[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