[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