing coordinates
by . For example, in Example 3.4, a person wants to buy a house v ¼ f; ; no; high; newg, where  means that he does not
care the information size ¼ ? and location ¼ ?. That is, the problem only concerns the three attributes a3 ; a4 and a5 . Further,
some problems even do not care values of a3 ; a4 and a5 . In this case, the given information v can be considered as
B ¼ fa3 ; a4 ; a5 g and the evaluation function can be denoted by eB . For example, e1 in Example 2.13 in fact determines a func-
tion eY : U!½0; 1 : eY ðuÞ ¼ jrðuÞ \ Yj=jr ðuÞjð8u 2 U Þ.
In the following, we generalize Definition 3.5 to a general case, where two evaluation functions work and the totally
ordered set L is replaced by a (partially ordered) set.

Definition 3.8. Let I=fU; A; fV a ja 2 Ag; r g be an information table, and eP : Pa2A V a  Pa2A V a !EP and
eN : Pa2A V a  Pa2A V a !EN are evaluation functions for the positive and negative regions respectively, where EP and EN
are the sets of evaluation values with respect to eP and eN respectively. Then W ¼ ðI; eP ; eN ; EP ; EN Þ is called a model of three-
way decision on I. For any v 2 Pa2A V a , a tri-partition induced by v is respectively defined by
32 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

8
< POSðv Þ ¼ fx 2 UjeP ðr ðxÞ; v Þ 2 EP g;
>
NEGðv Þ ¼ fx 2 UjeN ðrðxÞ; v Þ 2 EN g; ð2Þ
>
:
BNðv Þ ¼ ðPOSðv Þ [ NEGðv ÞÞc :

Remark 3.9. The two tri-partitions (i.e. (3.1) and (3.2)) are determined by a pair of thresholds a and b, and two sets Ep and EN
respectively. For a comparison of the a  b approach and the Ep  EN approach, see [10,13].
In a standard model, the induced tri-partition relates to the thresholds and evaluation function. In general, construction of
evaluation functions depends on specific problems. As for thresholds, it is always an important and difficult problem. At last
of this subsection, we present two examples. The first example concerning buying houses will be discussed in Section 4 to
illustrate our methods for the two problems: construction of evaluation functions and computation of thresholds. The second
example concerns an interesting topic, i.e. conflict analysis. We will point out that Yao’s three-way conflict analysis model is
a special three-way decision model on a three-value information table.

Example 3.10. (Continued from Example 3.4) Let I=fU; A; fV a ja 2 Ag; r g be the information table in Example 3.4, and define
Y
i¼5 Y
i¼5
e1 : Vi  V i !½0; 1
i¼1 i¼1

as follows:

 jv 1 \v 2 j   Q
i¼5  2
e1 v 1 ; v 2 ¼ jv 1 j , 8v j = v j1 ; v j2 ; . . . ; v j5 2 V i ð j ¼ 1; 2Þ, where v 1 \ v 2 ¼ v 1i jv 1i ¼ v 2i ; i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 5 and
i¼1
jv j ¼ jAj ¼ 5. Let
1

v ¼ ð; south; no; ; newÞ;

then r ðu2 Þ ¼ ðbig; south; no; moderate; oldÞ and
jfsouth; nogj
e1 ðr ðu2 Þ; v Þ ¼ ¼ 2=5:
jAj
It is easy to compute other cases. If v gives us information of the house a person likes, which houses should a realtor rec-
ommend to the person? We will continue to discuss this problem in Section 4.2.

Example 3.11. (Three-way conflict analysis [43]) In an information table ðU; A; ½1; þ1; f Þ, an aggregated rating of an agent
x 2 U on a non-empty subset of issues J # A is given by
1
rðx; J Þ ¼ Ri2J f ðx; iÞ:
jJj
Given a pair of thresholds a and b with 1 6 b < 0 < a 6 þ1, a quantitative tri-partition of the set of agents is given by
8 ½1;b
>
> U ¼ fx 2 Ujr ðx; J Þ 6 bg;
< J
ðb;aÞ
UJ ¼ fx 2 Ujb < r ðx; J Þ < ag;
>
>
: ½a;þ1
UJ ¼ fx 2 Ujrðx; J Þ P ag:

According to attitude to multiple issues (measured by r ðx; J Þ), the set of agents U is divided into three parts. The tri-
½1;b ½a;þ1 ½1;b ðb;aÞ
partition induces three levels of conflict: strong conflict: SC(U J ; UJ ), weak conflict: WC(U J ; UJ Þ,
       
ðb;aÞ ½a;þ1 ½1;b ½1;b ðb;aÞ ðb;aÞ ½a;þ1 ½a;þ1
WC U J ; U J , non-conflict: NC U J ; UJ ,NC U J ; U J , NC U J ; UJ .
 
Obviously, the three levels of conflict actually are based on the three-way decision model I; eaJb , where
I ¼ ðU; A; ½1; þ1; f Þ and eJ ¼ r.

Remark 3.12. (1) In Example 3.11, we combine Definitions 6, 11 and 12 of [43] by our language and signs. For any
a 2 A; V a ¼ ½1; þ1, thus we simplify fV a ja 2 Ag by ½1; þ1 and denote the information table by
 
I½1;þ1 ¼ ðU; A; ½1; þ1; f Þ. We call I½1;þ1 ; eaJb a three-way conflict analysis model.
(2) As stated in [43], the simple evaluation function r (named aggregated rating function) is only for the purpose of
illustration. Construction of evaluation functions is an important issue and will be discussed in Section 4.

