only memory one or more flash proms programmable read only memory battery backup ram combinations thereof and the like cpu 12 is coupled through a communication port 18 to a communication network 20 such as an ethernet lan local area network or wan wide area network communication network may include wireless components compatible with one or more wireless specifications such as an ieee 802 xx wimax or an equivalent standard finally remote computer systems 22 and 24 are coupled to communication network 20 as one skilled in the art will appreciate portions of computer programs including the processes and scripts hereafter described may execute on portions of environment 10 computer systems 22 and 24 or elsewhere portions of environment 10 may be used to evaluate various diagnostic algorithms according to the following described methodologies for example mass storage device 14 or memory 16 may store a particular dataset which is processed by cpu 12 using a particular diagnostic algorithm the following approaches to evaluating diagnostic algorithms including the depicted exemplary embodiments may be said to be based on two criteria non recurring engineering costs and recurring engineering costs cost metrics may be defined which correspond to each of these two criteria development data may be a large cost element and may be directly mapped to non recurring engineering costs cost metrics may be defined that measure how well a selected algorithm has used the development data tunable parameters correspond to the engineering time of tuning the algorithm once deployed and hence can be seen as recurring engineering costs cost metrics may be defined that measure how sensitive a selected algorithm is for the chosen tunable parameters these cost metrics may be measured with respect to the algorithm 39 s robustness and thereby reflect costs associated with sustaining the.