[Babase] ranker again

Catherine Markham amarkham at princeton.edu
Mon Oct 9 09:41:56 EDT 2006


Hi all,

I thought I'd chime in and say that I do feel comfortable using the 
ranker program.  Tabby and I did one full year together (updating both 
ALF and ADF ranks), and I did the same on my own for the previous 
calendar year.  Also, I did try to document the practical "how-to" in 
the Princeton Database Manager's Guide - hopefully that'll come in handy.

If it is a question of how to actually use ranker and things are lacking 
with the write-up, just let me know and I can try to explain what was 
done for the past two years.

Hope that helps,
Catherine



Susan Alberts wrote:
> Karl, Leah, Tabby,
> 
> There is the concern here that neither Leah nor Tabby have ever really 
> worked with ranker. For a long time we couldn't get ranker to work at 
> Duke so all of it was done at Princeton. I gather that the last time 
> females were done in Princeton, Catherine did them. I don't believe that 
> we used ranker for the males at Duke the last time we did them -- they 
> were done for us at Princeton, but we have not yet (sorry to admit this) 
> done the 2005 male ranks so its been a while even if we did do them.
> 
> I think perhaps the best thing is if Leah and Tabby get together and see 
> what they do and don't understand about ranker. Presumably and hopefully 
> ranker is well documented and presumably Catherine and Tabby did some 
> work on this together so we are not starting from scratch. Given that 
> Leah is leaving soon and we still don't have a replacement for her, I am 
> not sure how best to optimize her time. Perhaps she and i can sit down 
> today and talk about this. We envisioned that we would have substantial 
> overlap but this will not happen. So, first the two of you should talk 
> and then Leah and I should talk and then we should go from there.
> 
> Susan
> 
>> Hi Susan,
>>
>> I'll go with whatever Leah says.  I've worked with ranker exactly once 
>> and have never considered the rules behind it and am only 
>> understanding about 1/4 of these emails.  If she thinks it's fine, 
>> then I'm sure I can learn whatever I need to learn, but I really don't 
>> know enough about this to give a real answer.  Sorry!
>>
>>
>> Tabby
>>
>> Karl O. Pinc wrote:
>>>
>>> On 10/06/2006 11:56:07 AM, Susan Alberts wrote:
>>>> Karl, should you update the rnktypes table with the new types and 
>>>> remove FYM or can Leah/Tabby do this at this point? I think that you 
>>>> need to update the definition queries? I am not sure what these are.
>>>
>>> Leah/Tabby can do it, and they can update the queries after
>>> each conversion run too, although I could do it also if you want me
>>> to for some reason.
>>>
>>> By way of example, here's the old and new RNKTYPES.Query for ALF:
>>>
>>> Old:
>>> SELECT DISTINCT biograph.sname
>>>  FROM biograph, members
>>>  WHERE biograph.sname = members.sname
>>>        AND members.date >= %s
>>>        AND members.date <= %f
>>>        AND members.grp = %g
>>>        AND biograph.sex = "F"
>>>        AND NOT(EMPTY(matured))
>>>        AND matured <= %f
>>>
>>> New:
>>> SELECT DISTINCT biograph.sname
>>>  FROM biograph, members, maturedates
>>>  WHERE biograph.sname = members.sname
>>>        AND members.date >= '%s'
>>>        AND members.date <= '%f'
>>>        AND members.grp = %g
>>>        AND biograph.sex = 'F'
>>>        AND maturedates.sname = biograph.sname
>>>        AND maturedates.matured <= '%f';
>>>
>>> (Note that I have gone ahead and put some of the %
>>> substitutions inside single quotes because I believe
>>> this makes more sense and is simpler for the ranker
>>> program to deal with because it won't have to think
>>> about what datatype things are and whether or not
>>> it needs to put quotes around things.  The final
>>> design is up to Jun and Dongdong.)
>>>
>>> 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
>>
>> -- 
>> Tabby Fenn
>> Research Assistant
>>
>> Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
>> 401 Guyot Hall
>> Princeton University
>> Princeton, NJ  08544
>>
>> 609 258-6898 (Ph)
>> 609 258-2712 (Fx)
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Babase at www.eco.princeton.edu
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> 
> 


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