Application(s) for Duty-Free Entry of Scientific Instruments, 31890-31891 [2015-13678]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
• International Trade Administration

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 107 (Thursday, June 4, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 31890-31891]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-13678]



[[Page 31890]]

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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

International Trade Administration


Application(s) for Duty-Free Entry of Scientific Instruments

    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), we invite comments 
on the question of whether instruments of equivalent scientific value, 
for the purposes for which the instruments shown below are intended to 
be used, are being manufactured in the United States.
    Comments must comply with 15 CFR 301.5(a)(3) and (4) of the 
regulations and be postmarked on or before June 24, 2015. Address 
written comments to Statutory Import Programs Staff, Room 3720, U.S. 
Department of Commerce, Washington, DC 20230. Applications may be 
examined between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. at the U.S. Department of 
Commerce in Room 3720.

    Docket Number: 14-024. Applicant: University of Maryland Baltimore 
County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250. Instrument: Electron 
Microscope. Manufacturer: FEI Company, Czech Republic. Intended Use: 
The instrument will be used to understand preparation--structure--
property relationships of many different materials including 
nanocomposite powders and coatings, tooth enamel and its interaction 
with dental materials, and gold nanoparticles with and without 
functional groups. Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There are no 
instruments of the same general category manufactured in the United 
States. Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: February 12, 
2015.

    Docket Number: 14-030. Applicant: W.M. Keck Observatory, 65-1120 
Mamalahoa Hwy., Kamuela, HI 96743. Instrument: Next Generation Adaptive 
Optics (NGAO) Laser System. Manufacturer: Toptica Photonics AG, 
Germany. Intended Use: The instrument will be used to provide a high 
quality ``artificial star'' in the atmosphere to remove the image 
blurring caused by the atmosphere, as part of a Laser Guide Star 
Adaptive Optics System. The system uses a technique called Adaptive 
Optics that measures the turbulence in Earth's atmosphere that causes 
blurring or ``twinkling'' by ``flexing'' or ``bending'' a deformable 
mirror at speeds of hundreds of times per second. The instrument is 
used to excite sodium atoms residing in the mesosphere above the 
Earth's surface creating an ``artificial star'' for measuring the 
atmosphere's turbulence. The instrument uses a laser of a precise 
wavelength of 589nm projected onto the sodium layer at 90km in the 
atmosphere, for which the stability, format and bandwidth are critical. 
The wavelength, amount of power, and spectral content required to 
resonant atoms 90km in the atmosphere are not commonly used in the 
laser industry. Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There are no 
instruments of the same general category manufactured in the United 
States. Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: February 5, 
2015.

    Docket Number: 14-035. Applicant: Texas A&M University, 200 Seawolf 
Parkway, Galveston, TX 77553. Instrument: Wartsila, W8L20 Generator set 
and related special purpose tools. Manufacturer: Wartsila Ship Power, 
Finland. Intended Use: The instrument will be used to prepare students 
to serve as licensed engineering officers in the U.S. Merchant Service 
and for other careers in demand in the Houston job market and 
elsewhere. Any generator set that would be useful for our instructional 
needs would need to be typical of the marine industry, be relatively 
large so students could have realistic laboratory experiences, and 
would need to not be excessively large so it would fit into the 
existing indoor high bay intended for this purpose. Justification for 
Duty-Free Entry: Marine Diesel engines of different design but in the 
same general category to that being donated are available in the US, 
but no detailed comparisons between competing equipment have been made 
because no domestically produced engine was offered as a donation. 
Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: January 15, 2015.

    Docket Number: 15-002. Applicant: Rhode Island Hospital (Lifespan 
Corporation), 593 Eddy Street, Providence, RI 02903. Instrument: Laser 
Scanning Microscope. Manufacturer: FEI Company/TILL Photonics, Germany. 
Intended Use: The instrument will be used to study the molecular 
mechanisms of adhesion receptor activation in leukocytes (white blood 
cells), and how these processes are different under certain disease 
states, such as in patients with septic shock. By tagging specific 
proteins/genes with fluorescent markers the instrument will be used to 
track their location at a subcellular scale and determine how they are 
involved in regulating the activation of adhesion receptors. The 
instrument is capable of Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence 
Imaging, which is a specialized typed of microscopy where it is 
possible to restrict observations to a very thin section of the cell 
where the adhesion receptors are concentrated. The instrument has a 
unique integrated laser scanning mechanism that allows for the laser 
beam position to be scanned around the perimeter of the objective 
plane, which gives a superior illumination uniformity compared to the 
instruments from domestic manufacturers. These features are critical 
since the experiments rely on comparing the brightness of fluorescence 
signal in one part of a cell to other parts of the cell in order to 
draw conclusions about how these proteins are activating adhesion 
receptors. Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There are no instruments 
of the same general category manufactured in the United States. 
Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: January 13, 2015.

