SOLICITATION NOTICE
R -- Scientific Computing Support
- Notice Date
- 4/15/2008
- Notice Type
- Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
- NAICS
- 541512
— Computer Systems Design Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Clinical Center/Office of Purchasing & Contracts, 6707 Democracy Blvd, Suite 106, MSC 5480, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892-5480
- ZIP Code
- 20892-5480
- Solicitation Number
- RFQ104068-1
- Response Due
- 4/30/2008
- Point of Contact
- AndreaMcGee,, Phone: 301-402-0735
- E-Mail Address
-
andrea_mcgee@nih.gov
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION AND A SEPARATE SOLICITATION WILL NOT BE ISSUED. This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial services prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6 under Simplified Acquisition procedures in Subpart 13.5 as supplemental with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. The solicitation number for this acquisition is RFQ 104068 and is being issued as a Request for Quote. The incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 05-24. This acquisition will be processed under Simplified Acquisition Procedures. The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code is 541512. The purpose of this Contract is to engage the services of a Contractor to support specific activities in the DCRI Scientific Computing Section (SCS) through the performance of the tasks listed and described below. These tasks are divided into four major categories, namely Hardware, Software, Administrative and Collaboration Summary The Scientific Computing Section (SCS) is a component of the NIH Clinical Center that reports directly to the Chief Information Officer of the NIH Clinical Center. SCS promotes the application of advanced computer science methods to the biomedical sciences. This Statement of Work calls for contractor support for a wide variety of SCS’s activities. Background The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation's foremost federally funded biomedical research institution. It has both intramural and extramural components. The intramural component consists of twenty-seven Institutes and Centers, including the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. This Clinical Center is now composed of two physically adjoining Clinical Centers that are clinical research hospitals providing medical services for inpatients and outpatients participating in human research protocols conducted by the intramural program of the NIH. The Clinical Centers provide patient facilities as well as the general services necessary for clinical investigations by the NIH Institutes. They also conduct research in related areas of clinical medicine and supervise residency and other training programs. The older of the two Clinical Centers is the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center. This hospital facility is comprised of three million square feet of clinical, laboratory, and administrative space with the capacity to serve three hundred and fifty inpatients participating in research studies at the NIH. Increasing demands for space, both for research and expanded services, coupled with the facility's advancing age, spurred development and construction of a new clinical research center, the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center (CRC), which opened in late 2004. The new CRC includes modern research facilities and a 220-bed hospital, outpatient care capability. As part of the infrastructure for patient care, the Clinical Center upgraded its 30-year Medical Information System (MIS) to a best-of-breed Clinical Research Information System (CRIS), which went live in August 2004. The CRIS project represents a comprehensive effort to modernize the systems that supports clinical care and the collection of research data for the intramural clinical research programs of the NIH. The CRIS project has been under the direction of the Department of Clinical Research Informatics (DCRI) within the NIH Clinical Center. DCRI has been responsible for processes and systems that directly affect users in the health care delivery and research settings. Work in DCRI has focused on the analysis and evaluation of clinical research computational needs and requirements, the development of design options that support the work processes of clinical research, and the implementation and management of responsive computer science methodology solutions. The Scientific Computing Section The Scientific Computing Section (SCS) reports directly to the Chief Information Officer of the NIH Clinical Center. The SCS supports and promotes organizational goals by seeking and engaging in active collaborative work with CRIS clinical research protocol users as well as with other biomedical researchers within the NIH Intramural Program and with members of academia and industry. In this work, knowledge in both the biomedical sciences and the computing sciences is advanced, and practical results that lead to better health care are realized. Data mining – the exploration of data with intelligent computing tools to find new knowledge - is an important activity in the SCS. The SCS directs and coordinates the NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG) which is one of the largest and most active of the 100+ special interest groups at the NIH. Also, the SCS coordinates and manages a student program whereby students in the computational and biomedical sciences work together as teams to bring innovative biomedical computing methodology to medicine. The work described in this Statement of Work will be guided and performed under the auspices of the SCS Contract Tasks This Contract calls for contractor support relating to certain activities in the DCRI Scientific Computing Section (SCS). A major theme relating to all of these activities is “a multidisciplinary research team approach to biomedical data mining.” The concept “biomedical data mining” as used here is intended to convey the idea of utilizing captured biomedical scientific and administrative data to discover new knowledge, to confirm or refute tentative hypotheses, and/or to suggest new hypotheses worthy of