2
Note that v 1 can not be considered as a set since different coordinates may be equal. For the mathematical rigor, the formulation here seems tedious.
Besides, e1 is actually in accordance with the one in Example 2.13, so we use the same serial number.
 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43 33

3.2. Properties of the standard model

We now present the main result of this paper, which will induce two important concepts and some useful corollaries.
 
Theorem 3.13. Let I; eab be a model of three-way decision on an information table and v 2 Pa2A V a . Then there exists a sequence
a0 ¼ 0 < a1 < a2 < . . . < an ¼ 1 such that ð0; a1 ; ða1 ; a2 ; . . . ; ðan1 ; an  are a partition of (0,1] and
(1) 8a; b 2 ð0; 1 and a < b, we have

POSb ðv Þ # POSa ðv Þ:
(2) 8i 2 f1; 2; . . . ; ng and a; b 2 ðai1 ; ai , we have

POSa ðv Þ ¼ POSb ðv Þ:

(3) 8i 2 f1; 2; . . . ; n  1g; a 2 ðai1 ; ai  and b 2 ðai ; aiþ1 , we havePOSb ðv Þ  POSa ðv Þ.3

Proof. Since feðr ðxÞ; v Þjx 2 U g is a finite subset of [0,1], we can rearrange its elements such that
feðr ðxÞ; v Þjx 2 U g [ f0; 1g ¼ fa0 ; a1 ; . . . ; an g;
where 0 ¼ a0 < a1 < . . . < an ¼ 1.

(1) By the definition of positive region (see (3.1)), (1) holds obviously.
(2) 8i 2 f1; 2; . . . ; ng and a; b 2 ðai1 ; ai , without loss of generality, we let a < b. It follows from (1) that

POSb ðv Þ # POSa ðv Þ:

We now assume that u 2 POSa ðv Þ  POSb ðv Þ and drive a contradiction. By the definition of positive region, we
haveai1 < a 6 eðrðuÞ; v Þ < b 6 ai , i.e., ai1 < eðr ðuÞ; v Þ < ai , which contradicts to the definition of fa0 ; a1 ; . . . ; an g. Thus, (2)
holds.
(3) 8i 2 f1; 2; . . . ; n  1g; a 2 ðai1 ; ai  and b 2 ðai ; aiþ1 , it follows from (1) thatPOSb ðv Þ # POSa ðv Þ. By the definition of ai , there
exists u 2 U such thateðrðu Þ; v Þ ¼ ai . By the definition of positive region and (2), we haveu 2 POSai ðv Þ ¼ POSa ðv Þ.
But eðrðu Þ; v Þ < aiþ1 , it follows from (2) thatu R POSaiþ1 ðv Þ ¼ POSb ðv Þ. Thus POSb ðv Þ  POSa ðv Þ, which completes the proof.

 
Definition 3.14. Let I; eab be a model of three-way decision on I and v 2 Pa2A V a . Then we call the sequence a0 ; a1 ; . . . ; an in
 
Theorem 3.13 the fundamental sequence of I; eab with respect to v. The pairs
 
ða1 ; a0 Þ; ða2 ; a1 Þ; ða2 ; a0 Þ; ða3 ; a2 Þ; ða3 ; a1 Þ; ða3 ; a0 Þ; . . . ; ðan ; a0 Þ are called the fundamental pairs of I; eab with respect to v . We
often use T to denote the set of fundamental pairs.

 
Corollary 3.15. Let I; eab be a model of three-way decision on I, v 2 Pa2A V a and < a0 ; a1 ; . . . ; an > its fundamental sequence.
Then
   
(1) j POSa ðv Þja 2 ð0; 1 j ¼ n, j NEGb ðv Þjb 2 ½0; 1Þ j ¼ n.
(2) 8a; b 2 ½0; 1 and a > b, there is ða ; b Þ 2 T such that
 

8
< POS ðv Þ ¼ POS ðv Þ;
a a
>
NEGb ðv Þ ¼ NEGb ðv Þ;
>
: a
BNb ðv Þ ¼ BNab ðv Þ:


Corollary 3.15 follows easily from Theorem 3.13 and we can see that once the set of fundamental pairs T is determined,
we actually get all tri-partitions of a model of three-way decision on an information table.

Remark 3.16.

(1) By (3.1), every a in (0,1] can induce a positive region and infinitely many a determine infinitely many positive regions.
 
Theorem 3.13 presents an important observation about I; eab . That is, infinitely many thresholds in fact induce finite many

3
I.e. POSb ðY Þ # POSa ðY Þ but POSb ðY Þ – POSa ðY Þ.
34 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

positive regions. Specifically speaking, the interval (0,1] can be divided into finite many right-closed subintervals, and
every a in such a subinterval induces the same positive region. Besides, positive regions decrease when a moves to 1.
The positive regions can be depicted like a tower, and we call it a positive region tower (see Fig. 1).
(2) For negative regions and b, we can get completely similar results. Thus, all pairs of thresholds just induce finitely many
tri-partitions. What we will do is to choose an optimal tri-partition based on some measure.
(3) The positive region tower is similar to the matroid tower introduced in [12], where a three-way fuzzy matroid gives a
specific mathematical model of Yao’s three elements of granular structure: granules, levels, and hierarchies [42]. Note
that, in every level, the matroid tower has granules, but the positive region tower has nothing except a positive region.
(4) From Corollary 3.15, we can see that pairs of thresholds that induce the same tri-partition are not unique. In fact, the
fundamental sequence divides (0,1] into some right-closed intervals ð0; a1 ; ða1 ; a2 ; . . . ; ðan1 ; an . Thresholds in the same
right-closed (resp. left-closed) interval induce the same positive (resp. negative) region.

