Mark R. Dobie

Comparing Programming Paradigms: an Evaluation of Functional and Object-Oriented Programs

A quantitative evaluation of the functional and object-oriented paradigms is presented. The aim of this project is to investigate whether the quality of code produced using a functional language is significantly different from that produced using an object-oriented language. 12 sets of algorithms are developed, together with a number of utility functions, in both Standard ML (SML) and C++. Strict constraints are imposed during the development cycle to improve the reliability of the results. The statistical tests do not reveal any significant differences for direct measures of the development metrics used which are associated with quality, such as the number of known errors, the number of modification requests, a subjective complexity assessment, etc. However, significant differences are found for an indirect measure, the number of known errors per thousand non-comment source lines, and for various code metrics, including the number of distinct functions called, the number of distinct library functions called, and the ratio of these, which is a measure of code reuse. A difference is also found for the time taken to test the programs, due to different compilation techniques and a difference in the number of test cases executed.

An evaluation of code metrics for object-oriented programs

Abstract This paper reports on the preliminary results of an investigation into the quality of programs written using different programming paradigms. In particular, the project aims to provide a quantitative analysis of the object-oriented and functional paradigms. Here, we report on the first stage of the project, the evaluation of a number of suggested indicators to determine whether or not they are correlated with the quality of object-oriented programs. Quality is assumed to be measured by the number of known errors encountered and the number of modification requests made during development, testing and maintenance, the times taken to attend to these and a subjective assessment of program complexity. We found that two of the suggested code metrics (the number of non-comment source lines and the number of function declarations) were strongly correlated with these measures of quality.

Data structures for image processing in C

This paper describes a library of data structures and functions written in the C language which are designed to provide a framework for implementing image processing algorithms. A flexible and efficient approach to handling images and associated data in an object-oriented manner is described. Various design and implementation issues are discussed, with examples of using the structures provided and implementing new functions within the general framework.

Estimating the quality of functional programs: an empirical investigation

Abstract This paper describes an investigation into estimating the quality of functional programs. The work reported here is part of a larger, ongoing study into a quantitative analysis of the effect of utilizing different programming paradigms on code quality. Before undertaking such a comparative analysis it was necessary to establish a baseline of quality indicators which could then be used as metrics for the remainder of the project. Thus the aim of the research presented here was to evaluate a set of suggested indicators corresponding to internal attributes by investigating the correlation between the suggested indicators and the desired external quality-type attributes of the code. A method for the evaluation of the suggested metrics is discussed and the results of performing such an evaluation for functional programs are presented.

Content based navigation in multimedia information systems

In this demonstration an open architecture hypermedia system, Microcosm, will be used to author and follow generic links between multimedia documents. Recently we have developed MAVIS, an extension to the Microcosm architecture for video image and sound and the demonstration will show how generic links may be authored on image selections using shape, texture and colour representations. The links may be followed from image selections in different images which give similar feature representations.

Navigating from Images using Generic Links Based on Image Content

Although content based retrieval of images is increasingly common, the use of media content as a basis for navigation has received relatively little attention. In this paper we describe our recent development of facilities in the MAVIS/Microcosm architecture for generic link authoring and following from non-text media and in particular, the use of shape and texture for content based navigation from images. Applications from a product catalogue and an archaeological collection are presented, together with an outline of an image viewer providing rapid delineation of object shapes in images when authoring or following links.

Extracting curvilinear features from remotely sensed images using minimum cost path techniques

The extraction of curvilinear features from images is an important task in many image analysis applications. We describe an approach to such tasks based on the combination of an efficient optimal path finding algorithm and the use of window constrained search spaces. We conclude that the combination provides an effective vehicle for curvilinear feature extraction from a variety of images.<<ETX>>

Content Based Navigation from Images

Although content based retrieval of images is increasingly common, the use of media content as a basis for navigation has received relatively little attention. In this article we describe our recent development of facilities in the MAVIS/Microcosm architecture for generic link authoring and following from nontext media, and in particular, the use of shape and texture for content based navigation from images. Applications from a product catalog and an archeological collection are presented, together with an outline of an image viewer providing rapid delineation of object shapes in images when authoring or following links. The current relationship between Microcosm and the World Wide Web is summarized and the performance of the MAVIS/Microcosm system is described.

MAVIS 2: an architecture for content and concept based multimedia information exploration

DEMONSTRATION ABSTRACT We are currently developing an open architecture that supports content based multimedia information exploration. MAVIS 2 (Multimedia Architecture for Video, Image and Sound, the second system by that name) aims to provide integrated content and concept based navigation, retrieval and browsing within and between multimedia objects in several media types[l]. It is designed to allow a user to make selections from media that they are viewing and form a query. The scope of the query governs the range of searching and the type of results that will be returned. The scope can include retrieval, in which case similar objects are returned to the user and it can include navigation, in which case links with similar source anchors to the selection are returned.

Using image content for retrieval and navigation

Multimedia information collections are becoming increasingly common in the humanities. This paper describes developments in hypermedia and image analysis techniques which are beginning to provide tools for retrieving and navigating through digitally stored visual information. The use of static links for navigating from text has become increasingly popular with the emergence of the World Wide Web, but generic links based on information content matching can provide more powerful information handling capabilities. We show how content based retrieval and generic Unk authoring and following can be applied to image data in multimedia collections. The paper highlights some of the problems with content based techniques applied to image retrieval and navigation and suggests how the introduction of a multimedia thesaurus can overcome some of these problems. The multimedia thesaurus provides a network of concepts in the domain of interest.