exploring. This is in contrast (but complementary to) the more traditional hypothesis driven paradigm typically the hallmark of biomedical research. “Multidisciplinary research team,” a concept inspired by the NIH Roadmap, suggests a team approach to data mining. Such teams may be comprised of biomedical research scientists, computer scientists, electrical engineers, statisticians, mathematicians, administrators, technical writers, intellectual property experts, etc. In short, whatever skills needed to achieve rapid, high-quality results from data mining efforts would be assembled to work closely together under this multidisciplinary team model. The SCS directs and coordinates the NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG) which is one of the largest and most active of the 100+ special interest groups at the NIH. The SCS also runs an active student program in which graduate and undergraduates students in computer science, engineering and the biomedical sciences work part time to advance the goals of the SCS. There are four major task groups in which work is to be conducted under this Statement of Work. These task groups are referred to as H=HARDWARE, S=SOFTWARE, A=ADMINISTRATIVE, and C=COLLABORATION. All four task groups span over the entire Statement of Work period. Since the work described here is primarily of a research nature, it is to be understood that more detailed definitions of specific tasks in these groups can only manifest and be made more explicit as work progresses. It is also to be understood that the Contractor will work closely with the Project Officer to develop more specific task descriptions based on the experience and the knowledge gained as work progresses. The four major task groups and their descriptions are as follows: HARDWARE (H): This task group calls for general hardware support for installing, operating and maintaining computer servers and providing audio-visual and Internet support as described below: R & D Servers: The SCS uses and maintains two (2) computer servers for on-going research and development purposes. These machines provide data gathering and data preparation tools as well as file sharing and applications program development support. They are considered to be general purpose research and development servers and they are used to test new ideas that are intended to bring modern scientific computing to biomedical research and health care delivery. The laboratory instrument error reduction system and the idiopathic inflammatory disease system mentioned next under “Production Servers” were developed using these R & D servers. A possible near future example is a “Virtual Biopsy” project which is intended to explore the possibility of eliminating the need for biopsies in certain areas of medicine by developing computer models that would use other patient information obtained less invasively to accurately predict biopsy outcome. Production Servers: The SCS uses and maintains two (2) computer servers for new project development. The evolving process is to develop the new projects utilizing the R & D servers described above and then transfer data and software to production servers. They may be used to gather data from disparate sources (including CRIS) and to develop and test new applications programs for data mining and data visualization. A past example of a production server is one developed in 2004 by SCS for the NIH Clinical Center Department of Laboratory Medicine (DLM) to capture, preserve, and run quality control and error reduction software on data collected from certain laboratory instruments in the DLM environment. A more current on-going example is a system developed for the NIEHS for gaining a deeper understanding of idiopathic inflammatory diseases. BCIG Support: The SCS coordinates the NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG) which is one of the largest and most active of the 100+ special interest groups at the NIH. Most BCIG events are webcast live, recorded, edited, and made available via the BCIG web site for post session viewing. The contractor will be responsible for recording, editing and web site archiving BCIG programs. Web Site Development and Maintenance: This hardware task group calls for support in all aspects of web site development and maintenance, particularly the NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG) web site. Such services include but are not limited to all aspects of multi-media presentations, webcasting, podcasting and blogging. General Hardware Support: This hardware task group refers to building, maintaining, and using additional hardware systems for a variety of general support services for SCS and the NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG) similar to the ones described above. SOFTWARE (S): This task group calls for general software support associated with the relevant activities described in the “HARDWARE” section above as well as other tasks described below: R & D Servers: The Contractor will provide software support for the work described in “R & D Servers” under “HARDWARE” above. Production Servers: The Contractor will provide software support for the work described in “Production Servers” under “HARDWARE” above. Software Design and Development: The Contractor will provide support in the design development and implementation of systems and application software. It is expected that the Contractor will work closely with the Project Officer and others in extreme programming fashion to produce this software. Software Search, Identification and Evaluation: The Contractor will be required to continuously look for available software appropriate for use in the SCS. All resources are to be considered including industry, and open source. Assessing the potential utility of discovered software to fulfill the objectives of the SCS is also called for here. Specific recommendations for in-house software development when called for are also expected within this task group. Software Acquisition and Implementation: The Contractor will provide support in the acquisition and implementation of appropriate software that will be used in SCS hosted data processing projects. Data Acquisition