Genetics and breeding: Genetic and Environmental Smoothing Of Lactation Curves with Cubic Splines

摘要

Most approaches to modeling lactation curves in- volve parametric curves with fixed or random coeffi- cients. In either case, the resulting models require the specification of an underlying parametric curve. The fitting of splines represents a semiparametric ap- proach to the problem. In the contest of animal breed- ing, cubic smoothing splines are particularly con- venient because they can be incorporated into a suitably constructed mixed model. The potential for the use of splines in modeling lactation curves is explored with a simple example, and the results are compared with those using a random regression models.