September 6, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committee was established by Public Law 105-121, November 26, 1997, to advise the Board of Directors on the development and implementation of policies and programs designed to support the expansion of the Bank's financial commitments in Sub- Saharan Africa under the loan, guarantee, and insurance programs of the Bank. Further, the committee shall make recommendations on how the Bank can facilitate greater support by U.S. commercial banks for trade with Sub-Saharan Africa.

As a result of the determination by the International Trade Commission (ITC), that revocation of the antidumping duty order on ferrovanadium and nitrided vanadium from the Russian Federation (Russia) would not be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of material injury to an industry in the United States within a reasonably foreseeable time,\1\ the Department of Commerce (the Department) is publishing this notice of revocation of the antidumping duty order on ferrovanadium and nitrided vanadium from Russia.

On May 1, 2012, the Department of Commerce (``the Department'') initiated the first five-year (``sunset'') review of the antidumping duty order on certain polyester staple fiber from the People's Republic of China (``PRC'') pursuant to section 751(c) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (``the Act''). On the basis of a notice of intent to participate and an adequate substantive response filed on behalf of the domestic interested party, as well as a lack of response from respondent interested parties, the Department conducted an expedited sunset review of the antidumping duty order, pursuant to section 751(c)(3)(B) of the Act and 19 CFR 351.218(e)(1)(ii)(C)(2). As a result of this sunset review, the Department finds that revocation of the antidumping duty order on certain polyester staple fiber from the PRC would be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of dumping at the levels indicated in the ``Final Results of Review'' section of this notice.

On July 9, 2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) published on its Web site and transmitted to the Federal Register a notice requesting comment on proposed rules and forms to integrate certain disclosure requirements of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) for most closed-end consumer credit transactions secured by real property, as required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act). The proposed rule, which would amend Regulation X (RESPA) and Regulation Z (TILA), was published in the Federal Register on August 23, 2012. See 77 FR 51116 (Aug. 23, 2012). Comments on the integrated rules and forms are due November 6, 2012. However, the proposed rule set a comment deadline of September 7, 2012 on two issues: Proposed changes to the definition of the finance charge; and whether to delay implementation of certain disclosure requirements added to TILA and RESPA by title XIV of the Dodd-Frank Act. Because of the relationship of the proposed changes to other ongoing Bureau rulemakings and the Bureau's request for data on the potential impact of the proposed changes to the finance charge on those rulemakings, the Bureau has determined that an extension of the comment period until November 6, 2012 is appropriate. This extension applies solely to the proposed changes to the definition of the finance charge.

On July 9, 2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) published on its Web site and transmitted to the Federal Register a notice requesting comment on, among other things, proposed changes to Regulation Z (Truth in Lending) to implement amendments to the Truth in Lending Act made by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that expand the types of mortgage loans that are subject to the protections of the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act of 1994 (HOEPA) (the HOEPA Proposal). The proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on August 15, 2012. See 77 FR 49089 (Aug. 15, 2012). The proposed rule set a comment deadline of September 7, 2012. In a separate rulemaking published on the Bureau's Web site on July 9, 2012 and published in the Federal Register on August 23, 2012 (see 77 FR 51116 (Aug. 23, 2012)), the Bureau proposed changes to the definition of the finance charge, which would result in a simpler, more inclusive definition of the finance charge (TILA-RESPA Integration Proposal). In light of these proposed changes, the HOEPA Proposal seeks comment on whether and how to account for the implications of a more inclusive finance charge on the scope of HOEPA coverage. Although the TILA-RESPA Integration Proposal set an initial comment deadline regarding the proposed changes to the finance charge definition of September 7, 2012, by separate notice, the Bureau is extending that deadline to November 6, 2012. For the same reasons discussed in that notice, the Bureau has determined that an extension of the comment period until November 6, 2012 for the portion of the HOEPA Proposal regarding whether and how to account for the implications of a more inclusive finance charge on the scope of HOEPA coverage is appropriate. This extension does not apply to any other aspect of the HOEPA Proposal.