and Preparation: The Contractor will provide software support assistance with regard to acquiring and preparing data for data processing purposes. Data will be acquired from multiple sources such as the servers mentioned under “Hardware” above as well as other servers, databases and from spreadsheet files provided by SCS collaborators. ADMINISTRATIVE (A) Strategic Planning: The Contractor will assist in the overall administrative, strategic, and operational plans for the SCS. Communication: The Contractor will assist in the advertising the SCS to potential collaborators by planning and announcing services and user focus group sessions arranged according to common computational needs. BCIG: The Contractor will provide administrative support for all aspects of the NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG). Student Program: The contractor will perform a major leadership role in the SCS student program. Publication: The Contractor will participate in the preparation of scientific and technical papers relating to both the computer science and biomedical science aspects of work accomplished under this Contract.. COLLABORATION (C) Collaborator Recruitment: The Contractor will actively engage in recruiting collaborators to participate in the SCS data mining collaborations. Domain Understanding: The contractor will study and understand the biomedical nature of the SCS collaborators’ research. Data Understanding: The contractor will understand in detail the scientific nature and meaning of the SCS collaborators’ data. Training: The contractor is required to demonstrate and train biomedical researchers using the computational tools promoted by the SCS. Required Competencies for the Contracting Position 1. Essential Core Competencies (i.e. Working Knowledge): 1.1. Previously demonstrated competencies to support hardware and software requirements as specified herein.. 1.2. Previously demonstrated competencies to support administrative requirements as described herein. 2. Specific Hardware and Software Competencies Required: 2.1. Specific hardware experience with Apple G5, Xserve, Intel Linux Platform required. 2.2. Operating systems experience related to above hardware required.: 2.2.1. Apple Server, OS X 10.4 or greater 2.2.2. Apple Server System Administrator 2.2.3. Linux Server System Administrator (required distributions are Debian, Red Hat, Fedora Core or newer) 2.3. Specific applications software development experience with the following languages is required: BASIC, Ruby, Java, Perl, C., Apple Remote Desktop 2.4. Experience with Adobe Connect webcasting system. This is an enterprise server and the software that connects to that server. 3. Education and General Experience: 3.1. Minimum B.S. degree in electrical or computer science with some exposure to biomedical courses.. 3.2. Demonstrated competencies in programming in modern computer languages. 3.4. Demonstrated work experience working in a biomedical research environment with clinicians and basic biomedical research scientists. 3.4. Excellent oral and written communication skills. 3.5. Capable of preparing and delivering group presentations. 3.6. Capable and at ease working with a wide variety of individuals including biomedical research scientists and students. 3.7. Capable of mentoring students and enjoys such work 3.8. Demonstrated experience working in teams. 4. Technical Experience and Working Knowledge 4.1. Demonstrated experience and working knowledge to provide the hardware support for installing, operating and maintaining computer servers as called for herein. 4.2. Demonstrated experience and working knowledge to provide the software support for developing, installing, operating and maintaining computer software as called for herein. 4.3. Demonstrated experience and working knowledge to provide software support assistance with regard to acquiring and preparing data for data processing purposes. 4.4. Demonstrated experience and working knowledge in video webcasting, web site development and maintenance, and list server operations. 5. Administrative Experience and Working Knowledge 5.1. Capable of contributing to the overall administrative, strategic, and operational goals of the SCS as described herein.. 5.2. Capable of advertising the SCS to potential collaborators by planning and announcing services and user focus group sessions arranged according to common computational needs. 5.3. Capable of actively engaging in recruiting collaborators to participate in SCS data mining collaborations. 5.4. Capable of studying and understanding the biomedical nature of SCS collaborators’ research. 5.5. Capable of demonstrating and training biomedical researchers using the computational tools promoted by the SCS. 5.6. Capable of providing administrative support for all aspects of the NIH Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG). 5.7. Capable of continuously searching for software appropriate for use in the SCS from multiple sources. 5.8. Capable of working in the context of a multidisciplinary research team approach to biomedical data mining. 5.9. Capable of performing a major leadership role in the SCS student program. 5.10. Capable of contributing to scientific and technical papers relating to both the computer science and the biomedical science aspects of the work accomplished under this Contract. Program Management and Control Requirements The Contractor will meet initially with the Project Officer to review the project objectives and timeline for completion of the proposed deliverables. The Contractor will meet no less than once per month with the Project Officer to review progress and resolve problems that might occur. Reporting Requirements The Contractor is expected to provide bi-weekly oral reports to the Project Officer. Level of Effort The estimated level of effort for this Task Order is 960 hours or (1) Full-Time-Equivalent (FTE) individual for a 6 months with an option to renew 2 (6) month renewals. Section 508 Compliance Section 508 requires that Federal Agencies’ electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Final Rule for Section 508 (Accessibility) can be found at: http://www.section508.gov Unless it is