 
Example 3.17. (Continued from Example 2.13) Consider the model I; eab in Example 2.13. The fundamental sequence of
 
I; eab with respect to Y is < 0; 1=3; 1=2; 4=5; 1 > and the set of fundamental pairs is
T={(1/3,0), (1/2,1/3), (1/2,0), (4/5,1/2), (4/5,1/3), (4/5,0), (1,4/5), (1,1/2), (1,1/3), (1,0)}.
Note that Table 3 shows all tri-partitions induced by fundamental pairs. By Corollary 3.15, we in fact present all possible
 
tri-partitions of I; eab with respect to Y, though a and b are an arbitrary pair of numbers in [0,1]. The positive region tower of
 
I; eab is depicted in Fig.1. Note that we use the symbol u to highlight the right-closed intervals.

 
Corollary 3.18. Let I; eab be a model of three-way decision on I and v 2 Pa2A V a . Then
T
(1a) POSr ðv Þ ¼ POSa ðv Þ (0 < a  1),
r<a
T
(2a) NEGr ðv Þ ¼ NEGb ðv Þ (0 6 b < 1).
r>b

Proof. . It holds easily from Theorem 3.13.

Similar to the case for 0–1 tables, the following two results may not hold (see Example 4.12 of [13]).
S
(1a ) POSr ðv Þ ¼ POSa ðv Þ (0 < a  1),
r>a
S
(2a ) NEGr ðv Þ ¼ NEGb ðv Þ (0 6 b < 1).
r<b

Remark 3.19. Many papers related to models of two universes present their own versions of Corollary 3.18 (see, for exam-
ple, Theorem 3.3 of [19] and Theorem 3.2 of [36]). We in this paper introduce (1a) and (2a) as a corollary of Theorem 3.13,
which shows an important observation of three-way decision models on information tables. From Theorem 3.13, we can see
why Corollary 3.18 holds. In fact, the right-closed subintervals correspond to (1a) and (2a). That is to say, if we change the
formula (3.1) into
8
< POS ðv Þ ¼ fx 2 UjeðrðxÞ; v Þ > ag;
a
>
NEGb ðv Þ ¼ fx 2 UjeðrðxÞ; v Þ < bg; ð3:3Þ
>
: a
BNb ðv Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujb 6 eðr ðxÞ; v Þ 6 ag;

then the right-closed subintervals in Theorem 3.13 will be substituted by the left-closed subintervals, and (1a ) and (2a ) will
hold instead of (1a) and (2a).

Fig. 1. A positive region tower.

 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43 35

Remark 3.20. For any a; b 2 ½0; 1 and a > b, it follows from Theorem 3.13 that there exist a ; b 2 ½0; 1 and a > b satisfying
8
< fx 2 UjeðrðxÞ; v Þ P ag ¼ fx 2 Ujeðr ðxÞ; v Þ > a g;

>
fx 2 UjeðrðxÞ; v Þ 6 bg ¼ fx 2 Ujeðr ðxÞ; v Þ < b g;

ð4Þ
>
:
fx 2 Ujb < eðr ðxÞ; v Þ < ag ¼ fx 2 Ujb 6 eðr ðxÞ; v Þ 6 a g:
And for any a ; b 2 ½0; 1 and a > b , there also exist a; b 2 ½0; 1 and a > b such that (3.4) holds. Thus (3.1) and (3.3) actually
have no differences. Further, in (3.3), < and 6, > and Pcan substitute each other.

3.3. The unification of two universe models

After the first two-universe model was defined (i.e. Definition 2.6), many two-universe models appeared. In this subsec-
tion, we shall point out that our models unify these two-universe models. From Section 3.1, we can see that the model of
three-way decision on an information table in fact is constructed by three parts: information tables, evaluation functions
and approaches to tri-partitions.

1. Information tables (ITs).

Information tables are the objects of our discussion. Our main work of this paper is to study the problem of three-way
decision on information tables. A similar work to tri-partition, i.e. approximations, has been studied by many authors
based on a binary relation in terms of two-universe models of rough sets. A binary relation can be depicted by a 0–1 table,
a special information table.
2. Evaluation functions (EFs).
The evaluation function is a core concept in three-way decision. Every object obtains a value under an evaluation function
and we divide the universe into three parts based on evaluation values. Sometimes we need two evaluation functions in a
model of three-way decision, one is for the positive region and another for the negative region. While in most cases, a
single evaluation function works.
3. Approaches to tri-partition (A-Tri).
Once every object possesses an evaluation value, we can construct a tri-partition by two approaches: the a  b approach
and the Ep  EN approach. The former can be used when the set of evaluation values is totally ordered, and the later
approach has no such restriction. In most cases, we meet the case of totally ordered sets, so we need to determine a pair
of thresholds a  b.

We now introduce some existing approximation models on 0–1 tables and compare these models from a viewpoint of the
aforementioned three elements.
Let I01 ¼ fU; V; rg be a 0–1 table and Y # V.
At first, Wong et al. [33] defined a two-universe model on a compatibility relation, which in fact corresponds to a 0–1
table with no zero-rows and zero-columns (denoted by I01 ). That is, Wong et al. gave the following lower and upper approx-
imations based on I01 :

apr1 ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujr ðxÞ # Y g;
ð5Þ
apr1 ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujr ðxÞ \ Y – £g:
Then Davvaz [3] also used (3.5) to define the lower and upper approximations for a 0–1 table with no zero-rows (denoted
by II V
01 ) in terms of a function from U to 2  f£g. For a general 0–1 table I01 ¼ fU; V; r g, some authors also studied approx-
imations. Liu [18] still used (3.5). However, Yan et al. [35] made a minor revision of (3.5) and defined the following
formulations

