Using Missouri Show-Me-Select Replacement Heifers Inc. sale data, this article uses hedonic modeling to assess the marginal implicit values of physical and genetic characteristics, expected performance characteristics of calves, and market factors to bred heifer price. In 2008, a higher quality standard, known as Tier II, was created combining minimum expected progeny difference (EPD) accuracies for a heifer's sire with previous heifer standards. Heifer characteristics and market factors as well as yearling and carcass weight EPDs were found to significantly influence heifer price. Results suggest that Tier II heifers receive a premium compared with traditional Show-Me-Select heifers.

We have investigated the dislocation of GaN films grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) on c-plane sapphire substrates using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), etch pit density (EPD) characteristics, and micro photoluminescence (PL). Micro PL mapping is a nondestructive method for observing defect sites as dark spots which reveal the dislocations causing non-radiative recombination centers in the GaN film surface. The dark spots reveal a decrease in threading dislocation sites with increasing the thickness of GaN films. In order to illustrate the correlation between the thickness and the dislocation density of GaN, the micro PL analysis method was used to observe the dislocation densities of a GaN film with a low dislocation density.