[Babase] Morris (MOR) and interpolation rules in members table.

Niki Learn nlearn at princeton.edu
Tue Aug 18 15:32:49 EDT 2009


Karl,

We have a babase puzzle for you.

Jeanne, Susan, and I have been conversing over the male Morris.  It all began when they were puzzled by his having a bstatus of 9 (which has impacts on Jordi's tooth abrasion data) since they were confident that he was of reasonably well-known age for an immigrant male.  While investigating the bstatus issue we found some other irregularities.  A couple are related to mistakes in oddball census information but one involves the interpolation rules for the members table.  Please see the excerpts from the email string below and let me know what the current situation is on interpolating member presence for males (i.e., is the 14-day rule in place for them even in study groups where censuses have been going on and the male is not marked as present or was this altered as Susan thought).  I guess we'll move forward from there. 

Thanks!
Niki

-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Alberts [mailto:alberts at duke.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 12:59 PM
To: Niki Learn
Cc: 'Lacey Maryott'; 'Jeanne Altmann'
Subject: Re: Morris (MOR)


Niki wrote:
>> While we're on ranks, Jeanne asked about Morris' rank during his
>> short tenure with Dotty's group.  His ALM ranks are below:
>> 17098 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1997-10-01 ¦ 1.20 ¦ ALM     ¦    7   (out of 20
>> males)
>> 17120 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1997-11-01 ¦ 1.20 ¦ ALM     ¦    9   (out of 22
>> males)
>> 17142 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1997-12-01 ¦ 1.20 ¦ ALM     ¦    9   (out of 24
>> males)
>> 17166 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1998-01-01 ¦ 1.20 ¦ ALM     ¦    9   (out of 24
>> males)

>> Morris shows up in Dotty's on the 9 Oct 1997 census and leaves again
>> somewhere between the 17th and 21st.  The 9 Oct demog note reads:
>> 	1356, There is a new yellow adult male in Dotty's group today.  He
>> seems to be very well habituated to people and he seems to me as one
>> of the Olkenya group males but I'm not quite positive about it.  He
>> was observed consorting with Asha today.
>>
>> 11 Oct 1997:
>> 	The new adult male who was first found in the group on 9 Oct 97 is
>> still with them today.  Roy and Piston were observed displacing him
>> several times.
>>
>> 16 Oct 1997:
>> 	The new adult male is still with the group.  Confirmed by RSM/SNS
>> that he is one of the Olkenya males.  We have named him Morris.
>>
>> 20 Oct 1991:
>> 	0946 Morris not seen with the group today.
>>
>> Curiously, he was ABSENT all of November 1997 BUT HAS A RANK FOR
>> THAT MONTH...

Susan wrote:
> I just checked this. In Members, he is interpolated as being present
> in Dotty's, 1.2, from the 19th Nov onwards. This more or less forces
> us to rank him, as noted above. I presume there are no Census records
> that contravene the interpolated Members data fro 19th nov onwards?
> Or, are there contradictory records?
>
> Niki wrote:
> There is contradictory evidence for November.  He is actually marked  
> absent on every census day in November but whoever was entering the  
> data then did not enter it since he had already been gone from the  
> group at the end of October.  Census dates for November range from 1  
> Nov to 29 Nov (including 19 Nov, which was a census day) and the  
> first census date in December (where Morris is again present) is 3  
> Dec.  Thus by the interpolation rules (pasted below) if he had been  
> marked absent in babase for November as the field data indicate, he  
> would not have been interpolated to be present with the group again  
> until 1 Dec and thus should not have been ranked in November (but  
> should have been ranked, according to interpolation rules, in  
> January since he did not appear on the January census despite being  
> present on the last census date in December - also the first January  
> census wasn't until the 9th so even if he had been marked absent on  
> that day, the interpolation rules would still have marked him  
> present for part of January).

