• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.23-27
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• 1995

A selection experiment with Romney Marsh sheep was used to evaluate direct responses to selection. Two flocks were maintained; a) the selection line formed in 1979 by the Romney Group Breeders to select for high prolificacy, defined as the number of live lambs born per ewe joined per year and b) a control line, established in 1982, where flock replacements were chosen at random. Predicted responses per year of birth female group and per year respectively were 0.033 and 0.027 live lambs. The rate of predicted response per year was within the theoretical expected range from 0.01 to 0.03 of the mean. The rates of realized response in prolificacy per year of birth female group and per year respectively were 0.026 and 0.021. These estimates of realized responses represented between 0.01 and 0.02 of the control line mean per year.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.1690-1694
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• 2002

Genetic parameters were estimated for birth weight and weaning weight from three year (1991-1993) data totalling 1100 records of 25 rams to 205 ewes of Indigenous Sabi flock maintained at Grasslands Research Station in Zimbabwe. AIREML procedures were used fitting an Animal Model. The statistical model included the fixed effects of year of lambing, sex of lamb, birth type and the random effect of ewe. Weight of ewe when first joined with ram was included as a covariate. Direct heritability estimates of 0.27 and 0.38, and maternal heritability estimates of 0.24 and 0.09, were obtained for birth weight and weaning weight, respectively. The total heritability estimates were 0.69 and 0.77 for birth weight and weaning weight, respectively. Direct-aternal genetic correlations were high and positive. The corresponding genetic covariance estimates between direct and maternal effects were positive and low, 0.25 and 0.18 for birth weight and weaning weight, respectively. Responses to selection were 0.8 kg and 0.14 kg for birth weight and weaning weight, respectively. The estimated expected correlated response to selection for birth weight by directly selecting for weaning weight was 0.26. Direct heritabilities were moderate; as a result selection for any of these traits should be successful. Maternal heritabilities were low for weaning weight and should have less effect on selection response. Indirect selection can give lower response than direct selection.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.8-12
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• 2005

Response in a modified reciprocal recurrent selection scheme for egg production was evaluated considering variable family sizes and genetic correlation between purebred and crossbred half sisters. The criteria of selection of purebred breeders included pullet's own performance, purebred full and half sisters and crossbred half sister's performance. Heritability of egg production of crossbreds (aggregate genotype) and purebred's was assumed to be 0.2 and genetic correlation between purebred and crossbred half sisters ($r_{pc}$) as 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 1.0, -0.1, -0.2, -0.3, -0.4, -0.5 and -1.0. Number of dams per sire to produce purebred and crossbred progenies assumed to be 5, 6, 7, 8, while number of purebred female progeny ($N_p$) and crossbred progeny ($N_c$) per dam were considered to be 3, 4, 5 and 6 in each case. Considering phenotypic variance as unity, selection indices were constructed for different combinations of dams and progeny for each value of $r_{pc}$. Following selection index theory, response in crossbred and purebred for egg production was computed. Results indicated that response in crossbreds depended mainly on crossbred family size and also on magnitude of$r_{pc}$ irrespective of its direction, and response was greater with large crossbred family size than the purebred families. Correlated response in purebreds depends both on magnitude and direction of $r_{pc}$ and was expected to be greater with large purebred family size only. Inclusion of purebred information increased the accuracy of selection for crossbred response for higher magnitude of$r_{pc}$ irrespective of its direction. Present results indicate that desirable response in both crossbred and purebred performance is a function of $r_{pc}$ and family sizes. The ratio of crossbred and purebred family sizes can be optimized depending on the objective of improving the performance of crossbreds and/or of purebreds.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.1559-1571
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• 2008

A rule was developed to constrain the annual rate of inbreeding to a predefined value in a population with different lifetimes between sires and dams, and to maximize the selection response over generations. This rule considers that the animals in a population should be divided into sex-age classes based on the theory of gene flow, and restricts the increase of average inbreeding coefficient for new offspring by limiting the increase of the mean additive genetic relationship for parents selected. The optimization problem of this rule was formulated as a quadratic programming problem. Inputs for the rule were the BLUP estimated breeding values, the additive genetic relationship matrix of all animals, and the long-term contributions of sex-age classes. Outputs were optimal number and contributions of selected animals. In addition, this rule was combined with the optimization of emphasis given to QTL, and further increased the genetic gain over the planning horizon. Stochastic simulations of closed nucleus schemes for pigs were used to investigate the potential advantages obtained from this rule by combining the standard QTL selection, optimal QTL selection and conventional BLUP selection. Results showed that the predefined rates of inbreeding were actually achieved by this rule in three selection strategies. The rule obtained up to 9.23% extra genetic gain over truncation selection at the same rates of inbreeding. The combination of the extended rule and the optimization of emphasis given to QTL allowed substantial increases in selection response at a fixed annual rate of inbreeding, and solved substantially the conflict between short-term and long-term selection response in QTL-assisted selection schemes.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.883-887
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• 2000

