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While improved programming methodologies, better computer languages and more sophisticated programming aids have helped alleviate some problems associated with software development, a software crisis continues to exist. The software crisis continues partly because many of the suggested improvements in software development have emphasized the role of the computer, rather than the programmer, in the development process. Researchers are beginning to realize that the ultimate resolution of the software crisis will come only when we understand the human processes involved in software development. Computer program comprehension has been one of the human processes which has been studied by researchers. Two basic approaches have been used to study program comprehension. Using the first approach, an objective measure of comprehension is proposed based on the author's suppositions about the sources of complexity. A second approach used in the study of program comprehension is to empirically investigate factors which might affect comprehension. In the next section, a methodology is proposed to measure the comprehension of statements and programs. It is applied to study expression complexity in section three and selection statement complexity in section four. Implications for teaching programming are described in section five and the paper is concluded in section six.

Metric spaces in which the distances are not real numbers have been studied by several people (2, 3, 4, 7, 9). Any ring R together with a mapping, X —> ϕ(X), of R into a lattice A with 0 and 1 satisfyingis called a "lattice-valued ring," where the operations union, ∪, and intersection, ∩, are the usual lattice operations. The mapping ϕ is called a "valuation" and A is a 'Valuation lattice." If R is a lattice-valued ring and a mapping d is defined by

The accuracy of diagnosis is inevitably related to the consideration of all possible disease entities which may explain a set of symptoms and findings. Statistical weighing of each of these possibilities in the light of the established symptoms and findings is necessary to determine which one has the greatest probability of being correct. Physicians have been performing these mental gymnastics with varying degrees of effectiveness since man assumed responsibility for the medical care of his kind. When the range of diagnostic possibilities or the number of recognized manifestations increases to such an extent that they can no longer be handled efficiently, physicians respond by specialization and in this way limit the number of diseases to a range which can be comfortably managed. We are fast approaching the limit to which we can further specialize and yet continue to meet the needs of society, even though the number of new facts about disease and methods for patient care are being increased at an unpreced...