We can learn about the social structure of our vervet groups by making careful observations of their behaviors. For example, learning who hits who and how often gives us a quantitative way to determining the rank of an individual. This type of behavioral sampling is in contrast the to ad libitum sampling method. Behaviors may be classified into either 'events' or 'states'. To a rough approximation, events are instantaneous, while states have a measurable duration.
Events can occur within states.
Before starting any behavioral observations you will need to be able to reliably identify individuals. He's the dominant male. Basically, it's just a program with which we can score behavioral events during live observation. Using a set of 1 to 3 letter codes that we define, we can quickly note the behavior and the program automatically marks the time. This is opposed to writing everything down on checksheets.