[R] mcmcglmm starting value example

[Jarrod Hadfield]

Dear Ping,

It is not possible to pass starting values for the fixed effects. It  
doesn't make much sense to give starting values for the fixed effects  
because they can be Gibbs sampled in a single pass conditional on the  
latent variables and the (co)variance components - after a single  
iteration they would "forget" their starting values.  The cut points  
in an ordinal model are a different matter. At the moment I do not  
allow user defined starting values for the cut points, but agree that  
it may be useful. I am about to release an update that allows spline  
fitting in MCMCglmm. If it is starting values for the cut points  
you're really after I can add that in before I release?

Cheers,

Jarrod


On 29 Mar 2010, at 22:06, ping chen wrote:

> Hi R-users:
>
> Can anyone give an example of giving starting values for MCMCglmm?
> I can't find any anywhere.
> I have 1 random effect (physicians, and there are 50 of them)
> and family="ordinal"．
>
> How can I specify starting values for my fixed effects? It doesn't  
> seem to have the option to do so.
>
> Thanks, Ping
>
>
>
>


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