apr2 ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujr ðxÞ # Y ^ rðxÞ – £g;
ð6Þ
apr2 ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujr ðxÞ \ Y – £ _ r ðxÞ ¼ £g:
In fact, the difference of (3.5) and (3.6) lies in how to arrange the solitary element x (i.e. rðxÞ ¼ £, which corresponds to a
zero-row in I01 ). Obviously, (3.5) can be induced by the evaluation function e1 in Example 2.13. Define e2 : 2V  2V !½0; 1 as
follows:
(
jX\Yj
jXj
; X – £; Y # V;
e2 ð X; Y Þ ¼
1=2; X ¼ £; Y # V:
The tri-partition induced by e2 can be written as
8
> 1
< POS ðY Þ ¼ apr2 ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Uje2 ðrðxÞ; Y Þ P 1g;
>
NEG0 ðY Þ ¼ ðapr2 ðY ÞÞc ¼ fx 2 Uje2 ðr ðxÞ; Y Þ 6 0g;
>
>
: BN1 ðY Þ ¼ apr ðY Þ  apr ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Uj0 < e ðrðxÞ; Y Þ < 1g:
0 2 2 2
36 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

Liu et al. [16] proposed a graded model and defined

8
>
> POSn ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 UjjrðxÞ  Yj 6 nandjrðxÞ \ Yj > ng;
<
NEGn ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Ujjr ðxÞ  Yj > nandjr ðxÞ \ Yj 6 ng;
> 
>
: c
BNn ðY Þ ¼ POSn ðY Þ [ NEGn ðY ÞÞ ;

 
where n 2 0; 1; . . . ; nR  1 and nR ¼ minfjr ðxÞjjx 2 U; rðxÞ – £g. We define a function e3 : 2V  2V !R2 as follows:

e3 ðY 1 ; Y 2 Þ ¼ ðjY 1  Y 2 j; jY 1 \ Y 2 jÞ

Let Y # V, define n R ¼ maxfjrðxÞ  Yjjx 2 U g, nI

R ¼ maxfjr ð xÞ \ Yjjx 2 U g. Obviously, we have
8 n
< POS ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Uje3 ðr ðxÞ; Y Þ 2 EP g;
>
NEGn ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Uje3 ðr ðxÞ; Y Þ 2 EN g;
>
: n
BN ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Uje3 ðr ðxÞ; Y Þ 2 EB g;
  c
where EP ¼ ðx; yÞj0 6 x 6 n; nI 
R P y > n , EN ¼ fð x; yÞjn < x 6 n R ; 0 6 y 6 ng and EB ¼ ðEP [ EN Þ (see [13] for details). Ma
and Sun [19] used e1 as an evaluation function and divided U into three parts by a pair of thresholds (see (2.2)). Thus, it
is a special model of three-way decision on I01 and we denote it by ðI01 ; e1 ; a; bÞ.
The aforementioned models all used the term two-universe in their original definitions. We now introduce the last related
model, named s-approximation space, which also defines approximations on I01 , although its name sounds nothing to to with
two-universe rough set models. Let s be a function from 2V  2V to f0; 1g. 8Y # V, the lower and upper approximations of X
are defined as
(
apr4 ðY Þ ¼ fx 2 UjsðrðxÞ; Y Þ ¼ 1g;
 
apr4 ðY Þ ¼ x 2 Ujsðr ðxÞ; Y c Þ ¼ 0 :

Then ðI; sÞ is called an s-approximation space[28]. Unfortunately, apr 4 ðY Þ # apr 4 ðY Þ does not necessarily hold. Thus, (2.1)
can not be used to induce three regions. Alternatively, Shakiba and Hooshmandasl [28] defined a tri-partition as follows:
8  c

< POSðY Þ ¼ x 2 Ujsðr ðxÞ; Y Þ ¼ 1 ^ sðrðxÞ; Y Þ ¼ 0 ;
>
NEGðY Þ ¼ x 2 Ujsðr ðxÞ; Y Þ ¼ 0 ^ sðr ðxÞ; Y c Þ ¼ 1 ;
>
:  
BNðY Þ ¼ x 2 Ujsðr ðxÞ; Y Þ ¼ sðr ðxÞ; Y c Þ :



This tri-partition can be induced by the function e4 ðY 1 ; Y 2 Þ ¼ sðY 1 ; Y 2 Þ; s Y 1 ; Y c2 ð8Y 1 ; Y 2 # V Þ. That is,
8
< POSðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Uje4 ðr ðxÞ; Y Þ 2 EP ¼ fð1; 0Þgg;
>
NEGðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Uje4 ðr ðxÞ; Y Þ 2 EN ¼ fð0; 1Þgg;
>
:
BNðY Þ ¼ fx 2 Uje4 ðrðxÞ; Y Þ 2 EB ¼ fð0; 0Þ; ð1; 1Þgg:
Thus, an s-approximation space can be denoted by ðI01 ; e4 ; EP ; EN Þ.
Based on the aforementioned analysis, the detailed information of these models is listed in Table 5. We can see that our
model ðI; e; EP ; EN Þ unifies the existing nine models. In the next section, we shall discuss two topics related to the last two
items of the table: evaluation functions and thresholds.

Table 5
Comparisons of related models.

