Skip Navigation

The Computer Journal 1970 13(2):145-151; doi:10.1093/comjnl/13.2.145
© 1970 by British Computer Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (24)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Pankhurst, R. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

A computer program for generating diagnostic keys

R. J. Pankhurst *

University Engineering Laboratory, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, UK

Diagnostic keys are widely used in biology for the identification of specimens, but the technique is applicable to recognition processes in general. A key is constructed from a matrix which describes the properties of a set of objects. It is usually possible to contrive a large number of different keys for one set of objects, although the keys will not be equally useful. The construction and editing of keys by hand requires much labour, and a FORTRAN program is described here to do this automatically. The algorithm explores all the possible keys in a tree-searching process, and selects an optimal key heuristically. A special purpose data structure is used to represent the key in computer memory.

Received July 1969.

* University Engineering Laboratory, Trumpington Street, Cambridge


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.