Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF DECEMBER 25, 2003 FBO #0758
SOURCES SOUGHT

R -- Evaluation of Search Systems and Summarization Systems

Notice Date

12/23/2003
 

Notice Type

Sources Sought
 

Contracting Office

Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition and Logistics Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B129, Mail Stop 3571, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899-3571
 

ZIP Code

20899-3571
 

Solicitation Number

Reference-Number-894
 

Response Due

1/7/2004
 

Archive Date

1/22/2004
 

Point of Contact

Anita Tolliver, Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 975-6308, Fax (301) 975-8884, - Michael Szwed, Supervisory Contract Specialist, Phone 301-975-6330, Fax 301-975-8884,
 

E-Mail Address

anita.tolliver@nist.gov, Michael.Szwed@nist.gov
 

Description

This is a Market Research, Sources Sought synopsis seeking potential 8(a) small business concerns capable of providing an evaluation of natural language processing techniques for the intelligence community. The natural language processing techniques revolve around the evaluation of search systems and summarization systems. Search systems are systems such as Google that take a short statement in English of what is wanted and return pointers to documents that most likely contain that information. Summarization systems produce short synopses of a set of related documents. The evaluation of search systems is performed within a series of workshops known as TREC (Text REtrieval Conference); summarization is evaluated in DUC (Document Understanding Conference). Both conferences are held after the conclusion of the Contractor?s research. More details about TREC and DUC are given on the NIST web site at http://trec.nist.gov and http://duc.nist.gov. Since the intelligence community (the Department of Defense, National Security Administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency and others) is the target user for the systems ONLY potential 8(a) offerors with experience in intelligence analysis (i.e. people who have worked for these agencies gathering intelligence by examining large amounts of data from various sources) shall provide a response. This experience must be clearly shown and supported in the capability statement. The government estimates that the total number of man hours to complete this requirement for the Base Year will be approximately 7,300 hours performed on a sporadic basis between March 2004 and October 2004. The man hours are expected to be the same for each option year, and will also be performed on a sporadic basis. Because humans react to the data and task differently, it is critical to the integrity of the evaluation process that the test materials be created by a wide sample of potential users of the technology. Therefore, the Government requires a minimum of 30 different test samples (i.e. from 30 different people). The following is only an overview of the tasks required to complete the Government?s requirement for TREC research: develop 10-20 test questions (called topics) for the TREC testing cycle, read a pooled list of about 2,000 documents determining relevancy to the topic, search the TREC collections for answers to a set of questions, determine if answers to questions are appropriate. The following is only an overview of the tasks required to complete the Government's requirement for DUC research: from twenty-five clusters of documents (each cluster will contain on average 10 documents ranging in size from 10 sentences to 10 pages of singled-spaced text), create a very short summary (<= 75 bytes) of each document and from each cluster a short summary (<= 665 bytes). Additionally, select document clusters based on a question, each cluster shall contain on average 10 documents. From each of these ten documents, create a very short summary (<= 75 bytes) of each document and from each cluster a short summary (<= 665 bytes). Examine the output returned from the participating research groups systems and compare them to the contractor created summaries (very short and short summaries). Interested 8(a) firms shall provide the Government with (1) Name of Company-include a contact person's name, telephone number, and email address; (2) Company Address; (3) Company Size which shall be 8(a); (4) Identify whether the services identified above are of a type offered and sold competitively in substantial quantities in the commercial marketplace based on established catalog or market prices and whether these services are exclusively provided to the Government; (5) Identify standard commercial terms and conditions typically associated with these services; (6) Describe experience and past performance with similar types of requirements of similar scope and magnitude and whether they were performance-based - include the contract number; Government agency name and address; contract funded amount; (7) Identify existing or potential pricing structure in support of this type of work; and (8) Identify qualifications of technical and management personnel. ***** THIS SYNOPSIS IS FOR INFORMATION AND PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT A COMMITMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION ANNOUNCEMENT FOR PROPOSALS AND A CONTRACT WILL NOT BE AWARDED FROM THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. NO REIMBURSEMENT WILL BE MADE FOR ANY COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH PROVIDING INFORMATION IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND ANY FOLLOW-UP INFORMATION REQUESTS. ***** 8(a) firms interested in performing this requirement may reply to this RFI by January 7, 2004 addressing the elements above and any processes that would be used. Replies shall be provided in duplicate hard copy ONLY (one original and one copy). NO ELECTRONIC OF FAXED RESPONSES WILL BE ACCEPTED. There is a page limit of 50 for the capability statement. Proprietary processes or data must be clearly marked and documented as such. Respondents should include your firms Dun and Bradstreet Number (DUNS), Tax Identification Number (TIN) and Central Contractor Register Number (CCR). The Government will not pay for any materials furnished in response to this synopsis. Submittals furnished will not be returned to sender. Requests for other pertinent information may be address to Anita Tolliver at (301) 975-6308. Point of contact e-mail address is anita.tolliver@nist.gov
 

Place of Performance

Address: U.S. Department of Commerce, NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, MD

Zip Code: 20899-0001

Country: USA
 

Record

SN00494921-W 20031225/031223211810 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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