Models ITs EFs A-Tri

 
I ; e1 ; 1; 0 (Wong et al.[33]) I01 e1 ab
 01 
I
I01 ; e1 ; 1; 0 (Davvaz[3]) II
01
e1 ab
ðI01 ; e1 ; 1; 0Þ(Liu[18]) I01 e1 ab
ðI01 ; e2 ; 1; 0Þ(Yan et al.[35]) I01 e2 ab
ðI01 ; e3 ; EP ; EN Þ(Liu et al.[16]) I01 e3 EP  EN
ðI01 ; e1 ; a; bÞ(Ma et al.[19]) I01 e1 ab
ðI01 ; e4 ; EP ; EN Þ(Shakiba et al.[26]) I01 e4 EP  EN
 
I01 ; eab ; ðI01 ; e; EP ; EN Þ(Li et al.[13]) I01 e a  b; EP  EN
 
I½1;þ1 ; eaJb (Yao [43]) I½1;þ1 e ab
 
I; eab (Definition 3.5) I e ab
ðI; e; EP ; EN Þ(Definition 3.8) I eP ; eN EP  EN
 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43 37

4. Measures and algorithms

In this section, we first discuss two kinds of measures, and then present two algorithms for optimal three regions.

4.1. Measures
 
For a standard model I; eab , two core steps are all related to measure. First, we shall construct a suitable evaluation func-
tion. In fact, the evaluation function is to measure some degree related to objects of an information table. For example, in
Example 3.10, e1 is to measure the degree of satisfaction for a person to a house. Second, we should measure possible tri-
partitions and choose an optimal one. In this subsection, we discuss these two measures.
1. Construction of evaluation functions.
Evaluation functions should be constructed based on specific problems and there is no a unified approach. In Examples
2.13 and 3.10, we present a simple evaluation function just for the purpose of illustration. We now analyze the two examples
and construct two more precise evaluation functions.
Consider a 0–1 table I=fU; V; rg. Let X 1 and X 2 be two neighborhoods of elements of U, i.e. there exist x1 ; x2 2 U such that
r ðx1 Þ ¼ X 1 and rðx2 Þ ¼ X 2 . Following the explanation in Example 2.8, e1 ðX i ; Y Þ presents the degree of possibility that a patient
suffers from the disease xi with the symptom set Y (i = 1,2). We now consider the case e1 ðX 1 ; Y Þ ¼ e1 ðX 2 ; Y Þ (see Fig. 2). On the
one hand, the equal shows that the patient with the symptom set Y has the same possibility to suffer from the two diseases
x1 and x2 . On the other hand, jX c1 \ Yj > jX c2 \ Yj shows that the patient with the symptom set Y has more symptoms unre-
lated to x1 than x2 . That is to say, the patient more possibly suffers from x2 than x1 . Thus, we need a new evaluation function
instead of e1 . Consider the following e5 :

e5 ð X; Y Þ ¼ jVj21þ1 jVj2 jX\Yj
jXj
þ jX\Yj
jYj
) (8X; Y # V). Obviously, e5 maps a pair of subsets of V into [0,1] and
(S1) e5 ð X; Y Þ ¼ 1 if and only if X ¼ Y.
Besides, we can check that the following assertions hold.

(1) For all X 1 ; X 2 # V; e1 ðX 1 ; Y Þ < e1 ðX 2 ; Y Þ implies e5 ðX 1 ; Y Þ < e5 ðX 2 ; Y Þ.

(2) For all X 1 ; X 2 # V, if e1 ðX 1 ; Y Þ ¼ e1 ðX 2 ; Y Þ, then jX c1 \ Yj > jX c2 \ Yj implies e5 ðX 1 ; Y Þ < e5 ðX 2 ; Y Þ.

According to the above analysis, we can see that e5 is a more suitable evaluation function for the problem in Example 2.8
than e1 .
In fact, e1 is a subsethood measure. The subsethood measure is a quantitative generalization of the inclusion relation #
(see [5] for a survey). Thus it must reach the maximum value if and only if two subsets satisfy the inclusion relation. That is, a
subsethood measure e must satisfy the following condition:
(I1) eð X; Y Þ ¼ 1 if and only if X # Y.
Thus e5 is not a subsethood measure.
Now we consider the problem in Example 3.10 and construct a suitable evaluation function. Let I=fU; A; fV a ja 2 Ag; r g be
an information table about houses, where U is the set of houses and V is the set of attributes. Suppose that v u is the n-tuple
with respect to a house u, and w is a subvector of Pa2A V a , which denotes the house a person w likes. It is reasonable to use
jv u \wj
e1 ¼ jwj
to show how the person likes the house u. However, the evaluation function e1 does not consider the weight of
attributes. Sometimes, the weight of each attribute is given. Otherwise, a simple approach is to consider the number of val-
ues for each attribute. For example, in Table 4, the attribute location has four choices and size has three. It is more difficult to
satisfy a person for location than size. Thus location should have a bigger weight. Based on the analysis, we substitute e1 by
0 X 1
jV a j
1 B BjAj jv \ wj þ X
C
e6 ðv ; wÞ ¼ C;
a2B
jAj þ 1 @ jwj jV a jA
a2A

where B ¼ fa 2 Ajv ðaÞ ¼ wðaÞg Obviously, the following two assertions hold.

Fig. 2. Locations of X i and Y (i = 1,2).

