[Babase] Morris (MOR) and interpolation rules in members table +
incomplete censuses!
Niki Learn
nlearn at princeton.edu
Wed Aug 19 11:27:58 EDT 2009
So, for now at least, I will plan to go ahead and enter any recorded or implied (by lack of being on the census sheets) absences even if that means entering an entire month of just absences, particularly for males when they enter a group at the beginning of a month or leave at the end of a month. It will not be difficult to catch those transitions in future during initial census data entry. I'll go back and check this update's data to see if any months of zeros need to be added before I upload. I will come back to Morris and any potential back data changes after the update is in.
Karl, in addition to Tabby not mentioning this issue to me, I just searched through the babase update protocol I was given for anything census related and found no references to this issue, even in the section talking about making sure you catch individuals that were present at the end of one month and absent the next month - there was no mention of entering additional zeros, just of noticing that the individuals were absent so that one could determine whether they died or dispersed and take the appropriate action for that.
On a related question, Jeanne and Susan, we have in this update a lot of incomplete census data. The standing rule is that incomplete census information does not need to be entered unless it marks present an individual that was absent in the prior complete census - this is then entered as a demography note, which in turn marks the individual as present on that day. Usually with team incomplete censuses nobody is marked absent because an incomplete census in this case typically means the team did not have time to search for all individuals or there was bad visibility or something that prevented them from verifying either presence or absence that were not marked present. However, for other observers incomplete censuses are usually more the result of the observer either not knowing all of the individuals and/or focusing on specific individuals so they may actually have an incomplete census where they have verified that certain individuals they do recognize are not present.
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) or create a separate file just for incomplete census days for those males that move around a lot to better capture their movements (and in some cases avoid interpolation of presence with a group when we know they were in fact absent). The latter method would help me track the males movements between groups and would probably be less prone to error than marking them as present with an unknown group. Sometimes we already know where they were because they showed up in another group on or before the incomplete census day on which they were marked absent but in other cases their whereabouts are unknown. Please let me know if this is an issue that is worth the extra trouble of creating and uploading additional data for these males.
Thanks,
Niki
-----Original Message-----
From: Karl O. Pinc [mailto:kop at meme.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 6:06 PM
To: The Baboon Database Project
Cc: Niki Learn
Subject: Re: [Babase] Morris (MOR) and interpolation rules in members table.
Hi,
There are no special interpolation rules for males. I do
recall some talk about it but I thought we decided against
making the end of the month be special in that way.
As far as females and juveniles go, there's few problems
because the individuals get marked dead and this stops
interpolation. The other "backstop" is that interpolation
does not happen until "later data", either censuses noting
the individual present or noting them absent, is entered.
This keeps interpolation from making assumptions about
what happens after "the end of time", the last census data
for an individual that's still living. Dead individuals
can be interpolated after the last entered census
based on the date of death. (More on this below.)
There are 2 ways to stop males from interpolating.
You could use a non-interpolating census code
("manual" or some other) to record the last date
you want the individual in the group. At this point
you are manually doing what the interpolation does.
The other way to go is to ensure that there's
always a subsequent absence recorded, even
if the individual leaves the group at the very
end of the month. (Vis Niki's point below.)
I recall quite a bit of discussion
about this some time ago. There can be a problem
for females and juveniles as well, even if they
do wind up marked dead. If say, a female is
censused present the last day of the month
but is absent thereafter, the female's group membership
should be in the unknown group if the death date
is long enough after the last time she
was censused present. For example, she
might be sick, and censused present on the
31st of the month and then absent on the
first. Perhaps the 4th is assigned as
the death date. If the absence on the first
is not recorded then interpolation will place
the individual in the group on the first, even
though she was censused absent.
I'm against Susan's proposal for "male interpolation"
rules for a number of reasons, but there's
no point in going over this right now. (Ultimately, I don't think
it can be reliably implemented, but that's something
we can determine if we want to talk further and work
out exactly what it is that we'd want implemented.) There was so much
discussion regarding the import of continuing to enter
absences for the next month after an individual disappears
that it should not be hard to find in the archives.
The problem is more apparent with males, but
can crop up with females and juveniles as well
depending on when the censuses are taken and when
the death date is assigned. I thought we had something
about this recorded in the data entry manual....
On 08/18/2009 02:32:49 PM, Niki Learn wrote:
> Karl,
>
> We have a babase puzzle for you.
>
> Jeanne, Susan, and I have been conversing over the male Morris. It
> all began when they were puzzled by his having a bstatus of 9 (which
> has impacts on Jordi's tooth abrasion data) since they were confident
> that he was of reasonably well-known age for an immigrant male.
> While
> investigating the bstatus issue we found some other irregularities.
> A
> couple are related to mistakes in oddball census information but one
> involves the interpolation rules for the members table. Please see
> the excerpts from the email string below and let me know what the
> current situation is on interpolating member presence for males
> (i.e.,
> is the 14-day rule in place for them even in study groups where
> censuses have been going on and the male is not marked as present or
> was this altered as Susan thought). I guess we'll move forward from
> there.
>
> Thanks!
> Niki
>
More information about the Babase
mailing list