[Babase] ADLIB data -- consortships and more

Susan Alberts babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Sat, 22 Oct 2005 10:16:30 -0400


Thanks Karl,

Thanks for clarifying and updating us. I believe the issue can be 
summarized as follows:

Our current version of Psion data collection assumes that the 
observers will record all grooming and agonisms between their focal 
and others ONLY on the Psion and not in the paper records. This way 
agonisms and groomings don't get double counted.

However, we can't do this for consortships because consortships need 
information attached to them that is not possible to attach in the 
Psion record -- namely begin time and end time.

So, leaving the consortships in ad libs and not bringing them into 
interact is purposeful and makes sense.

However, the same should not be true of M and E. I believe that M and 
E should be treated like G and A. Can you enlighten?

Susan

>I looked at the psion point sample data loader
>(uppoints) and it only put grooming,
>agonisim, request, and approach adlibs into
>INTERACT.  It explictily does not put consortships
>into INTERACT.  I belive there was a reason
>for this, although whether it was technical,
>perhaps related to double counting or other
>sorts of how many of what are supposed to go
>where rules, or whether it was procedural
>related to what sort of data was expected to
>be collected when, I couldn't say.
>
>Ah, I believe I've found the problem.  The
>email below explains things.  Basically,
>psion consortship data does not fit the
>Babase consortship model.  No doubt
>we'll figure out how to pound the pieces
>until they fit together, but we didn't
>do so at the time.
>
>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>                  -- Robert A. Heinlein
>
>-------------snip-----------------
>Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 09:45:41 -0400
>To: "Karl O. Pinc" <kop@meme.com>
>From: Susan Alberts <alberts@duke.edu>
>Subject: Re: Consortship point samples
>Cc: altj@princeton.edu
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>Content-Length: 1928
>Lines: 38
>Status: RO
>X-Status:
>Status: RO
>
>Well, the consortship record in the point sample is entered NOT as an
>additional piece of babase data, rather it's because the behavior of
>the focal animal is presumed to be affected by the fact that she is
>in a consortship.  A more sensible way to record this piece of
>information would be to have a header field that indicated whether
>the sample was or was not a sample of a female in a consortship, but
>this seemed like too big a change from the old, handwritten method of
>data collection, and so I didn't do this when I implemented the Psion
>data collection.  That is, consortships have always been recorded as
>"ad lib" data attached to a behavioral sample, even though this isn't
>quite what they are.
>
>Related to this is the old versus new format of the ad lib records.
>When jeanne and I did a quick look at the ad lib records that had
>been collected as part of Psion points between 1999 and 2001, we
>noted that they varied so greatly that it would be rather hard to
>convert them easily into agonism and grooming and consort records
>(which we really care about) versus all the different ways that the
>observers had of saying "missed sample."  One possibility is that we
>do the "extraction" of ag, groom and consort records manually from
>the first two years of Psion data.  Extraction from aug 2001 on
>should be trivial.
>
>hope this helps, let me know if I've muddied the waters,
>Susan
>
>>Robert's design spec indiciates that consortship is recorded in the
>>point samples.  Presently, consortship is recorded in INTEARACT as a
>>single event occuring over a time interval.  How is this supposed to
>>integrate with the instantainious meansurements of point samples?
>>
>>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>
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-- 
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Susan Alberts, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, 
Durham NC 27708
919-660-7272 (phone), 919-660-7293 (FAX)