>From the babase documentation:
> The premise of interpolation is that an individual is assumed to be  
> in the group where observed for a period of 14 days to either side  
> of the observation unless there's indication otherwise. To this end,  
> interpolation keeps an individual in the group where a census  
> locates him for a time period that is the shorter of:
>
>   1.      Half of the time interval between the individual's next  
> (or prior) census that finds the individual in any group.
>   2.      Half of the time interval between the next (or prior)  
> recorded absence from the group in which the individual was  
> censused. Absences from other groups are ignored.
>   3.      The 14 day Interpolation Limit. Given no other  
> information, an individual is considered to remain (or have been) in  
> the group where observed for 14 days following (or preceding) the  
> date of observation.

Niki wrote:
> So this raises a few questions for me as the enterer of the census  
> data.  First, I was also inclined not to enter absences like Morris'  
> November absences where the individual was absent the entire month  
> after already having been marked absent for at least the end of the  
> prior month.  This is in part because I didn't realize there was any  
> interpolation going on and didn't know that not marking the  
> individuals absent might (depending on circumstances) affect the  
> interpolations.  Also, usually the team does not mark an individual  
> absent for an entire month unless he or she had been present at the  
> end of the previous month (and then I do enter the zeroes for that  
> month) - they only occasionally do what they did in Morris' case.   
> So this raises two questions for me:
>
> 1) Should zeroes such as Morris' always be entered or should it be  
> done on a case-by-case basis depending on where the individual was  
> next/how the interpolation rules will be applied?  It seems for  
> example that it would only really have an effect in cases where the  
> individuals move in and out of the group and happen to change groups  
> between the last census day of one month and the first of the next  
> as Morris did at the juncture between November and December (because  
> if they leave or show up in the middle of a month, due to the way  
> uploads work, they get marked absent for all census dates that they  
> were not present but they are usually not marked absent in the month  
> before if they appear at the beginning of a month or in the month  
> after if they leave after the last census date since the team  
> usually has, understandably, not included them on the census sheets  
> in those other months).

Susan wrote:
I think for females and juveniles, it is generally safe to not enter  
the zeros. If they disappear, they are pretty much dead. For males,  
unless we know they are dead,I think we need to enter the zeros when  
they appear in the census. I did think that Karl had rewritten the  
interpolation program so that males did not appear in a group via  
interpolation where they had not been censused -- isn't that right  
Jeanne? So the problem with Morris interpolated in Nov should not have  
happened. I'm confused. Jeanne, do we need to talk to Karl?

Niki wrote:
> 2) Especially given this 14-day rule it seems that it might be  
> prudent to go ahead and make sure there is a zero entered on either  
> end of an individual appearing in or disappearing from a group, even  
> if this means adding a month of zeroes that has not been marked on  
> the census sheets (since a lack of presence on the census sheets  
> implies absence during censuses).  For example, in the case of  
> Morris above where he was interpolated as being present with Dotty's  
> beginning on Nov 19 - he was clearly not with the group on the 19th  
> nor on several other census days after.  Does this make sense?  Of  
> course, if we change how we enter the data now, the next question  
> is, do I have to go back and alter past data entry to match...?

Susan wrote:
Again, I think for females and juvs, this is generally not needed,  
because they don't come back. For adult males, it may be a risk but I  
thought we had fixed that risk, so that a male can't be interpolated  
into a group for which census records exist and he was not there and  
there are no demog notes.

Niki wrote (in case this helps make sense of the comments about January interpolation above)
>> He is marked on the census sheets as absent from Linda's throughout
>> November and December (but not in January 1998) and these were not
>> entered into babase.
>>
>> Morris is then marked as present in Dotty's on all 11 census dates
>> in December 1997, which is consistent with the babase record.  There
>> are no accompanying demog notes.
>>
>> However, he again fails to appear in the babase census in January
>> 1998, DESPITE HAVING A RANK FOR THAT MONTH.

Susan wrote:
> Right, but again, he is interpolated as having been there for a while
> at the beginning of the month (see Members). That forces us to rank  
> him.
>
> Niki wrote:
> Got it (now).

