Applications for Duty-Free Entry of Scientific Instruments

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Applications 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; 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 filed within 20 days with the Statutory Import

Programs Staff, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, DC 20230.

Applications may be examined between 8:30 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. in Room

4211, U.S. Department of Commerce, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue,

NW., Washington, DC.

Docket Number: 96-048. Applicant: U.S. Department of Agriculture,

Agricultural Research Service, National Forage Seed Production Research

Center, 3450 SW Campus Way, Corvallis, OR 97331-7102. Instrument: Mass

Spectrometer System, Model Europa 20-20. Manufacturer: Europa

Scientific, Inc, United Kingdom. Intended Use: The instrument will be

used to determine fertilizer nitrogen in organic and inorganic forms in

soil, water and plant samples. It will also be used to determine

gaseous products that are involved in soil metabolism and respiration

and are lost from soils into the atmosphere. The objective of the

experiments to be conducted will be to improve the understanding of how

agricultural management practices affect the chemical and biochemical

transformations of nitrogen and carbon in water, soils and plants.

Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May 6, 1996.

Docket Number: 96-049. Applicant: University of California at San

Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 9500 Gilman Drive, La

Jolla, CA 92093. Instrument: Mass Spectrometer, Model VG Sector 54.

Manufacturer: VG Isotech, United Kingdom. Intended Use: The instrument

will be used in the study of geological materials and natural waters to

examine the isotopic composition of certain elements in these samples.

The main objectives of the experiments conducted will be to examine the

time scales of geologic processes (i.e., dating studies) or to use

isotopic compositions of the materials being studied as tracers of

geologic processes. In addition, the instrument will be used for

educational purposes in the courses: SIO252C: Isotope Geochemistry,

SIO299: Independent Research and ES144: Introduction to Isotope

Geochemistry. Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May 7,

1996.

Docket Number: 96-050. Applicant: University of Michigan,

Transportation Research Institute, 2901 Baxter Road, Ann Arbor, MI

48109-2150. Instrument: (10) Infrared Headway Sensor Systems, Model

ODIN 4F MS. Manufacturer: Leica AG, Switzerland. Intended Use: The

instrument will be used in a study through which a total of ten

passenger cars are outfitted and tested with ICC systems. A set of

current ``issues'' pertaining to system features, duration of ICC

acclimation period, driver characteristics, traffic environments, etc.

will be incorporated into the study. The objectives of this

investigation are: (1) Test the ability of a vehicle to maintain

automatically a safe level of speed and distance between it and

preceding vehicles, (2) evaluate improvements in safety, (3) evaluate

the potential for decreasing the number and severity of rear end

collisions and (4) evaluate the safety impact of the level of

convenience which may be higher than is normally offered with standard

cruise control. Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May

10, 1996.

Docket Number: 96-051. Applicant: Yale University School of

Medicine, Department of Cell Biology, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT

06520-8002. Instrument: Free-Flow Electrophoresis Device, Model OCTOPUS

PZE. Manufacturer: Dr. Weber GmbH, Germany. Intended Use: The

instrument will be used for the separation and isolation of subcellular

components from mammalian cells and tissues. Experiments will involve

the disruption of various types of cells and the injection of cell

homogenates into the FFE chamber for the purpose of collecting

individual organelles for biochemical and functional analysis.

Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May 10, 1996.

Docket Number: 96-052. Applicant: North Carolina State University,

Campus Box 7212, Raleigh, NC 27695-7212. Instrument: ISOCMS Accessory

for Microanalyzer. Manufacturer: CAMECA Instruments, France. Intended

Use: The instrument will be used in conjunction with a microanalyzer to

help facilitate determination of the levels of impurities to the PPB

and PPT level in materials of engineering importance using the SIMS

techniques of dynamic depth profiling, static surface analysis, three

dimensional depth profiling, surface mapping, etc. Application accepted

by Commissioner of Customs: May 13, 1996.

Docket Number: 96-053. Applicant: Wayne State University, 540

Canfield Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201. Instrument: Electron Microscope,

Model JEM-1010. Manufacturer: JEOL Ltd., Japan. Intended Use: The

instrument will be used for morphological examination of ocular

(cornea, retina and lens), neuronal (brain and spinal cord) and lung

tissues. Cellular mechanisms of the action of bacterial toxins in vitro

will also be studied. Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs:

May 14, 1996.

Docket Number: 96-054. Applicant: University of Georgia, National

Environmentally Sound Production Agriculture Laboratory, Administration

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Building, Coastal Plain Experiment Station, Moore Highway, Trifton, GA

31794. Instrument: Ground Conductivity Meter, Model EM38. Manufacturer:

Geonics Ltd., Canada. Intended Use: The instrument will be used for

studies of subsurface discontinuities in soil properties. Application

accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May 15, 1996.

Docket Number: 96-055. Applicant: The Pennsylvania State

University, Department of Geosciences, 503 Deike Building, University

Park, PA 16802. Instrument: Mass Spectrometer, Model MAT 252.

Manufacturer: Finnigan MAT, Germany. Intended Use: The instrument will

be used to analyze the isotopic composition of fossil air samples

extracted from polar ice cores. The data from these experiments will

provide the means of reconstructing the composition of the past

atmosphere over the last 250,000 years. The objective of the proposed

work will be to better understand the factors which influence the

biogeochemical cycling of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen in the natural

environment. In addition, the instrument will be used in several

geoscience courses for demonstrating various techniques used during the

acquisition of stable isotope ratios of various air samples.

Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May 20, 1996.

Docket Number: 96-056. Applicant: Princeton University, PO Box 33,

Princeton, NJ 08544-0033. Instrument: Electrical Capacitance Tomography

Unit, Model PTL 300-TP-G. Manufacturer: Process Tomography, Ltd.,

United Kingdom. Intended Use: The instrument will be used to study the

mechanics of flow of solid particles consisting of sand grains of about

100 microns in diameters or standard aluminosilicate particles of

comparable dimensions suspended in a gas. Application accepted by

Commissioner of Customs: May 23, 1996.

Docket Number: 96-057. Applicant: University of Iowa, Mass

Spectrometry Facility, 71 Chemistry Building, Iowa City, IA 52242.

Instrument: Magnetic Sector Mass Spectrometer, Model VG AutoSpec.

Manufacturer: Micromass, Inc., United Kingdom. Intended Use: The

instrument will be used primarily for structural studies of organic,

organometallic, inorganic and biochemical compounds to determine

molecular weight, elemental composition, and other details crucial to

the characterization and structure determination of a wide variety of

natural and synthetic chemical compounds encountered in research.

Application accepted by Commissioner of Customs: May 23, 1996.

Frank W. Creel,

Director, Statutory Import Programs Staff.

[FR Doc. 96-15098 Filed 6-13-96; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 3510-DS-P