[Babase] Daphne Question - Procedures for Incomplete Censuses

Susan Alberts babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:45:16 -0400


Thanks Daphne, this is helpful. Just a quick question to clarify -- 
these "manually interpolated" presences and and absences during 
incomplete censuses are not flagged as a manual entry in babase 
(status M in census), correct?

If so, this approach makes a lot of sense although it looks like we 
probably won't stick with it. We'll keep you posted if we need more 
help.

Thanks,
Susan

>Hi all,
>
>The way I dealt with incomplete censuses (as passed on by Jessica) 
>was, for the individuals not marked on the day of the incomplete 
>census, to do my own interpolating on the census sheets, and then 
>enter the census file as if those were real presence/absences.  (On 
>the census sheet itself, I marked the Xs/Os in pencil and made a 
>note that they were interpolated due to an incomplete census.)
>
>As far as how this shows up in Census/Members, it doesn't change 
>much - you're just doing the interpolating instead of the computer. 
>But it obviously makes some presence/absences look confirmed when 
>they were not, and artificially reduces the number of interpolated 
>days in Members.  But you would lose some information by not 
>including the incomplete censuses at all.  If you're concerned about 
>making these manually interpolated presence/absences look confirmed 
>when they're not, either using demography notes or creating a 
>separate census file with just the confirmed individuals, as you 
>suggested, would take care of that (it would incorporate all the 
>known information without falsely adding information).
>
>I don't know how the way Jessica and I dealt with this issue was 
>decided upon or when, but that's what we did.  I like your ideas 
>better, I think...
>
>Hope all is well with everybody,
>Daphne
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Catherine Markham <amarkham@Princeton.EDU>
>Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 4:06 pm
>Subject: [Babase] Daphne Question - Procedures for Incomplete Censuses
>
>>  Hi Daphne,
>>
>>  Hope things have been going well!  I'm not sure whether or not you
>>  still
>>  check your Princeton email and/or the listserv messages, but we
>>  thought
>>  we'd try contacting you this way to get help with a Babase question...
>>
>>  I'm entering the data for another demography update and the
>>  question of
>>  incomplete census procedures has come up.  I don't think this is
>>  something we talked about last fall (sorry if I've forgotten,
>>  though!),
>>  perhaps because most censuses in recent years have been complete.
>>
>>  Jeanne, Susan, Leah, Karl and I have been talking about some
>>  different
>>  possibilities for how to get the data in the system and we were
>>  wondering how you had handled it (or how it was handled before
>>  your
>>  time, if you know).  Did you use demography notes?  Separate
>>  census
>>  files specific to a single day and only the individuals with
>>  confirmed
>>  presences?  Manual entry?
>>
>>  Thanks for any advice/input you might have!  Give Rico and Shumba
>>  our best!!
>>
>>  Catherine
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Susan Alberts, Associate Professor 
Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham NC 27708 
phone 919-660-7272  fax 919-660-7293