    Docket Number: 15-003. Applicant: University of California Santa 
Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6105. Instrument: Cryo Positioning 
Stage High Resonance. Manufacturer: Janssen Precision Engineering, the 
Netherlands. Intended Use: The instrument will be used to construct a 
variable temperature (4-300 Kelvin) scanning probe microscope with sub-
nanometer stability, optical access and microwave integration to 
measure nitrogen vacancy probes. There is no domestic instrument that 
combines six degrees of freedom of linear motion in a tool that 
operates at cryogenic temperatures (<4 Kelvin) and has a resonant 
frequency larger than 1 kHz. Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There 
are no instruments of the same general category manufactured in the 
United States. Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: 
February 5, 2015.

    Docket Number: 15-004. Applicant: Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut 
Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Instrument: Electron Microscope. 
Manufacturer: JEOL Ltd., Japan. Intended Use: The instrument will be 
used to obtain structural and morphological information about materials 
such as metal alloys, polymers and ceramics using electron diffraction 
and bright field and dark field imaging. Composition of the materials 
will be studied using energy dispersive spectroscopy. These techniques 
will be used in static experiments as well as on materials that are 
subject to external stimuli. Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There 
are no instruments of the same general category manufactured in the 
United States. Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: January 
26, 2015.


[[Page 31891]]


    Docket Number: 15-006. Applicant: Colorado School of Mines, 1500 
Illinois St., Golden, CO 80401. Instrument: Electron Microscope. 
Manufacturer: FEI Company, Czech Republic. Intended Use: The instrument 
will be used to elucidate structure-property relationships in a wide 
variety of materials including metals, ceramics, and semiconductors. 
Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There are no instruments of the same 
general category manufactured in the United States. Application 
accepted by Commissioner of Customs: February 10, 2015.

    Docket Number: 15-008. Applicant: St. Jude Children's Research 
Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105. Instrument: 
Electron Microscope. Manufacturer: FEI Company, Czech Republic. 
Intended Use: The instrument will be used to study the best course of 
treatment and prevention of reoccurrence of pediatric cancers, by 
studying cell and tissue cultures as well as human tumor tissue. 
Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There are no instruments of the same 
general category manufactured in the United States. Application 
accepted by Commissioner of Customs: February 20, 2015.

    Docket Number: 15-009. Applicant: University of Texas Health 
Science Center, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX 78229. 
Instrument: Electron Microscope. Manufacturer: JEOL Ltd., Japan. 
Intended Use: The instrument will be used to document the light and 
ultrastructural change that occurs in the liver and adipose tissues 
from various sites under conditions of stress using mice with a 
targeted deletion of Tmem127. Electron microscopy will be used to 
document the size and effect of different conditions on lysosomal 
structure and distribution. Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There 
are no instruments of the same general category manufactured in the 
United States. Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May 8, 
2015.

    Docket Number: 15-013. Applicant: Washington State University, 220 
French Administration Building, PO Box 641020, Pullman, WA 99164-1020. 
Instrument: CTK Reactor, High Pressure Reactor, Diff pump mass 
spectrometer. Manufacturer: OmniVac, Germany. Intended Use: The 
instrument will be used to take measurements during an ongoing 
catalytic reaction, i.e. under `operando' reaction conditions so as to 
clarify mechanistic details during studies up to 100 bar so as to 
ensure optimal conditions for the production of fuels and other 
chemical feedstock such as detergents or lubricants. Such dynamic 
reaction studies will help elucidate the mechanisms of catalytic 
reactions such as the formation of transportation fuels from `synthesis 
gas' (Fischer Tropsch synthesis). While CTK informs about the early 
run-in period in a time-resolved manner, the high pressure reactor 
allows the study of steady-state reaction behavior at a bench scale for 
many hours. The Quantachrome system allows measurements of the specific 
surfaces areas of materials, which is required for the optimization of 
catalysts. The CTK reactor comprises a gas cleaning and dosing system, 
along with gas inlets using mass flow controllers. The central part of 
the reactor is made of quartz, and temperatures can be varied at 
choice. The high pressure reactor comprises gas cleaning and inlet 
pressure up to 100 bar, surrounded by a temperature programmed oven 
which allows temperatures of up to 500 Celsius. The differential mass 
spectrometer serves to continuously control gas phase compositions and 
is equipped with a high-speed turbo molecular pump and rotary 
forevacuum pump. Sampling occurs with calibrated capillary at pressures 
controlled by ion gauges. The Quantachrome system allows specific 
surface areas to be determined using non-selective probe molecule 
adsorption at cryogenic temperatures. Justification for Duty-Free 
Entry: There are no instruments of the same general category 
manufactured in the United States. Application accepted by Commissioner 
of Customs: May 8, 2015.

    Docket Number: 15-020. Applicant: The City University of New York, 
205 East 42nd Street, Room 11-64, New York, NY 10017. Instrument: 
Electron Microscope. Manufacturer: FEI Company, Japan. Intended Use: 
The instrument will be used to understand the structural mechanism by 
which macromolecular complexes, organelles and cells carry out their 
actions, using single particle analysis and tomography, involving 
taking many images of biological materials in vitrified ice. 
Justification for Duty-Free Entry: There are no instruments of the same 
general category manufactured in the United States. Application 
accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May 8, 2015.

    Dated: May 28, 2015.
Gregory W. Campbell,
Director of Subsidies Enforcement, Enforcement and Compliance.
[FR Doc. 2015-13678 Filed 6-3-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-DS-P