One way of evaluating the effectiveness of a dairy breeding program is to measure response to selection. This may be direct or indirect. The objectives of this study were to estimate expected progress for direct selection on milk, fat and protein yields; to estimate the expected correlated responses on indirect selection for milk, fat and protein yields in Zimbabwean Holstein cattle and to establish the effect of selection intensity on responses. The Animal Model contained fixed effects of herd, year of calving, calving month, dry period, milking frequency and additive effects pertaining to cows, sires and dams. AIREML software package was used to analyse the data. The genetic and phenotypic parameters obtained in this study were used to compute direct and correlated responses to selection. Because of the higher heritabilities in first parity, genetic progress was found to be greater when selection was practised on first parity cows as compared to later lactations. It is therefore recommended that older cows in the herd be replaced with improved heifers so as to enhance genetic progress.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.287-299
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• 2022

In radiation epidemiology, the excess relative risk (ERR) model is used to determine the dose-response relationship. In general, the dose-response relationship for the ERR model is assumed to be linear, linear-quadratic, linear-threshold, quadratic, and so on. However, since none of these functions dominate other functions for expressing the dose-response relationship, a Bayesian semiparametric method using splines has recently been proposed. Thus, we improve the Bayesian semiparametric method for the selection of the tuning parameters for splines as the number and location of knots using a Bayesian knot selection method. Equally spaced knots cannot capture the characteristic of radiation exposed dose distribution which is highly skewed in general. Therefore, we propose a nonparametric Bayesian knot selection method based on a Dirichlet process mixture model. Inference of the spline coefficients after obtaining the number and location of knots is performed in the Bayesian framework. We apply this approach to the life span study cohort data from the radiation effects research foundation in Japan, and the results illustrate that the proposed method provides competitive curve estimates for the dose-response curve and relatively stable credible intervals for the curve.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.899-904
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• 2001

A field trial on selection for increased live weight in Black Bengal (BB) goat was conducted over two generations. Parents of both sexes were selected (mass selection) based on mature body weight criteria set against age. A parallel randomly mated line was maintained to compare the response (R) of selection at birth. 3, 6, 9 and 12 months of age in both generations. Lactation yield (LY), average per day yield (APDY) and lactation length (LL) were evaluated in the selected line in comparison to randombreds as a result of correlated response. Live weights were significantly improved at onward bir:th in first generation and only at birth in second generation. Improvements (%) in live weight at 3, 6. 9 and 12 months in first generation were 17.6, 18.4, 16.6, and 12.0 at birth in second generation. Significant correlated R were found in LY and APDY. Results suggest that there may be a positive relationship between live weight and lactational traits in BB goats of Bangladesh. It was also concluded that such a field scheme can be effectively used for genetic improvement of goats in subsistence farming, at least for short term gain.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.217-232
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• 2005

The objective of this study was to determine the response of QTL in each generation during selection to develop inbred lines. The simulation program was written in Fortran. Magnitude of QTL effects, base population size, number of QTL assigned to population, and the allelic frequency for the positive allele at each major QTL were highly associated with number of generations to fixation of QTLs during selection. Populations with larger QTL effects and larger base population size had more individuals with fixed QTL. However, a smaller number of QTL assigned to population had a higher fraction of individuals with fixed QTL at each generation compared with more populations with QTL. This simulation study will help to design biological experiments for detection of QTL-marker association using inbred population and to determine optimum number of lines with fixed QTL during inbred line development. To complement this study, additional simulation should be need with abundant replicates, more various population sizes, magnitude of QTL effects, and recombination between markers and QTLs.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.527-532
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• 2002

Near field ground motions contain distinct and large amplitude pulses in both velocity and displacement. This paper investigates characteristics of near field earthquakes and their effects on seismic demands. 20 EQGMs were selected for this purpose that satisfied 5 conditions for Near field motion. Among them ten EQGMs have one distinct peak velocity pulse in the velocity time history. In this study the responsed are Linear Elastic Response Spectrum(LERS), Response Modification Factor(R) and Inelastic Response Spectrum(IRS). The effect of the selection of Near field EQGMs on these response parameters are investigated.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.567-570
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• 1997

A multiple trait animal model having milk yield and lactation length was used to estimate genetic parameters using data from four institutional herds and four field recording centers. Response to selection for milk yield alone and in combination with lactation length was estimated by using principles of genetic theory. Lactation records (n = 2,353) adjusted for age at calving to 60 months were utilized. Milk yield was 17% heritable with repeatability of 0.44. Lactation length had a low heritability of 0.06 with repeatability of 0.16. Genetic correlation between the two traits was 0.70. Selection response in milk yield can be improved slightly (103.8 vs 102.8 kg) when information on covariance with lactation length is used together with the information on milk yield.