[Babase] new sexskin error_death while ppa

Karl O. Pinc kop at meme.com
Sat May 17 19:01:00 EDT 2008


On 05/17/2008 01:46:15 PM, Jeanne Altmann wrote:
> Sorry for the delay in response on this last issue. Does the
> assignment
> to cycle suggestion mean that alternate days could end up being
> assigned
> to DIFFERENT CYCLES depending on whether they are a zero or, say, a
> one?

No.  It means that anything non-zero will get rejected (in the case
explained below.)

> If so, NO, that would be too weird. Why wouldn't we want any sex skin
> measurements after a birth to be assigned to the NEXT cycle, not the
> conception one?

The issue arises when there _is_ no next cycle.  This happens in the
case of death.   It happens during ppa when data entry or observation
hasn't caught up with the-inevitable-future-cycle.  And it happens
at menopause.

In these cases sexskin observations pour in from the field,
observations that should be 0, and the question becomes what
to do with them.

One answer would be to _not_ associate any sexskin measurements with
cycles directly, just with the individual.  Anytime you wanted to
go back to the cycle you'd have to go to CYCSTATS (or REPSTATS).
This would be like getting group memebership from MEMBERS.
This is probably the cleanest solution, but would require a bit
of change to the database.

Also, we've struggled with CYCSTATS and REPSTATS forever it seems.
Frankly, I don't feel done with them because they don't update
and ensure data consistency automatically like MEMBERS.  And
I've not heard anything bad about CYCSTATS and REPSTATS but
I don't know if we're ready to rely on them in the same way
we do MEMBERS.

The other approach would be one like the one below.  A variant
would be to, rather than look at the sexskin size and test
it against 0, look to see if there's another cycle at all.
I don't like this though because I see no other rules
on the SEXSKINS table that would catch errors where
the sexskin measurement starts to go up from zero after
birth and there's still no resumption cycle.

> 
> jeanne
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: babase-bounces at eeblistserv.princeton.edu
> [mailto:babase-bounces at eeblistserv.princeton.edu] On Behalf Of Karl O.
> Pinc
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 11:48 AM
> To: The Baboon Database Project
> Subject: Re: [Babase] new sexskin error_death while ppa
> 
> 
> On 05/15/2008 08:18:37 PM, Susan Alberts wrote:
> > I suspect that Jeanne has not been following this thread. To me, the
> 
> > decision you propose below sounds fine. My understanding is that the
> 
> > decision wrt the 0.5 measurements stuff (if you are talking about
> sex
> 
> > skins
> 
> Yes.
> 
> ) was that it will be rounded up to a 1 and we will NOT
> > implement a 0.5 rule.
> >
> > I will send JA an email to make sure that she is checking this
> thread
> 
> > and that you all have requested final input from her on sex skin
> > stuff.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> > On May 15, 2008, at 5:55 PM, Karl O. Pinc wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> On 05/15/2008 02:23:57 PM, kfenn wrote:
> >>> Karl O. Pinc wrote:
> >>
> >>>>>> 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.
> >>
> >>> Jeanne, can we get your OK on this?
> 
> 
> Karl <kop at meme.com>
> Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>                   -- Robert A. Heinlein
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Babase mailing list
> Babase at www.eco.princeton.edu
> http://www.eco.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/babase
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Babase mailing list
> Babase at www.eco.princeton.edu
> http://www.eco.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/babase
> 
> 


Karl <kop at meme.com>
Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                  -- Robert A. Heinlein



More information about the Babase mailing list