[Babase] Re: Bstatus Zero vs. Blank
Susan Alberts
babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Sat, 16 Apr 2005 13:17:22 -0500
>Hi all,
>I finally stopped to think a bit more about Bstatus and to remember
>its origins. Susan please correct and give input on the following:
>
>1. Bstatus was a product of and a field in Susan's male file when
>we imported it into BABASE when BABASE was created in the mid-90's.
>It was created with non-natal males in mind, and I don't think we
>ever thought of it in terms of study group natal animals, though we
>never clarified that. No such field was in my natal files that were
>also imported into BABASE. When I did analyses such as gestation
>length, etc, I just used animals born after the study began and also
>excluded the few others that I might need to for various levels of
>precision. As we've now discovered, we did not implement Bstatus
>retroactively for those individuals before the study began, and we
>did not consider the gaps of a month or less particularly in the
>early 90's.
This sounds plausible.
>
>1. I suggest that we now code all natal animals that were in study
>groups when we began (females and immature males if the latter were
>not already scored by Susan) using the current scheme. I should be
>able to do that pretty readily.
OK, I agree that this should be done.
>
>2. I will look at the other periods that Catherine identifies and
>consider how best to handle any births during those periods with the
>existing coding (they will be 0 or 1), either by scoring or come
>back with at least a suggestion to solve the immediate need some
>other way. I think all of these will be ok for survival analyses
>but not all for gestation/reproductive analyses (as Catherine
>pointed out, they relate to the cycle gaps that we are implementing)
Again, this sounds fine. The issue is, we recognize that we have some
natal birthdates that are not exact but are also not as coarse as the
birthdates for immigrant males. This suggests that we are losing
information is we impose the current 0,1,2,3 scheme on everyone.
Question is, how much information are we losing and how much will it
cost to retain it? I think it is good that Jeanne will think about
this and look at other periods with Catherine to get a sense of this
information.
Susan
>.
>
>Comments?
>
>jeanne
>
>
>At 01:20 PM 4/15/2005, you wrote:
>
>>On 04/14/2005 02:51:35 PM, Jeanne Altmann wrote:
>>>To avoid duplications of effort, a quick report:
>>>Do we want to add other categories (i.e. between 0 and 1) ?
>>>Karl, can we readily add an earliest and latest date as discussed for
>>>cycles?
>>
>>Well, yes and no. I'd want to think and ask questions about
>>when they'd be used. Particularly regards various rule checking.
>>
>>I guess the answer is not readily enough that I want to do it
>>before we get the new system up.
>>
>>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>>Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>> -- Robert A. Heinlein
>>
>>
>>
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--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Susan Alberts, Associate Professor
Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham NC 27708
phone 919-660-7272 fax 919-660-7293