uk.ac.ebi.microarray.zooma.calc
Interface OntologyMappingCalculator

All Known Implementing Classes:

RankingBasedCalculator

public interface OntologyMappingCalculator

Calculates mappings based on an assessment of a series of hypotheses in a given context.

Ontology Mapping Calculators should have no state, so they can be reused by different evaluators for different types of assessments. They should be thread-safe, so multiple calculations can be performed in parallel.

Author:

Tony Burdett

Method Summary

int	testHypothesis(OntologyMappingHypothesis nullHypothesis, OntologyMappingHypothesis alternativeHypothesis) Tests the alternative hypothesis against the null hypothesis.

Method Detail

testHypothesis

int testHypothesis(OntologyMappingHypothesis nullHypothesis,
                   OntologyMappingHypothesis alternativeHypothesis)

Tests the alternative hypothesis against the null hypothesis. If the alternative hypothesis describes a mapping that is better than the null hypothesis, the alternative hypothesis is accepted and then null hypothesis rejected. If the alternative hypothesis describes a mapping that is worse, the alternative hypothesis is rejected and the null hypothesis retained.

It may not always be possible to determine absolutely whether the alternative hypothesis is better or worse than the null hypothesis. In these cases, neither the null of alternative hypothesis should be accepted or rejected, deferring the decision.

The value returned represents the outcome of this hypothesis test. A positive integer signifies that the alternative hypothesis was accepted. A negative value means it was rejected. Zero indicates that the outcome was not significantly better or worse.

Parameters:

nullHypothesis - the hypothesis describing the current best mapping

alternativeHypothesis - the mapping hypothesis to test

Returns:

an integer representing the outcome of this test - positive if accepted, negative if rejected, zero if deferred