38 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

jv u1 \wj jv u2 \wj
(1) If jwj
< jwj
, then e6 ðv u1 ; wÞ < e6 ðv u2 ; wÞ.
jv jv u2 \wj P P
then a2B1 jV a j < a2B2 jV a j (Bi ¼ fa 2 Ajv ui ðaÞ ¼ wðaÞg; i ¼ 1; 2Þ implies
u1
\wj
(2) If jwj
= jwj
,

e6 ðv u1 ; wÞ < e6 ðv u2 ; wÞ.
2. The weighted entropy.
We have constructed two evaluation functions for two specific problems. Evaluation functions assign values to all ele-
ments of an object set. According to evaluation values, we can divide the object set into three parts based on a pair of thresh-
olds. Different thresholds may induce various tri-partitions. Then a question comes naturally: which tri-partition is our
solution?.
In the following, we introduce a new measure, weighted information entropy, to evaluate tri-partitions and choose an
optimal one. Let ðU; RÞ be an approximation space (i.e. R ¼ fR1 ; R2 ; . . . ; Rn g is a partition of U). Then entropy of knowledge
R is defined by
X
i¼n
H ð RÞ ¼  pi logpi ;
i¼1

jRi j
where pi ¼ jUj
. The above entropy comes from Shannon’s information entropy. Some authors used information entropy and
its variants to measure uncertainty in rough set theory (see, e.g. [8,9,20,34]). As for our three-way decision models on infor-
mation tables, once evaluation functions are determined, every element of U has an evaluation value. That is, every element
in U has different positions. When we compute the entropy of a tri-partition, this difference of elements should be consid-
ered. Let e be an evaluation function on U, then the weighted entropy of R is defined by
P P
X n
x2Ri jeð xÞj x2R jeðxÞj
ð Þ
Hw R ¼  P log P i :
i¼1 x2U jeð x Þj x2U jeð xÞj

Obviously, if e is a constant function, then Hw ¼ H. Our solution for an optimal pair of thresholds is based on this new
measure, and we now give an important property of the weighted entropy.
Let P and Q be partitions of U, and we define Q is coarser than P (or P is finer than Q), write P 6 Q , by
P 6 Q () 8Pi 2 P; 9Q j 2 Q ; s:t: Pi # Q j :
We also have
[
k
P 6 Q () 8Q i 2 Q ; 9Pi1 ; Pi2 ; . . . ; Pik 2 P; s:t: Q i ¼ Pij :
j¼1

If P 6 Q and P – Q then we say that Q is strictly coarser than P and write P < Q .

Proposition 4.1. Let P ¼ fP1 ; P 2 ; . . . ; Pk g and Q ¼ fQ 1 ; Q 2 ; . . . ; Q l g be two partitions of the universe U and e is a weighted
function of U. If P < Q , then Hw ðQ Þ < Hw ðP Þ.

Proof. Since P < Q , for every Q i 2 Q , there exist Pi1 ; Pi2 ; . . . ; Pimi 2 P satisfying
[
mi
Qi ¼ Pij :
j¼1

Pl
Obviously, we have i¼1 mi ¼ k. Let
X X X
jeðxÞj jeðxÞj jeðxÞj
x2Pij x2P ij x2Q i
pij ¼ X ; qij ¼ X ; pi ¼ X ð8i 2 f1; 2; . . . ; lg; j 2 f1; 2; . . . ; mi gÞ;
jeðxÞj jeðxÞj jeðxÞj
x2U x2Q i x2U

it holds obviously that

X
mi
pij ¼ pi qij and qij ¼ 1: ð4:3Þ
j¼1

By the definition of weighted entropy and (4.3), we have

 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43 39

X X
jeðxÞj jeðxÞj
Xk
Hw ðP Þ ¼  X
x2P i
log Xi
x2P

jeðxÞj jeðxÞj
i¼1
x2U x2U

Xl X
mi
¼  pij logpij
i¼1 j¼1

Xl X
mi
¼  pi qij logpi qij
i¼1 j¼1
!
Xl X
mi X
l X
mi
¼  qij pi logpi  pi qij logqij
i¼1 j¼1 i¼1 j¼1

X
l X
l X
mi
¼  pi logpi  pi qij logqij
i¼1 i¼1 j¼1

X
l

 
¼ Hw ðQ Þ þ pi Hw P i1 ; Pi2 ; . . . ; P imi :
i¼1

   
Note that Hw P i1 ; P i2 ; . . . ; Pimi is the weighted entropy of P i1 ; Pi2 ; . . . ; P imi , the partition of Q i . Then we conclude the proof.

Remark 4.2. (1) When the weighted function e maps every element of U into a constant value, Proposition 4.1 becomes a
known result in information theory, as well as in some papers concerning uncertainty measures of rough sets (see, e.g. [7]).
(2) In rough set theory, partitions are considered as knowledge. In general, not all subsets of objects can be expressed
precisely by the knowledge, therefore, such objects can be only roughly defined by the knowledge, i.e. the lower and upper
approximations. It is obvious that finer partitions induce more precise approximations. That is, roughness decreases if
partitions get finer. By Proposition 4.1, when partitions become finer, the weighted entropy gets bigger. Thus, for a family of
partitions, a partition with the maximum weighted entropy means it is minimum in the sense of degree of roughness. In the
following, we will use the maximum weighted entropy to choose an optimal tri-partition.

4.2. Algorithms

In this subsection, we continue to discuss the two examples to illustrate our models of three-way decision on information
tables. The first example is a continuation of Example 2.13, which is related to a two-value information table. We use the
new method to compute an optimal tri-partition and compare with the method in [13]. The second example continues to
process the information table in Example 3.10 and shows how our model works.
Based on our discussion in Section 4.1, we now propose an algorithm for computing the optimal tri-partition with respect
to given measures. In the algorithm, every element of U is assigned to a value in [0,1] by an evaluation function e. Then a pair
of thresholds in [0,1] can divide U into three parts (i.e. a tri-partition). Theorem 3.13 tells us that all pairs of thresholds can
induce finitely many tri-partitions. We need to choose one tri-partition from these possible cases. Thus, a measure function is
needed. In the algorithm, the measure function f maps every tri-partition to a value and let f ij be the evaluation value cor-
responding to the tri-partition that a ¼ ai ; b ¼ bj . It is easy to compute the minimum or maximum (denoted by f i ;j Þ of these
values since tri-partitions are finite. So the thresholds a ¼ ai and b ¼ aj corresponding to f i ;j are determined and we get the
optimal tri-partition based on given measures.

