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ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Reports > Information measures
Information measures
 | ANY-maze has been designed to be extended, and we'll be delighted to add any new measures you might find useful, for free! Just contact ANY-maze Support. |
ANY-maze includes the following information measures for each test:
Test number
| Description | A sequential number assigned to each test when it's completed. |
Animal number
| Description | The animal number of the animal this test was performed on. |
| Notes | Animal numbers are assigned sequentially to animals as they're added to an experiment. These numbers are never reissued, even if an animal is removed from the experiment. For example, if you create an experiment with 10 animals in it, they'll be numbered 1-10. If you immediately delete the 10 animals and then add 10 new animals, the new ones will be numbered 11-20 and the experiment won't have any animals numbered 1-10 at all. |
Treatment
| Description | The name of the treatment given to the animal this test was performed on. |
Treatment code
| Description | The code of the treatment given to the animal this test was performed on. |
Stage
| Description | The name of the stage which this test was part of. |
| Notes | All tests must be part of a stage - even if an experiment only contains a single default stage. |
Trial number
| Description | The trial number within the stage for the animal which this test was performed on. |
| Independent variable | Yes - see notes. |
| Notes | Within a stage, an animal can be tested more than once - i.e. have repeated trials. The first test in a stage is the animal's trial 1, the second test is the animal's trial 2, etc. |
Although the trial numbers will be repeated in different stages, ANY-maze still views them as different when using Trial number as an independent variable. Thus, for example, Trial 1 in an Acquisition stage would be seen as different to trial 1 in a Re-test stage.
Apparatus
| Description | The name of the apparatus that the test was performed on. |
The reason for test end
| Description | The reason the test ended. This is either a description of a standard reason (see notes), the name of a procedure that ended the test, or a test end reason created for a procedure. |
| |  | If your protocol is set up to use Events and Actions rather than procedures, then the test end reason can be the name of the event that triggered an action that ended the test (the name of the event is used because this reflects the reason why the test ended, for example, 'Island entry'). |
| Dependent variable | Yes. Nominal data. Can't be analysed across time. |
| Notes | The standard reasons for ANY-maze to end a test are: |
| | User ended test | The user ended the test by clicking the  Stop test button. |
| | Test duration | The test ended because the test duration was reached. |
| | End of video | This reason will be used if you're using a video file for the test (rather than tracking the animal 'live'), and the end of this video file is reached. |
| | Lost video signal | The video signal showing the apparatus was lost (for example, the camera was unplugged). |
| | Lost I/O device | An I/O device used in the experiment was lost (i.e. unplugged from the ANY-maze computer). |
| | Out of memory | While running a test, ANY-maze records the test results in the computer's memory - if this memory becomes full, then the test will be ended for this reason. This is very unlikely to occur. |
| | Error saving results | For some reason, ANY-maze is unable to save the results to the experiment file. This is very unlikely to occur. |
Test date
| Description | The date when the test was started. |
Test day of the week
| Description | The day of the week (Monday-Sunday) when the test started. |
| Dependent variable | Yes. Nominal data. Can't be analysed across time. |
Test time
| Description | The time when the test started. |
Test time of day
| Description | The time of day, am or pm, when the test started. |
| Dependent variable | Yes. Nominal data. Can't be analysed across time. |
User
| Description | The name of the user who was logged on while the test was performed. |
Test notes
| Description | Any notes recorded for the individual test - see notes. |
| Notes | Only the first 80 characters of the notes are actually used for this measure's value. The notes themselves can be up to 32,000 characters in length. |
Animal notes
| Description | Any notes recorded for the individual animal this test was performed on - see notes. |
| Notes | Only the first 80 characters of the notes are actually used for this measure's value. The notes themselves can be up to 32,000 characters in length. |
Animal lighter/darker than apparatus
| Description | Whether the animal is lighter or darker than the apparatus background, as specified in the protocol list under Animal colour. |
Animal length
| Description | The length of the animal in millimetres |
| Notes | The animal length measure is only available if the animal length is required to be entered* and the protocol specifies that the animals have different lengths. |
*This is only the case when the protocol includes at least one hidden zone, or freezing is being detected but the animal is not being tracked.
Percentage of frames tracked
| Description | The percentage of the frames (video pictures) sent by the camera (or video file) in which ANY-maze successfully tracked the animal. |
| Notes | ANY-maze may not be able to determine the position of the animal in all the pictures it receives from the camera (or video file). For example, there might be a moving reflection (common in the water-maze) which interferes with tracking, or the animal might move into a dead space (where the camera can't fully see it), etc. |
Percentage of tracked frames head tracked
| Notes | ANY-maze will only try to detect the animal's head in frames in which the animal itself has been tracked, but it may not always be successful. The head tracking works by analysing the shape of the animal and if it is in a position which makes it look quite un-rodent like (for example, it has hunched up into a ball, or it is partially obscured by an object in a NOR test, etc.) then the head tracking may not be able to determine where the animal's head is. |
Source video file
| Description | The name of the video file from which a test was run. The full path will be displayed on the Data page; the file name only will be shown on the test schedule report. |
| Notes | If the test was not run from a video, this value will be blank. |
Recorded video file
| Description | The name of the video file that was recorded while a test was being run. The full path will be displayed on the Data page; the file name only will be shown on the test schedule report. |
| Notes | If no video was recorded of this test, this value will be blank. |
Video time when test started
| Description | The time in the video of the test at which the test started. |
| Notes | This value will be reported as undefined for tests that were not either performed from a video or recorded to a video. For tests that were both performed from a video and recorded to a video, the time reported is the time in the recorded video. |
The value will also be reported as undefined for tests performed in versions prior to 6.33 of ANY-maze, as this was the first version to record this information.
Time period
| Description | A Time period of the test |
Segment of test
| Description | A segment of the test, described as x-y seconds; for example, 30-60 seconds. |
| Notes | ANY-maze can break tests down into equal length segments and then perform analysis on them. The length of the segments that tests are broken into is specified in the protocol's Analysis across time element. |
 It's very important to understand that when you use the segment of test measure, you effectively tell ANY-maze to start analysing segments rather than tests. This means, for example, that the Data page spreadsheet will include one row per test segment rather than one row per test.
Location of movable zones
| Description | The location of a movable zone in the test |
| Notes | There is one measure for each movable zone in the protocol. You'll find more information about movable zone here. |
See also:
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ANY-maze help topic T0725
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