[Babase] Re: Request for Susan's input on SCI5

Karl O. Pinc babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Wed, 20 Jul 2005 17:07:03 +0000


FYI, someone will have to forward this to Susan.

On 07/20/2005 05:22:06 AM, Amboseli Baboon Research Project wrote:

  I agree.
> STATUS
> should be either alive or dead
<snip>
> However, we might want to add "unknown" or "fetus" as a status. This  
> might
> seem weird when you first think about it, but in fact it is the case  
> with
> all pregnancies that end after we stop observing a group. In other  
> words,
> although SCI5 is the test case here, in fact this will in general  
> apply to
> all animals that are still fetuses when we stop watching a group --  
> and, I
> think, ONLY to animals that are still fetuses when we stop watching a  
> group
> (is that right?).

I like the idea of a status of "fetus".

What's needed
is a way to distinguish various sorts of pregnancies.  Specifically,
until now pregnancies have been terminated by either birth
or abortion/stillbirth.
This adds a new way to terminate a pregnancy -- by cessation
of observation.  We would then have 4 sorts of pregnancies.

1) Ongoing pregnancies.  These have no associated biograph
row and so won't show up when you're looking at
BIOGRAPH.Birth to determine end-of-pregnancy date.

2) Abortions/stillbirths.  On BIOGRAPH the Status is
"dead" and the Birth = Statdate.

3) Observation abandoned during pregnancy.  On BIOGRAPH
the Status is "fetus" and the Birth = Statdate.

4) Births.  On BIOGRAPH Birth != Statdate.

I don't like a Status of "unknown" as it's not especially descriptive
of the state of the unborn on the Statdate.

Whatever solution we arrive at must be able to distinguish
these 4 cases, or ensure that case 3 never occurs.

> > 2.  Delete the row for SCI5 from BIOGRAPH but keep the record in
> > PREGS.

The trouble with this approach is it makes it hard to distingush
case 1, ongoing pregnancy, from case 3, observation abandoned.

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