I am using WOMBAT to obtain breeding values for animals. How can I get the corresponding accuracies?
This depends on what exactly you are doing. WOMBAT does not provide approximations as needed for large models - however, if the inverse of the coefficient matrix can be calculated, there are several scenarios and ways to obtain the standard errors or sampling variances which you can then use to calculate the corresponding accuracies.
−−blup
runtime option, WOMBAT calculates the inverse of the coefficient matrix in the mixed model equations to obtain solutions for all fixed and random effects fitted, and provides corresponding standard errors, obtained from the diagonal elements of the inverse coefficient matrix. FORCE-SE
in a SPECIAL
block at the end of the parameter file. For cases where standard errors are not obtained automatically, this will force WOMBAT to invert the coefficient matrix at the end of the analysis and report standard errors, for both fixed and random effects fitted. NB: This can be rather time consuming! SPECIAL FORCE-SE END
wombat −c −−emalg1
. SumEstimates.out
, i.e. you may wish to rename your results file before this additional run. −c −−blup
for this purpose; note though that −−blup
switches off pruning of pedigrees, i.e. that this may cause WOMBAT to recalculate inbreeding coefficients and the inverse of the numerator relationship matrix. −−mmeout
which acts like −−solvit
but writes out the complete mixed model equations (non-zero elements of one triangle of the coefficient matrix only) to file (there is no equivalent for −−s1step
).
P.S. You may encounter a column with heading xxxxx
in your file with solutions and standard errors for random effects - the content of which looks like an accuracy. Yes, for some (simple) models this gives estimates of the accuracy. However, for other (more complicated) models the results can be wrong (bug) – so don't use this column until you have convinced yourself (by calculating what the accuracy should be for a few levels and making sure the values agree) that the numbers are indeed correct.
P.P.S When calculating accuracies, make sure you account for inbreeding - otherwise you may underestimate it and may even get a negative number (which is clearly wrong)!
Please check your favourite textbook/lecture notes/paper for documentation on how to calculate accuracies once you have an (approximate) inverse of the coefficient matrix in the mixed model equations.
@ARTICLE{crh75, author = {Henderson, C. R.}, title = {Best linear unbiased estimation and prediction under a selection model}, journal = {Biometrics}, volume = {31}, year = {1975}, pages = {423--447} } @ARTICLE{bruce03, author = {Tier, B. and Meyer, K.}, title = {Approximating prediction error covariances in multiple-trait and random regression models}, journal = {Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics}, volume = {121}, year = {2004}, pages = {77--89}, doi = {10.1111/j.1439-0388.2003.00444.x} } @article{hickey2009, title={Estimation of prediction error variances via Monte Carlo sampling methods using different formulations of the prediction error variance}, author={Hickey, J.M. and Veerkamp, R.F. and Calus, M.P.L. and Mulder, H.A. and Thompson, R.}, journal={Genet Sel Evol}, volume={41}, pages={23}, year={2009} }