[babase] Morris (MOR) and interpolation rules in members table + incomplete censuses!

Niki Learn nlearn at princeton.edu
Fri Aug 21 09:58:20 EDT 2009


On 08/20/2009 04:04:42 PM, Susan Alberts wrote:
> 
> > On a related question, Jeanne and Susan, we have in this update a  
> > lot of incomplete census data.  ....
> > In the case of current data generated by Courtney (and probably  
> > older data generated by others), this means that sometimes males 
> who  
> > move around a lot are verified as absent on an incomplete census 
> day
> > though they had been present on the previous full census day (and  
> > may be either present or absent on the next full census day).  With 
> > the way uploads work I cannot enter such incomplete census data 
> with
> > the full census data because every individual listed in the sheet  
> > must be marked either present or absent and we don't have that data 
> > for every individual on those dates.  I could, if desired, either  
> > use a demog note to mark them as present with an unknown group 
> (9.0)

> This seems like a good option in these cases. But as you noted  
> earlier, we currently don't use "not here" info in demog notes. Would 
> doing so require any structural or any other changes to data entry or 
> babase?

The documentation does not say you can't,
and it implies that you can so I assume you can.
If you try it and it does not work we can change
something.  Be sure to set the Cen column to false
so the CENUSU row is deleted if the DEMOG row is deleted.

Niki writes:
Well, I could do that, yes, but it could cause trouble.  For example I was
just looking at Liberty toward the end of yesterday.  He was in Omo's group
on the last census in April (on the 29th) and then did not show up in the
group in May so I was thinking I would have to enter a zero for him somehow
for at least 1 May, which was the first census day of May, to make sure that
he did not get interpolated in the group in May.  But then I realized that I
didn't have to because he showed up in Nyayo's on 2 May.  According to the
interpolation rules he would then be interpolated as present with Nyayo's
group on 1 May anyway.  And from what I read it doesn't matter if he is
marked absent in Omo's on 1 May, he would still be interpolated as present
in Nyayo's - but I'm not sure that would be the case if we marked him as
present with group 9 - wouldn't he then be listed as in group 9 on 1 May
rather than in Nyayo's (which may well have been where he was)?  The not
censused idea seems safer to me, plus it eliminates the need to use
demography notes to mark baboons present during incomplete censuses, which
would also be handy.

Karl, I have no idea what you mean by setting the census column to false...
Is this something I should know?




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