[Babase] FYI, Nearest neighbor checking

Susan Alberts babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Fri, 5 Nov 2004 06:22:25 +0300


As I read the current rules that the team says they follow now, this 
kind of checking would be too complicated anyway. The nearest 
neighbor could be anyone, the second nearest could be an adult of 
either sex, the third nearest could be an adult of either sex but 
different sex than the second nearest neighbor.

I have been uneasy about what rules they are actually following for 
several years now; I have sat down and discussed this with them 
extensively twice now, and I ended up writing down a different set of 
rules each time. The original rules they were to follow are not 
written down anywhere that i can find, and they changed these at some 
point but this was also not written down. It is already on my agenda 
for my next visit to Amboseli to revisit this issue with them, but in 
any case I think that we shouldn't try to do any checking.

Susan

>The concensus among Karl, Daphnie and Cathrine is that
>we won't have the database check the point samples to see that the nearest
>neighbor really is the right kind of nearest neighbor, i.e.
>nearest adult male really is both adult and male.
>
>Daphnie says that these sort of errors can be thrown out
>during analysis.
>
>I like the idea of checking but there also comes a point when
>it's time to stop.  It would be easy to check for sex, but less
>so to check for adulthood, IIRC.
>
>Anyone else care to chime in?
>
>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>                  -- Robert A. Heinlein
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Susan Alberts, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, 
Durham NC 27708
919-660-7272 (phone), 919-660-7293 (FAX)