[tz] Request RE: academic research question re: TZ database

[Andrew Lyon]

Thank-you Paul. 

I agree that when the birth-hour is unknown that it could be assigned to a time other than midnight to 00:59:59 or 02:00 to 03:00 to avoid most DST transition problems. 
We looked into the possibility of changing that default time ourselves, but it appears to be in protected code by the software manufacturer. We are working with the manufacturer to avoid the problem in a future version of the software. We have not heard if the manufacturer will alter the default birth hour to noon or another time. 

The article you linked on birth hours is very interesting. Most of our problem patients had birth dates between 1930 and 1941 and were likely born without modern interventions that are mostly scheduled during daytime hours. 

regards, Andrew 




From: "Paul Eggert" <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> 
To: "lyoncatch" <lyoncatch at shaw.ca> 
Cc: "Scott Kilpatrick" <skilpat at gmail.com>, "tz" <tz at iana.org> 
Sent: Thursday, January 9, 2020 3:39:58 PM 
Subject: Re: [tz] Request RE: academic research question re: TZ database 

On 1/9/20 6:15 AM, Andrew Lyon wrote: 
> if the hour of birth is unknown (for patients born 
> 1930-41), that a birth hour of midnight is assigned as a default. 

If the birth hour is unknown you might be better off defaulting to noon 
than to midnight. First, noon is likely closer to the actual birth 
hour.[1] Second, you'll avoid some of these software glitches. 

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db200.htm 
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