[Babase] Statdate revisited -- Was: Re: Request for
Susan's input on SCI5
Jeanne Altmann
babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Wed, 20 Jul 2005 14:44:54 -0400
hi all,
We have come to the point that we think this is a more general issue than
pregnancies when gaps or end of study group status occurs for a group. We
propose a conference call for the end of next week when Susan & I are both
back and when conversion is finished (we hope).
jeanne
At 02:36 PM 20/07/2005, Karl O. Pinc wrote:
>Consensus here is that Leah should be responsible for
>forwarding list traffic to Susan, so that needs to
>be done for this message too.
>
>On 07/20/2005 05:22:06 AM, Amboseli Baboon Research Project wrote:
>
>>Yes we discussed this in the spring at our meeting, and I agree.
>>STATUS
>>should be either alive or dead -- it is the status at the last
>>sighting of
>>the animal. This is how it is now defined in the babase documentation
>>after
>>recent edits.
>
>>Then STATUS
>>>can be made to look like BSTATSUS, where there's codes for "alive",
>>>"dead,
>>>date known exactly", "dead, within 1 week", "dead, within 1 month",
>>>etc.
>>>Whatever time intervals make sense, not necessarily the same
>>>intervals
>>>that are used in BSTATUS. KOP]
>>In principle this is OK, but I am not sure we need it because it is
>>the
>>statdate that we care about not the death date. The statdate has no
>>error in
>>it. In other words, I don't think in practice we would use this.
>
>While Status _is_ the state of the animal on last sighting,
>Statdate is _not_ the date of last sighting. It is the
>date of last sighting only when the individual is alive.
>When the individual is dead, it's the death date and is
>uncertain. Of course everybody does not wind up dead,
>(lucky them)
>but for those who do you might need some uncertainty
>indications.
>
>(Obviously, the date of last sighting can be consistently
>gotten, regardless of whether the indidivual's alive
>or dead, from CENSUS.)
>
>The idea here is that while the individual is alive,
>statdate is a convenient way of determining the
>interval over which data has been collected on the
>individual. The Birth to Statdate interval, inclusive. Likewise,
>rather than have to query dead individuals differently
>from live ones, Statdate records the date of death
>and the Birth to Statdate interval remains the interval
>over which data has been collected.
>
>So, Status is really describing one of two different
>things, the state of the animal when last seen
>alive, and whatever elaboration on date of death
>is required. Because they never both occur at
>the same time it all works out ok.
>
>Note: My code is constantly looking to see if the
>individual's is alive, by checking for a Status
>of 0. If we ever have more than one Status
>code to mean "alive and kicking", in Babase
>terms that means that the Statdate must be
>the last CENSUS date (excepting absences),
>some thought will have to go into it.
>
>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
> -- Robert A. Heinlein
>
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