[Babase] new sexskin error_death while ppa

kfenn kfenn at princeton.edu
Thu May 15 15:23:57 EDT 2008


Karl O. Pinc wrote:
>>> Death during ppa means that there is no sexual cycle after the
>>> conception cycle.  Our new rule says that any sexkins
>>> measurements after birth belong to the next cycle.  When there is
>>> no next cycle then there's just no cycle, so the sexskins
>>> measurements can't go in.
>>>
>>> How about this?  We change the rule about assignment to a sexual
>>> cycle for sexskins so that any sexskins measurements > 0 on or
>>> after birth belong to the next cycle, but if it's a 0 measurement
>>> then it belongs to the conception cycle.
> I don't really feel good about that but it's up to Jeanne.  She is the 
> cycle guru.  To me,  Cycling is cycling.  Pregnancy is pregnancy. Ppa 
> is Ppa.  It doesn't seem like we should lump ppa into cycling.  I 
> think Laurence had gripes about how that turns out in REPSTATS and 
> CYCSTATS when the 'cycles' go on forever.  But I don't know those 
> tables well enough.
>
> It's all about "what is a cycle".  Babase has no concept of
> "there is no cycle here kind of cycle", so we're left attaching
> things to existing cycles.
>
I just had a conversation with Laurence who probably knows the 
implication of these tables changes better than anyone else in terms of 
their practical use.  She relies very heavily on the C, P, L codes from 
repstats and doesn't seem to think that having a long "cycle" that 
include the ppa dates with 0 swelling size is going to screw her 
up...she mostly queries the actual start and end dates of each 
reproductive phase (M, T, D, P, L) rather than the whole kit and 
caboodle of a 'cycle'.   I think it is going to be OK to assign the 
sexskins where size = 0 because of ppa to the conception cycle in the 
dead-before-they-cycle-again-females. 

Jeanne, can we get your OK on this?

And of course, lets document it well so no one runs blindly runs a query 
on cycle length and reports that females on average have 1.5 year long 
'cycles' just because they are pregnant so often. 

-- 
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)



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