Algorithm 1. An algorithm for computing optimized tri-partition.

 
Input: W ¼ I; eab , a concept to be approximated v ð2 Pa2A V a );
Output: a; b; POSa ðv Þ; NEGb ðv Þ; BN ab ðv Þ;
Step 1: For each ui 2 U, compute eðrðui Þ; v Þ;
Step 2: Sort different values of eðr ðui Þ; v Þ in ascending order; Let feðrðui Þ; v Þ:
i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; jUjg ¼ fa1 ; a2 ; . . . ; am g, where a1 < a2 < . . . < am ;
Step 3: If m ¼ iði ¼ 1; 2Þ, then a ¼ ai ; b ¼ 0, go to Step 5;

Step 4: If m > 2, then i ; j ¼ arg max f ij arg min f ij ), a ¼ ai ; b ¼ aj ;

i;j j<i1 i;j j<i1

Step 5: Compute POSa ðv Þ; NEGb ðv Þ; BN ab ðv Þ;

Step 6: Return a; b; POSa ðv Þ; NEGb ðv Þ; BN ab ðv Þ.
40 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

Example 4.3. (Continued from Example 2.13) We first discuss the 0–1 table in Table 1 by the approach in [13] (see
Algorithm 2 of [13]). That is, we determine a pair of thresholds by the evaluation function e1 and the accuracy of
approximation q. From Table 3 we can see that the maximum of accuracy of approximation is 4/5, thus the optimal pair of
thresholds is 1/2 and 0, and the corresponding tri-partition is fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 g; fu5 g,and fu1 g. Second, we still use e1 as the
evaluation function, but the weighted entropy as the measure instead of the accuracy of approximation. By Algorithm 1, the
optimal tri-partition is fu3 ; u6 g; fu4 g and fu2 ; u5 ; u1 g. Finally, we use e5 and the weighted entropy as the evaluation function
and measure function respectively. Then by Algorithm 1, we have a ¼ 73=74; b ¼ 581=720 and the corresponding tri-
partition is fu3 g; fu6 g and fu4 ; u2 ; u5 ; u1 g. See Table 6 for a comparison.

Remark 4.4. (1) In Example 4.3, the first approach gives a result with the biggest positive region in the sense of inclusion.
The second approach removes u2 and u4 from the positive region and put them into different regions. Further, in the third
approach, u6 moves to the boundary region and the positive region shrinks again. In this example, the weighted entropy is a
stricter condition than the accuracy of approximation for the positive region. Unfortunately, we do not know if it holds in
general.
(2) In Algorithm 1, if the evaluation function f is q, we in fact can simplify the algorithm. Note that qij is decreasing with
respect to j once i is determined. That is, for a given ai , we need only to compute qi;i2 instead of qi;j ð j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; i  2Þ. Thus
Algorithm 1 can be revised as follows.

Algorithm 2. An algorithm for computing optimized tri-partition based on the measure of accuracy.
 
Input: W ¼ I; eab , a concept to be approximated v ð2 Pa2A V a );
Output: a; b; POSa ðv Þ; NEGb ðv Þ; BN ab ðv Þ;
Step 1: For each ui 2 U, compute eðrðui Þ; v Þ;
Step 2: Sort different values of eðr ðui Þ; v Þ in ascending order; Let feðrðui Þ; v Þ:
i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; jUjg ¼ fa1 ; a2 ; . . . ; am g, where a1 < a2 < . . . < am ;
Step 3: If m ¼ iði ¼ 1; 2Þ, then a ¼ ai ; b ¼ 0, go to Step 5;
jPOSai ðv Þj
Step 4: If m > 2, then j ¼ arg max ai ; a ¼ aj ; b ¼ aj2 ;
jPOS ðv Þ[BNai ðv Þj
a
i i2

Step 5: Compute POSa ðv Þ; NEGb ðv Þ; BN ab ðv Þ;

Step 6: Return a; b; POSa ðv Þ; NEGb ðv Þ; BN ab ðv Þ.

Example 4.5. (Continued from Example 3.10) In Table 4, the information of 10 houses is given. If a person wants to buy a
house and the house he likes is depicted by a 5-tuple w, which houses should you recommend to the person? Let
w ¼ ðmiddle; north; no; moderate; newÞ. Take e1 and e6 as evaluation functions respectively, the evaluation values are listed in
Table 7. The two functions induce the same order on U, but e6 is more refined since many pairs of objects with the same
evaluation value under e1 can be distinguished by e6 . Let e ¼ e6 and f ¼ Hw , then we can get by Algorithm 1 that a ¼ 66 84 and
b ¼ 49
84, and

POSa ðwÞ ¼ fu6 ; u8 g;

BNab ðwÞ ¼ fu5 ; u10 g;

Table 6
Comparisons of three cases.

evaluation functions measures of tri-partitions tri-partitions

Case 1 e1 q fu3 ; u6 ; u4 ; u2 g; fu5 g; fu1 g
Case 2 e1 Hw fu3 ; u6 g; fu4 g; fu2 ; u5 ; u1 g
Case 3 e5 Hw fu3 g; fu6 g; fu4 ; u2 ; u5 ; u1 g

Table 7
Evaluation values.

u1 u2 u3 u4 u5 u6 u7 u8 u9 u10
e1 ðr ðui Þ; wÞ 3
5
2
5
1
5
3
5
3
5
4
5
1
5
4
5
1
5
3
5
e6 ðr ðui Þ; wÞ 49
84
33
84
17
84
49
84
51
84
67
84
16
84
66
84
17
84
51
84
 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43 41

