[Babase] conference call update

kfenn kfenn at princeton.edu
Wed May 2 13:19:29 EDT 2007


Susan and Jeanne,

Sorry it took me so long to get this email together....

We are currently awaiting the error output from the conversion run that 
is running with the updated FoxPro db Leah provided on Monday.  Karl 
sent an email to the listserve earlier noting some early errors with 
agonisms, groomings, and the psion setupid.  Susan has provided guidance 
on these  issues, so these seem to be in the process of being resolved.

Unfortunately, Karl also reports that we are getting more Ranks errors 
with this conversion.  These are new errors not present in the last run, 
and their origin is uncertain.  I will look at them once the error 
report is available.  Karl speculates that they are linked to the start 
and end times for groups and may be relatively straightforward fixes.  I 
intend to fix these rank errors before I make the changes to the cycles 
tables.  I won't have a timeline for completing the ranks corrections 
and cycles tables changes until I get a good look at the errors.

Once the above changes/fixes occur, we have one more speedbump with 
FoxPro before we can move exclusively to PPA.  The new files of "old" 
census data that Jen Foreman has entered is in dbf form.  Karl says 
trying to do an upload of  this into PPA  is not going to be easy....the 
upload is best done in FoxPro.  I agree, but I can forsee that this 
update may generate a substantial number of new errors when we run 
through another conversion given that such a large bulk of data is 
replacing old data. 

If we end up with a lot of new errors, Jeanne and Susan may need to make 
a call on how to proceed with the 06B update (that is, whether to use 
FoxPro or PPA, and how important this additional census data is versus 
getting the 06B update done before my maternity leave starts).   
Obviously, I can do the 06B update in FoxPro at any time.  Right now we 
are having problems doing uploads to the views in PPA, and this is 
necessary for both the Duke and Princeton parts of the demog update.   
Karl is going to work on solving the problem this week and we are all in 
charge of checking in with him about progress... however the new 
census-related errors need to be fixed in FoxPro before we can think 
about doing the demog update in PPA.

I think Karl, Lacey and I agreed that the sensible way to proceed is to 
take these initial steps to update the FoxPro db and then revisit this 
issue of error correction and the 06B update with Susan and Jeanne as 
soon as we have a sense of the extent of the errors.  I have asked Lacey 
to send me the census files to be uploaded since I've worked with the 
upcen and the buildmembers programs before. 

So just to summarize the sequence of tasks for the moment:
1) Tabby review conversion errors v12 tomorrow and try to estimate how 
long it will take to make corrections
2) Tabby and Lacey make corrections to ranks, agonisms, psion (Karl 
continues work on updates PPA views this week)
3)  Karl runs another conversion (hopefully errors are limited)
4)  Tabby make cycles corrections in FoxPro
5)  Another conversion and review of errors from cycles corrections
6)  Tabby uploads the new census files
7)  Another conversion and review of errors from new census files
8)  Check in with Jeanne and Susan about timeline for census error 
corrections and 06B demog update.


Lacey and Karl, please add anything if I have not presented the issues 
clearly.  There are a lot of pieces here.

Tabby




 

-- 
Tabby Fenn
Research Assistant

Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
401 Guyot Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ  08544

609 258-6898 (Ph)
609 258-2712 (Fx)



More information about the Babase mailing list