An alternative computing strategy for genomic prediction using a Bayesian mixture model

Abstract

Chen, L., Li, C. and Schenkel, F. 2015. An alternative computing strategy for genomic prediction using a Bayesian mixture model. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 95: 1-11. Bayesian methods for genomic prediction are commonly implemented via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling schemes, which are computationally demanding in large-scale applications. An alternative computing algorithm, called right-hand side updating strategy (RHSU), was proposed by exploiting the sparsity feature of the marker effects in a Bayesian mixture model. The new algorithm was compared with the conventional Gauss-Seidel residual update (GSRU) algorithm by the number of floating point operations (FLOP) required in one round of MCMC sampling. The two algorithms were also compared in a Holstein data example with the training data size varying from 1000 to 10 000 and a marker density of 35 790 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). Results showed that the proposed RHSU algorithm would outperform the traditional GSRU algorithm when the sample si...