an “undue burden” or compliant products or services do not exist, the proposal must comply with Section 508. The contractor should state that they would comply with the requirements of Section 508 or cite a justifiable reason for an exception. If any additional costs for compliance are anticipated, these costs should be identified. For existing systems, the contractor may not be able to identify all costs for compliance if the contractor did not develop that system, but should state that any development performed during the course of this task order will be compliant. Within 30 days of this task award, the contractor should provide a plan for compliance for the system as a whole, including any costs associated with compliance. Government Provided Facilities The Government will provide the Contractor with the necessary facilities to support task completion, including office work space, desktop computers and necessary, software and network services. Security Any personal data collected and/or used under this Contract is subject to the Privacy Act Clause (FAR 52.224-2). The Contractor will use any Privacy Act information provided by the Government or other Government contractors for the purposes authorized by this Contract only and for no other. The Contractor will not provide the information to any other person or entity, unless explicitly directed. Each person providing service under this proposal will be required to sign a document of understanding stating that he/she understands and will comply with Privacy Act requirements. Evaluation Criteria The Government shall evaluate the technical and cost proposals and an award shall be made using Best Value award criteria. The contractor’s technical proposal will be evaluated based upon the following technical criteria. These criteria are listed in order of relative importance. •Past performance: This refers to the contractor’s performance of similar tasks in previous contract efforts. These contracts must be completed within the past three (3) years or currently in progress for services similar to the requirements of this statement of work. (35%) •Experience of proposed individuals: Resumes are required for key personnel proposed. Resumes should contain details (length of experience, depth of experience, dates employed and employer) which specifically address the skills and experience contained in the Statement of Work. This item refers to “Experience and Skills” listed under each subtask and in those past performance references cited. (35%) •Cost: This applies to overall costs. (20%) •Technical and managerial approach: This refers to the manner in which the contractor proposes to provide the support required. (10%) The following provisions and clauses apply: Provision 52.52.213-4 Terms and Conditions – Simplified Acquisitions (Other Than Commercial Items); Provision 52.252-1 Solicitation Provisions Incorporated by Reference. This solicitation incorporates one or more solicitation provisions by reference with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer will make their full text available. (End of Provision) Provisions52.212-1-Instructions to Offerors/Commercial; 52.212-2-Evaluation-Commercial Items; 52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items; 52.212-4 Contract Terms and conditions; 52.222-26 (EO 11246); 52.222-35 Equal Opportunity for Special Disabled Veterans, Veterans of the Vietnam Era and Other Eligible Veterans (38 U.S.C. 4212); 52.223-6 Drug Free Workplace, 52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-Central Contractor Registration (31 U.S.C. 3332); 52.222-41. 52-217-9 Option to Extend the Term of the Contract; This purchase order shall be for a basic contract period of six months with option to renew two additional six month periods. The Full text of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) can be accessed on the internet at www.arnet.gov/far. Parties responding to this solicitation may submit their offer in accordance with their standard commercial practices (e.g. on company letterhead, formal quote form, etc) but must include the following information: 1) company’s complete mailing and remittance addresses 2) discounts for prompt payment if applicable; 3) Dun & Bradstreet number; 4) Taxpayer ID number; 5) Catalog or Published Price Listing applicable to the service; 6) Offerors must meet specifications as noted in the synopsis. Offerors shall include a completed copy of the provision at 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications/Commercial Items with their offer. Note: Contractor must be registered with the Central Contractor Registration (www.ccr.gov). The Government intends to make a single award based on the lowest price technical accepted offeror to the eligible, responsible offeror whose offer conforms to the solicitation, and is the most advantageous to the Government. The Government reserves the right to make an award to that offeror whose quotation provides the best overall value to the Government. Interested offerors may submit proposals electronically only within 15 days from the posting of this notice no later than _04/30/2008 Eastern Standard Time 5:00 p.m. Offerors shall include a completed copy of the provision at 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications/Commercial Items with their offer. Note: Contractor must be registered with the Central Contractor Registration (www.ccr.gov). The Government intends to make a single award based on best value to the Government, technical and price factors considered. The anticipated award date for this requirement shall be on or before 05/12/08. No Phone Calls Please. Requests for information concerning this requirement are to be addressed to Ms. Andrea McGee via email only to amcgee@cc.nih.gov no later than, 04/23/08. Collect calls will not be accepted. No Phone Calls Please.
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- Place of Performance
- Address: 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892, United States
- Zip Code: 20892
- Zip Code: 20892
- Record
- SN01554224-W 20080417/080415220107-243fce57f15e930e985d1a3e2d8dcf3d (fbodaily.com)
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