Table 8
Thresholds and tri-partitions.

a POSa ðwÞ b NEGb ðwÞ qab ðY Þ

a ¼ 67
84
fu6 g b ¼ 66
84
fu8 ; u10 ; u5 ; u1 ; u4 ; u2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.4414
b ¼ 51
84
fu10 ; u5 ; u1 ; u4 ; u2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.8482
b ¼ 49
84
fu1 ; u4 ; u2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 1.0223
b ¼ 33
84
fu2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.9016
b ¼ 17
84
fu3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.7861
b ¼ 16
84
fu7 g 0.5975
a ¼ 66
84
fu6 ; u8 g b ¼ 51
84
fu10 ; u5 ; u1 ; u4 ; u2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.6267
b ¼ 49
84
fu1 ; u4 ; u2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 1:0713
b ¼ 33
84
fu2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 1.0383
b ¼ 17
84
fu3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.9439
b ¼ 16
84
fu7 g 0.7745
a ¼ 51
84
fu6 ; u8 ; u10 ; u5 g b ¼ 49
84
fu1 ; u4 ; u2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.6847
b ¼ 33
84
fu2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.9848
b ¼ 17
84
fu3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.9411
b ¼ 16
84
fu7 g 0.8147
a ¼ 49
84
fu6 ; u8 ; u10 ; u5 ; u4 ; u1 g b ¼ 33
84
fu2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.4997
b ¼ 17
84
fu3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.6338
b ¼ 16
84
fu7 g 0.5975
a ¼ 33
84
fu6 ; u8 ; u10 ; u5 ; u4 ; u1 ; u2 g b ¼ 17
84
fu3 ; u9 ; u7 g 0.3673
b ¼ 16
84
fu7 g 0.4427
a ¼ 17
84
fu6 ; u8 ; u10 ; u5 ; u4 ; u1 ; u2 ; u9 ; u3 g b ¼ 16
84
fu7 g 0.1630

NEGb ðwÞ ¼ fu1 ; u4 ; u2 ; u3 ; u9 ; u7 g (see Table 8).

Thus we can conclude that u6 and u8 should be recommended to the person since the attributes of the two houses satisfy
the person. Besides, u1 ; u4 ; u2 ; u3 ; u9 and u7 should not be recommended to the person, because these houses will not satisfy
the person with a great possibility. As for BN ab ðwÞ, the person may or may not like these houses and we need extra
information to make a decision.

Remark 4.6.

(1) Note that thresholds are rational numbers between 0 and 1. If we meet a repeating decimal in regular cycles forever, a
decimal approximation of the number may make error. For instance, a=66 84
=0.7857142857142. . .. If we approximate a as
0.7857143, the terminating decimal will induce a different tri-partition and lead to an error since 0.7857143 is out of the

66
right-closed interval 51 ; (see Remark 3.16). Thus, thresholds in this paper are expressed as ratios to avoid mistakes.
84 84
 
(2) For n objects (jUj ¼ n), there exist 12 3n1 þ 1  2n1 tri-partitions (i.e. the Stirling number of the second kind Sðn; 3Þ).
Once an evaluation function is determined, we sort the objects according to evaluation values and need only consider
Pi¼n nðn1Þ
i¼2 ði  1Þ ¼ 2
tri-partitions (i.e. compute the weighted entropy for nðn1
2
Þ
times) at most. As pointed out previously,
computation sometimes can be simplified based on the properties of evaluation functions. In Algorithm 2, we need only
compute evaluation values of n tri-partitions because of monotonicity. Unfortunately, the weighted entropy is not mono-
tonic (see Table 8).
(3) Three-way decision has been applied to many fields, such as conflict analysis [43], clustering analysis [45], recom-
mender systems [46], malware analysis [21] and image processing [44]. We present examples in this paper only for
the purpose of illustration, and one of future studies is to apply our models to practical problems.

5. Conclusions

This paper proposes the models of three-way decision on information tables, one of which unifies the existing two-
universe models of rough sets. We also introduce two algorithms for the optimal tri-partition based on evaluation functions
and thresholds. Our approach contains two steps of evaluation: to measure objects and tri-partitions. First, we need to eval-
uate every element of an object set. In fact, we measure the degree of connection (similarity, inclusion, and satisfaction, etc.)
between every object and a given information. Construction of evaluation functions is an important problem. A detailed dis-
cussion of evaluation functions for three-way decision models on information tables may be an interesting topic and worthy
of future investigation. Second, we use the weighted entropy to measure tri-partitions. As we know, there exist many mea-
sures of partitions in rough set theory, especially some of which connect closely with information entropy. We can use one of
the measures for our models if there exists a suitable explanation.
42 X. Li et al. / Information Sciences 545 (2021) 25–43

Our study in this paper concerns general information tables. There are some non-standard information tables, such as
incomplete information tables [6,25], ordered information tables [32,34] and non-deterministic information tables [2,26].
Problems of three-way decision on these information tables are worthy of study next. Besides, we do not refer to fuzzy set-
ting in this paper. As stated previously, there are many papers about fuzzy models on two universes. It should be noted that
in some fuzzy models, attribute values of information tables are numbers in [0,1] (see, e.g. [29,36]). In fact, these models are
not real fuzzy models in some degree since the related information tables exactly are ordered information tables. Consider-
ing problems of three-way decision on information tables with fuzzy information (i.e. attribute values are fuzzy) will be our
future work.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Xiaonan Li: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft. Xuan Wang: Writing - review & editing, Software. Bingzhen Sun:
Methodology. Yanhong She: Methodology. Lu Zhao: Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

The authors are particularly grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and helpful suggestions.

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