Notice is hereby given that the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has taken final action in the following case: Marc Hauser, Ph.D., Harvard University: Based on the report of an investigation conducted by Harvard University (Harvard) and additional analysis conducted by ORI in its oversight review, ORI found that Dr. Marc Hauser, former Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard, engaged in research misconduct in research supported by National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grants P51 RR00168-37 and CM-5-P40 RR003640-13, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), NIH, grant 5 R01 DC005863, and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), NIH, grant 5 F31 MH075298. ORI found that Respondent engaged in research misconduct as follows: Respondent published fabricated data in Figure 2 of the paper Hauser, M.D., Weiss, D., & Marcus, G. ``Rule learning by cotton- top tamarins.'' Cognition 86:B15-B22, 2002, which reported data on experiments designed to determine whether tamarin monkeys habituated to a sound pattern consisting of three sequential syllables (for example AAB) would then distinguish a different sound pattern (i.e., ABB). Figure 2 is a bar graph showing results obtained with 14 monkeys exposed either to the same or different sound patterns than they were habituated to. Because the tamarins were never exposed to the same sound pattern after habituation, half of the data in the graph was fabricated. Figure 2 is also false because the actual height of the bars for the monkeys purportedly receiving the same test pattern that they had been habituated to totaled 16 animals (7.14 subjects as responding and 8.87 subjects as non-responding). Respondent retracted the paper in 2010 (Cognition 117:106). In two unpublished experiments designed to test whether or not tamarin monkeys showed a greater response to certain combinations of unsegmented strings of consonants and vowels than others, Respondent falsified the coding of some of the monkeys' responses, making the results statistically significant when the results coded by others showed them to be non-significant. Respondent acknowledged to his collaborators that he miscoded some of the trials and that the study failed to provide support for the initial hypothesis. This research was never written up for publication. In versions of a manuscript entitled ``Grammatical Pattern Learning by Human Infants and Monkeys'' submitted to Cognition, Science, and Nature, Respondent falsely described the methodology used to code the results for experiments 1 and 3 on ``grammar expectancy violations'' in tamarin monkeys either by claiming coding was done blindly or by fabricating values for inter-observer reliabilities when coding was done by only one observer, in both cases leading to a false proportion or number of animals showing a favorable response. Specifically, in three different experiments in which tamarin monkeys were exposed first to human voice recordings of artificial sounds that followed grammatical structure and then exposed to stimuli that conformed to or violated that structure, Respondent (1) provided an incorrect description of the coding methodology by claiming in the early versions of the manuscripts that ``two blind observers'' coded trials and a third coded trials to resolve differences, while all of the coding for one experiment was done just by the Respondent, and (2) in a revised manuscript, while Respondent no longer mentioned ``two blind observers, he claimed that ``Inter-observer reliabilities ranged from 0.85 to 0.90,'' a statement that is false because there was only one observer for one of the experiments. Furthermore, in an earlier version of the manuscript, Respondent falsely reported that ``16 out of 16 subjects'' responded more to the ungrammatical rather than the grammatical stimuli for the predictive language condition, while records showed that one of the sixteen responded more to grammatical than ungrammatical stimuli, and one responded equally to grammatical and ungrammatical. Respondent and his collaborators corrected all of these issues, including recoding of the data for some of the experiments prior to the final submission and publication in Cognition 2007. In the paper Hauser, M.D., Glynn, D., Wood, J. ``Rhesus monkeys correctly read the goal-relevant gestures of a human agent.'' Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274:1913-1918, 2007, Respondent falsely reported the results and methodology for one of seven experiments designed to determine whether rhesus monkeys were able to understand communicative gestures performed by a human. Specifically, (1) in the ``Pointing without food'' trial, Respondent reported that 31/40 monkeys approached the target box while the records showed only 27 approached the target (both results are statistically significant), and (2) there were only 30 videotapes of the ``Pointing without food'' trials, while Respondent falsely claimed in the paper's Materials and Methods that ``each trial was videotaped.'' Respondent was not responsible for the coding, analyses, or archiving but takes full responsibility for the falsifications reported in the published paper. Respondent and one of his coauthors replicated these findings with complete data sets and video records and published them in Proceedings Royal Society B 278(1702):58-159, 2011. Respondent accepts responsibility for a false statement in the Methodology section for one experiment reported in the paper Wood, J.N., Glynn, D.D., Phillips, B.C., & Hauser, M.D. ``The perception of rational, goal-directed action in nonhuman primates.'' Science 317:1402-1405, 2007. The statement in the paper's supporting online material reads that ``All individuals are * * * readily identifiable by natural markings along with chest and leg tattoos and ear notches.'' In fact, only 50% of the subjects could be identified by this method, thus leading to the possibility of repeated testing of the same animal. Respondent and one of his coauthers replicated these findings with complete data sets and video records and published them in Science 332:537, 2011 (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5843/1402/DC2 published online 25 April 2011). Respondent engaged in research misconduct by providing inconsistent coding of data in his unpublished playback experiment with rhesus monkeys exploring an abstract pattern in the form of AXA by falsely changing the coding results where the prediction was that habituated animals were more likely to respond to an ungrammatical stimulus than a grammatical one. After an initial coding of the data by his research assistant, in which both Respondent and assistant agreed that an incorrect procedure was used, the Respondent recoded the 201 trials and his assistant coded a subset for a reliability check. The Respondent's codes differed from the original in 36 cases, 29 of them in the theoretically predicted direction, thereby producing a statistically significant probability of p =

The Office of the Under Secretary for Food Safety, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), are sponsoring a public meeting on September 6, 2012. The objective of the public meeting is to provide information and receive public comments on agenda items and draft United States (U.S.) positions that will be discussed at the 32nd session of the Codex Committee on Fish and Fishery Products (CCFFP) of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), which will be held in Bali, Indonesia from October 1-5, 2012. The Under Secretary for Food Safety, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Food and Drug Administration recognize the importance of providing interested parties the opportunity to obtain background information on the 32nd session of the CCFFP and to address items on the agenda.

This document contains temporary regulations that address certain integrated transactions that involve a foreign currency denominated debt instrument and multiple associated hedging transactions. The regulations provide that if a taxpayer has identified multiple hedges as being part of a qualified hedging transaction, and the taxpayer has terminated at least one but less than all of the hedges (including a portion of one or more of the hedges), the taxpayer must treat the remaining hedges as having been sold for fair market value on the date of disposition of the terminated hedge. The text of the temporary regulations also serves as the text of the proposed regulations set forth in the notice of proposed rulemaking on this subject in the Proposed Rules section in this issue of the Federal Register.

The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13 (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)).

NMFS is prohibiting directed fishing for species that comprise the shallow-water species fishery by vessels using trawl gear in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). This action is necessary because the fourth seasonal apportionment of the Pacific halibut bycatch allowance specified for the shallow-water species fishery in the GOA has been reached.

On June 15, 1984, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) delegated to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) its approval authority under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), to approve of and assign OMB control numbers to collection of information requests and requirements conducted or sponsored by the Board. Board-approved collections of information are incorporated into the official OMB inventory of currently approved collections of information. Copies of the Paperwork Reduction Act Submission, supporting statements and approved collection of information instruments are placed into OMB's public docket files. The Federal Reserve may not conduct or sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection that has been extended, revised, or implemented on or after October 1, 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.