>> All 1997 census entries for Morris (none appear from 1998):
>> cenid ¦ date       ¦ sname ¦  grp ¦ status ¦ cen
>> −−−−−−−−+−−−−−−−−−−−−+−−
>> −−−−−+−−−−−−+−−−−−−−−+−−−
>>>> 1635082 ¦ 1997-10-01 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ A      ¦   t
>> 1635083 ¦ 1997-10-03 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ A      ¦   t
>> 1635084 ¦ 1997-10-06 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ A      ¦   t
>> 1635085 ¦ 1997-10-09 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1635086 ¦ 1997-10-11 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1635087 ¦ 1997-10-14 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1635088 ¦ 1997-10-16 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1491260 ¦ 1997-10-20 ¦ MOR   ¦ 9.00 ¦ M      ¦   f
>> 1635089 ¦ 1997-10-20 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ A      ¦   t
>> 1635090 ¦ 1997-10-23 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ A      ¦   t
>> 1635091 ¦ 1997-10-25 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ A      ¦   t
>> 1635092 ¦ 1997-10-26 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ A      ¦   t
>> 1635093 ¦ 1997-10-27 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ A      ¦   t
>> 1639088 ¦ 1997-12-03 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639089 ¦ 1997-12-05 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639090 ¦ 1997-12-08 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639091 ¦ 1997-12-10 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639092 ¦ 1997-12-12 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639093 ¦ 1997-12-13 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639094 ¦ 1997-12-15 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639095 ¦ 1997-12-17 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639096 ¦ 1997-12-19 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639097 ¦ 1997-12-21 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t
>> 1639098 ¦ 1997-12-29 ¦ MOR   ¦ 1.20 ¦ C      ¦   t



>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Susan Alberts [mailto:alberts at duke.edu]
>> Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 12:26 PM
>> To: Niki Learn; Lacey Maryott
>> Cc: Jeanne Altmann
>> Subject: Morris (MOR)
>>
>> Hi Niki and Lacey,
>>
>> Regarding male MOR (Morris):
>>
>> He has a current bstatus in biograph of 9 ("do not use"). He was in
>> the study population for 10 years, entering DOtty's Group in 1997,  
>> and
>> then gone for a while, then Linda's Group in 2001, where he stayed
>> until he disappeared.
>>
>> Jeanne and I think that, based on the information we found, he should
>> have a bstatus of 2, not 9. He entered Dotty's as an adult (which
>> means he was at least 7.5 - 8 years), he was named at that time, his
>> birthdate estimates him to be 10 years old at that time (but with
>> bstatus of 9). He came from Olkenya group but we don't have specific
>> information about him there, other than that he was there. I remember
>> him throuighout his time in Linda's group (2001- 2007) as an older
>> male. This also suggests that an estimate of 1987 is reasonable.
>>
>> We'd like you to check all the records we checked (Dotty's in 1997,
>> Olkenya group before and around then, and most importantly any  
>> records
>> of age estimates for him) and see if you find anything to contradict
>> our idea that a bstatus of 2 makes sense for him.
>>
>> Also, he is currently in members as having been in Nyayo's from 11 -
>> 26 July 2001, a few weeks before he permanently immigrated into
>> Linda's. This looks wrong to Jeanne and I based on what we found --  
>> we
>> are not convinced that he should ever have appeared as a member of
>> Nyayo's, and certainly not starting 11 July. Can you take a look at
>> the records and see what you think might be going on?
>>
>> Thanks, let us know if you have any qeustions.
>>
>> Susan
>>
>> PS Lacey is out today and perhaps a few more days, so Niki if you can
>> fit this in feel free, but if there is a natural division of which of
>> these you versus Lacey should do, feel free to wait until she is  
>> back.
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Susan Alberts, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338,
>> Durham NC 27708 USA,  Phone 919-660-7272, FAX 919-660-7293, alberts at duke.edu







More information about the Babase mailing list