/*
* File: DiscriminantCategorizer.java
* Authors: Justin Basilico
* Company: Sandia National Laboratories
* Project: Cognitive Foundry Learning Core
*
* Copyright January 31, 2011, Sandia Corporation.
* Under the terms of Contract DE-AC04-94AL85000, there is a non-exclusive
* license for use of this work by or on behalf of the U.S. Government. Export
* of this program may require a license from the United States Government.
*/
package gov.sandia.cognition.learning.function.categorization;
import gov.sandia.cognition.learning.data.ValueDiscriminantPair;
/**
* Interface for a {@code Categorizer} that can produce a value to discriminate
* between how well different instances fit a given category. Thus, it can
* produce a pair of the category value plus a discriminant for ordering within
* that category.
*
* @param <InputType>
* The type of the input the categorizer can use.
* @param <CategoryType>
* The type of category output by the categorizer.
* @param <DiscriminantType>
* The type of discriminant that can be used to sort the output.
* @author Justin Basilico
* @since 3.1
*/
public interface DiscriminantCategorizer<InputType, CategoryType, DiscriminantType extends Comparable<? super DiscriminantType>>
extends Categorizer<InputType, CategoryType>
{
/**
* Evaluate the categorizer on the given input to produce the expected
* category plus a discriminant for later producing an ordering of how well
* items fit into that category.
*
* @param input
* The input value to categorize with a discriminate
* @return
* A pair containing the value and the discriminant value used for
* ordering results belonging to the same category.
*/
public ValueDiscriminantPair<CategoryType, DiscriminantType> evaluateWithDiscriminant(
final InputType input);
}