  In this paper, we investigate the problem of mining numerical data in the
framework of Formal Concept Analysis. The usual way is to use a scaling
procedure --transforming numerical attributes into binary ones-- leading either
to a loss of information or of efficiency, in particular w.r.t. the volume of
extracted patterns. By contrast, we propose to directly work on numerical data
in a more precise and efficient way, and we prove it. For that, the notions of
closed patterns, generators and equivalent classes are revisited in the
numerical context. Moreover, two original algorithms are proposed and used in
an evaluation involving real-world data, showing the predominance of the
present approach.
