[Babase] Ranks data errors

Susan Alberts babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Thu, 3 Feb 2005 17:44:36 -0500


Leah and I have encountered some issues with ranks.dbf in trying to 
both use it and update it. I am fairly certain that these problems 
did not exist when i last used it to analyze male ranks (for the 
queueing paper). I think the problems were introduced when we tried 
to increase the number of different rank categories (beyond just 
"rank" and "frank") and designated an "all" category that is supposed 
to rank everyone together. Here is a brief summary of some of the 
problems and some examples of them:



1.	Rank order among age-sex classes not consistent (most begin 
with the order ADM, JUVM, ADF, JUVF)

o	grp 2.20 changes to ADM, ADF, JUVM, JUVF 01/02/96
o	grp 2.10 changes to ADM, ADF, JUVM, JUVF 01/04/96
o	grp 1.20 changes to ADM, ADF, JUVM, JUVF 01/01/97

2.	Duplicate ranks

o	NAF, VOR, both rank 18, one F and one M, grp 1.20, 01/04/96
o	ALE, KAT, both rank 16, one F and one M, grp 2.10, 01/03/95
o	LEW, LIN, both rank 17, one F and one M, grp 2.10, 01/03/95
o	LIO, NYO, both rank 18, one F and one M, grp 2.10, 01/03/95

3.	Some very low ranks for adult males (ADM) and juvenile males (JUVM)

o	LEW, age 5, rank 70, grp 2.0, 01/05/94
o	FAV, age 13, rank 71, grp 2.0, 01/03/94
o	NEL, age 16, rank 73, grp 2.0, 01/04/94

4.      Random males within the low ranking females. Seems to be a 
group 2.0 problem. Could the sex be wrong for these individuals?

o	WAL, JNB, NYU, grp 2.0, 01/03/92


5.	Adult males with in the adult female ranks

o	JIT, age 14, rank 7, 01/08/97. Also adult females ranked 
5,6,7,8,9,10 etc.

(As an aside, we also found that the sname change for DHOW (adult 
male, non-natal) to DOW has not yet been made in ranks (and perhaps 
other places in the database) -- perhaps this is already on the list 
of "to do" as the change was just made).

I don't know  enough about what happened when we made the changes to 
know how to interpret the errors or, more importantly, how to correct 
them. However, it seems that having Leah enter new data into these 
corrupted tables is not the right approach. Can someone shed light or 
should we have a conference call?

Susan





-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Susan Alberts, Associate Professor 
Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham NC 27708 
phone 919-660-7272  fax 919-660-7293