[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 125 (Friday, June 28, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 38945-38946]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-15456]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
International Trade Administration
University of Hawaii at Manoa, et al.; Notice of Decision on
Applications for Duty-Free Entry of Scientific Instruments
This is a decision pursuant to Section 6(c) of the Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Materials Importation Act of 1966 (Pub. L. 89-
651, as amended by Pub. L. 106-36; 80 Stat. 897; 15 CFR part 301).
Related records can be viewed between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. in Room
3720, U.S. Department of Commerce, 14th and Constitution Ave NW.,
Washington, DC.
Comments: None received. Decision: Approved. We know of no
instruments of equivalent scientific value to the foreign instruments
described below, for such purposes as each is intended to be used, that
was being manufactured in the United States at the time of its order.
Docket Number: 13-008. Applicant: University of Hawaii at Manoa,
Honolulu, HI 96822. Instrument: Telescope. Manufacturer: Advanced
Mechanical and Optical Systems, Belgium. Intended Use: See notice at 78
FR 27186, May 9, 2013. Comments: None received. Decision: Approved. We
know of no instruments of equivalent scientific value to the foreign
instruments described below, for such purposes as this is intended to
be used, that was being manufactured in the United States at the time
of order. Reasons: The instrument will be used in conjunction with the
Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS), to
discover and characterize Earth-approaching objects, both asteroids and
comets that might pose a danger to the Earth, as well as a wide range
of other research areas of astronomy. Critical performance
characteristics include the ability to detect objects much fainter than
has hitherto been possible with sufficient resolution to measure both
the position and brightness level to the required precision, that the
instrument be sufficiently robust and reliable that it can carry out
continuous observations without direct human supervision under both
benign and harsh meteorological observing conditions, and servicing and
maintenance that can be performed as quickly as possible to minimize
system down time. The heat released by the electrical/electronic
components cannot have an impact on the system point spread function
that exceeds a combined total of 0.1 arcseconds. Other key features
that were not proposed by domestic vendors include the use of 36
actuators to control the shape of the telescope's primary mirror,
active cooling of the mechanical structure containing the primary
mirror, design and performance analysis of the structures holding the
telescope secondary mirror in position, the mechanical design and
performance analysis of the telescope ``truss'', active cooling of the
motors that move the telescope, additional performance margin of the
telescope motors to provide additional power and torque in the presence
of high motor loads, and the serviceability of several key telescope
components that traditionally are both prone to failure and hard to get
at, as well as allowing the removal of extremely difficult components.
Docket Number: 13-009. Applicant: Max Planck Florida Institute for
Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458. Instrument: Serial Block face
microtome. Manufacturer: Gatan, United Kingdom. Intended Use: See
notice at 78 FR 27186, May 9, 2013. Comments: None received. Decision:
Approved. We know of no instruments of equivalent scientific value to
the foreign instruments described below, for such
[[Page 38946]]
purposes as this is intended to be used, that was being manufactured in
the United States at the time of order. Reasons: The instrument will be
used to analyze neural circuits employing principally bioimaging,
electrophysiology and genetic approaches to understand visual
perception and the organization of the visual cortex, synapse
physiology and mechanisms of synaptic signaling and computation, the
molecular mechanisms of synaptic function, the cellular organization of
cortical circuit function, and the digital anatomy of the brain. To
precisely identify synaptic contacts between neurons and distinguish
between overlapping processes or actual synaptic contacts requires high
resolution imaging with an Electron Microscope (EM) including 3D
reconstruction of each process and its surroundings. Furthermore,
relatively large volumes of brain should be imaged to cover the entire
region and profile even for a single neuron. The instrument allows
automatic imaging of multiple regions of interest on the sample and
stage montaging for large fields of view, and a cutting thickness down
to 15 nm.
