001/**
002 * Copyright (c) 2011, The University of Southampton and the individual contributors.
003 * All rights reserved.
004 *
005 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
006 * are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
007 *
008 *   *  Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
009 *      this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
010 *
011 *   *  Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
012 *      this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
013 *      and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
014 *
015 *   *  Neither the name of the University of Southampton nor the names of its
016 *      contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this
017 *      software without specific prior written permission.
018 *
019 * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
020 * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
021 * WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
022 * DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR
023 * ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
024 * (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
025 * LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON
026 * ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
027 * (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
028 * SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
029 */
030package org.openimaj.experiment.validation;
031
032import org.openimaj.data.dataset.Dataset;
033
034/**
035 * Interface describing the contract for classes which can
036 * perform a the operations required for a single round
037 * of validation.
038 * <p>
039 * The common use-case of this class is for it to be used
040 * as part of the validation of some system as coordinated
041 * by a {@link ValidationRunner}. As the {@link ValidationRunner}
042 * can perform multiple validations at once using multi-threading,
043 * implementors of this interface should be thread-safe. 
044 * 
045 * @author Jonathon Hare (jsh2@ecs.soton.ac.uk)
046 *
047 * @param <DATASET> The type of dataset
048 * @param <ANALYSIS_RESULT> The type of the resulting data from the operation.
049 */
050public interface ValidationOperation<DATASET extends Dataset<?>, ANALYSIS_RESULT> {
051        /**
052         * Perform the operations required for one round of validation
053         * using the provided training and validation datasets. The
054         * result of the evaluation round is returned.
055         * 
056         * @param training the training data
057         * @param validation the validation data
058         * @return the result of the validation round
059         */
060        public abstract ANALYSIS_RESULT evaluate(DATASET training, DATASET validation);         
061}