JSET: Volume 4 • Number 2 • July-December 2012 • pp. 67-73 SOFTWARE REUSE IN MEDICAL DATABASE - A COMPARISON OF THE APPLICATION OF K-MEANS ALGORITHM AND PEARSON FAMILY EQUATIONS M. Bhanu Sridhar 1 , Y. Srinivas 2 and M.H.M. Krishna Prasad 3 1 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Raghu Engineering College, Visakhapatnam; E-mail: sridharbhanu@gmail.com 2 Department of Information Technology, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam, E-mail: ysrinivasit@rediffmail.com 3 Department of Information Technology, JNTUK-Vizianagaram Campus, E-mail: krishnaprasad.mhm@gmail.com Abstract: Software reuse is the process of generating new software applications based on existing software rather than starting from the scratch. Metrics of software reuse are concerned with finding the extent of reuse of an existing software component. This may also lead to other advantages like reduction of costs and time. In this paper, we have taken into account medical database, particularly from the field of cardiology. We first take into account the databases of patients and apply the K-means clustering algorithm and auto-correlation formula to precisely classify the existing patients into different clusters. Next, with the same data, we apply the Pearson Type-1 distribution to sort out the data into groups. A new patient with all the concerned data is checked for the closeness to a particular cluster so as to determine the basic treatment. This careful comparison tries to point out the pros and cons of both methods and strives to bring out the best way of treatment to the patient. It will be significantly useful for the medical field through software, particularly in remote areas. Keywords: Reuse, Metrics, K-means, Pearson Distribution, Cardiology. 1. INTRODUCTION Software reuse is the technology of building new applications by utilizing previously developed components of an existing software application. The reuse process has to proceed in a planned manner to achieve better software, in less time and low cost. Experience obtained in the designing of components previously will come handy and the benefits can be reaped by both the designer and user. Reusing of software can increase the efficiency of application and improve its quality [1]. Other reuse benefits include increased dependability, reduced process risk and effective use of specialized professionals. Though reuse is somewhat automated, the lack of tool support still looms large in the field. Also, maintenance costs increase if the concerned component doesn't fit in correctly and may even lead to a standstill in the software design. Software Reuse is not limited to any part of Software Engineering - it can be used in various levels of the software development life cycle. Requirements, analysis, design, coding, testing and even maintenance can be considered as the relevant fields where Software Reuse is extremely useful for all purposes. Software Reuse has been advocated as a mechanism to reduce productivity time, increase the production scale and decrease defect density [2]. In this paper, paper, the concept of reusability is applied to medical data domain and in particular to cardiology. Cardiology is a medical specialty dealing with human heart disorders. This field includes diagnosis and treatment of disorders like heart defects, heart failure and other heart diseases. According to World Health Organization, India has the highest number of coronary heart disease deaths in the world [3]. This can be deduced not only due to lack of resources but also due to concentration of resources at places like cities and towns. By usage of Internet and cardiology database component reuse, the Para- medics, can deduce the medicines or methods to be used for the patients at remote places to temporarily put them out of danger. From the reuse of available data, the required medicines may also be deduced and proposed to the patients [4]. In this paper we have considered the database of the cardiology patients from archives [5] to apply