Docket Number: 13-012. Applicant: New Mexico Institute of Mining
and Technology. Instrument: Delay-Line (DL) Trolley. Manufacturer:
University of Cambridge/Cavendish Laboratory. Intended Use: See notice
at 78 FR 27186, May 9, 2013. Comments: None received. Decision:
Approved. We know of no instruments of equivalent scientific value to
the foreign instruments described below, for such purposes as this is
intended to be used, that was being manufactured in the United States
at the time of order. Reasons: The instrument will be used to make
extremely high-resolution images of a diverse range of astronomical
objects. The images made using the instrument will allow a variety of
astrophysical processes in the target objects to be investigated, such
as protostellar accretion, disk clearing as evidence for planet
formation, jest, outflows and magnetically channeled accretion, and the
detection of sub-stellar companions. In order to obtain interference
fringes the path lengths traveled by the light from celestial objects
via the telescopes to the point where interference takes place must be
equalized to a few microns. The extra path (delay) that must be
inserted varies continuously as the Earth rotates, and depends on the
location of the target in the sky. The instrument is used within the
Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer to equalize these path
lengths--one trolley for each telescope--by acting as a continuously
movable retro-reflector. For most of the sky to be accessible, a delay
range approximately equal to the longest inter-telescope separation
must be available, requiring an unprecedented monolithic delay line
length of almost 200 m. The need to accommodate 350 m baselines places
a unique combination of requirements on the delay lines and hence the
Delay Line Trolleys that run within them.
Docket Number: 13-014. Applicant: Max Planck Florida Institute for
Neuroscience, Jupiter, FL 33458. Instrument: Two-Photon Laser Scanning
Microscope. Manufacturer: Femtonics Ltd., Hungary. Intended Use: See
notice at 78 FR 27186-27187, May 9, 2013. Comments: None received.
Decision: Approved. We know of no instruments of equivalent scientific
value to the foreign instruments described below, for such purposes as
this is intended to be used, that was being manufactured in the United
States at the time of order. Reasons: The instrument will be used to
examine the connectivity and functional computations performed by
individual neurons in the primary visual cortex of tree shrews, as well
as to study the population mechanisms responsible for rapid development
of direction selectivity in the ferret primary visual cortex.
Experiments will include in vivo two-photon microscopy experiments that
examine the response properties of neurons, two-photon imaging in the
dendritic tree of single neurons to monitor dendritic inputs and
integration as evoked by visual stimuli, and two-photon imaging in the
visual cortex to monitor how large populations of cells develop into a
coherent circuit that capably detects directional movement in a visual
space. The instrument is unique in that it allows for fast, random-
access two-photon imaging in three dimensions. The experiments depend
on this fast 3D scanning to capture sufficient data from the dendrites
of a single neuron or large numbers of cells in a neuronal population.
The instrument's capabilities are achieved through the use of acousto-
optical deflectors in x-, y-, and z-axes and are unmatched by
galvanometric scanning systems that are bounded by inertial
constraints.
Docket Number: 13-015. Applicant: IUP Research Institute, Indiana,
PA 15701. Instrument: IMIC Digital Microscope. Manufacturer: TILL
Photonic Gmbh, Germany. Intended Use: See notice at 78 FR 27186-27187,
May 9, 2013. Comments: None received. Decision: Approved. We know of no
instruments of equivalent scientific value to the foreign instruments
described below, for such purposes as this is intended to be used, that
was being manufactured in the United States at the time of order.
Reasons: The instrument will be used to resolve whether changes in
intracellular ion activity are circadian in nature, identify the
underlying mechanisms for stem cell regeneration in damaged tissue, and
examine the regulatory mechanisms for metabolic activity in yeast. The
microscopic imaging will be used to investigate cellular properties of
mice, zebrafish, planaria, yeast, and paramecium, as well as to analyze
the absorption and fluorescence of ceramic optical material.
Intracellular ion movement requires fluorescent confocal and FRET
imaging. The fate-mapping of the stem cells requires fast fluorescent
scanning provided by the instrument.
Dated: June 20, 2013.
Gregory W. Campbell,
Director, Subsidies Enforcement Office, Import Administration.
[FR Doc. 2013-15456 Filed 6-27-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-DS-P