SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- Amendment 1 - LitCoin Foundational Knowledge Graph Generation
- Notice Date
- 7/10/2023 7:39:19 AM
- Notice Type
- Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH NIDA Bethesda MD 20892 USA
- ZIP Code
- 20892
- Solicitation Number
- 75N95023Q00223-RFQ
- Response Due
- 7/17/2023 6:00:00 AM
- Archive Date
- 08/01/2023
- Point of Contact
- Nick Niefeld, KJ Shaikh
- E-Mail Address
-
nick.niefeld@nih.gov, KJ.Shaikh@nih.gov
(nick.niefeld@nih.gov, KJ.Shaikh@nih.gov)
- Description
- �(i)������� This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6 as supplemented 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. (ii)������� The solicitation number is 75N95023Q00223-RFQ�and the solicitation is issued as a request for quotation (RFQ). This acquisition is for a commercial item or service and is conducted under the authority of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 13�Simplified Acquisition Procedures; FAR Subpart 13.5� Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items; and FAR Part 12�Acquisition of Commercial Items and is expected to exceed the simplified acquisition threshold. (iii)������ The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) Number 2023-04, with effective date 06/02/2023. (iv)������ The associated NAICS code 541519 - Other Computer Related Services and the small business size standard is $34M. This requirement is full and open with no set-aside restrictions. (v)������� The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation�s leading medical research agency and the primary Federal agency whose mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability, conducting, supporting, and making medical discoveries that improve people�s health and save lives. NCATS is one of 27 Institutes and Centers at the NIH and its mission is to catalyze the generation of innovative methods and technologies that will enhance the development, testing and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics across a wide range of human diseases and conditions. ODDPP promotes innovations that improve the efficiency of drug development from target identification � including expanding the target landscape � through early-stage clinical trials. With an ever-growing number of scientific studies in various subject domains, there is a vast landscape of biomedical information which is not easily accessible to the public, even though it is stored in open data repositories. Open scientific data repositories often lack the necessary metadata to make them sufficiently useful to most researchers, or simply are too vast to be explored fully. In order to make the most of these repositories, a consolidated linkage map that relates all scientific discoveries will be necessary. One potential way to build this map is to create highly-connected knowledge graphs that can transform open data repositories by increasing usability. These graphs can assist in identifying gaps in medical research and accelerating research for unexplored medical domains. However, open medical data on its own is not enough to deliver its full potential for public health. Engaging technologists, members of the scientific and medical communities and the public in creating knowledge graphs from open data repositories, funders can exponentially increase data utility and value to help solve pressing national health issues. NCATS held a Stakeholder Feedback Workshop� in June of 2021 to solicit feedback on this concept and its implications for researchers, publishers, and the broader scientific community, and used that feedback to build an overall plan for implementation of LitCoin. One important piece of feedback from that workshop suggested that implementation of such a potentially disruptive concept would necessitate a pilot program within a narrower research space than �all biomedical research�. This has led to a collaboration with the HEAL Initiative, with the hopes of capitalizing on the highly collaborative nature of research in pain, addiction, and related scientific areas to demonstrate LitCoin�s potential to impact the current biomedical data sharing landscape. In preparation for the LitCoin Pilot Program, a highly-connected and highly-accurate knowledge graph representing the bulk of knowledge in the pain and addiction research space must be generated, which will form the foundation that will spur future research and new discoveries. The generation of this graph will normalize having authors curate knowledge assertions generated from the text of their published research, empowering other researchers to amplify their findings and reuse their data in new ways.�� In 2021, NCATS performed the LitCoin Natural Language Processing (NLP) Challenge� with the objective of (1) helping data scientists better deploy their data-driven technology solutions towards accelerating scientific research in medicine and (2) ensuring that data from biomedical publications can be maximally leveraged and reach a wide range of biomedical researchers; together this will drive toward solutions for the critical problems these scientists aim to solve. As a result, eight (8) NLP systems that accurately capture the information denoted in free text and provide output of this information through knowledge graphs were obtained by NCATS. As a result, the development of a system that can generate knowledge graphs from the free text of PubMed abstracts, using Natural Language Processing systems will allow HEAL researchers to expand the reach of their scientific discoveries, even those that normally would be difficult to publish through traditional means. This will normalize the pre-curation of research findings by the researchers who generated them, creating a highly-accurate knowledge graph which will contain the bulk of the knowledge in the pain and addiction research space (vi)������ This is a performance-based acquisition as described in FAR Part 37.6. Offerors are encouraged to propose innovative and cost-effective methods of performing the work through the use of measurable performance standards. NCATS expects offerors to describe their approach to this work and to identify schedules, performance standards, deliverables, metrics, optional services, and milestones for payment that will be written into the final Performance Work Statement (PWS) that will be incorporated into the contract. The Contractor shall generate a 90% accuracy knowledge graph representing knowledge of approximately 5000 published papers in the HEAL research space to be deployed on NCATS cloud environment and be accessible to the scientific community by means of a web interface. The Statement of Objective (SOO) with a description of the objectives to be achieved is included as an attachment to this Solicitation. The Government Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP) will be negotiated with the contractor at the time of contract award and will incorporate the contractor�s proposed Quality Assurance Plan (QAP). (vii)����� The government intends to issue a time and materials (T&M) contract, and all proposals must be submitted on that basis. The not to exceed ceiling on this contract shall be $1,123,300.00 for the base period of performance and up to an additional $1,123,300.00 for one (1) option period. Offerors are expected to submit a proposal reflective of its solution to fulfill the government�s requirements. The Government will not be liable for any costs exceeding the ceiling price of the requirement. (viii)���� The provision at FAR 52.252-1, Solicitation Provisions Incorporated by Reference (Feb 1998), applies to this acquisition. 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. The offeror is cautioned that the listed provisions may include blocks that must be completed by the offeror and submitted with its quotation or offer. In lieu of submitting the full text of those provisions, the offeror may identify the provision by paragraph identifier and provide the appropriate information with its quotation or offer. Also, the full text of a solicitation provision may be accessed electronically at these addresses:� https://www.acquisition.gov/browse/index/far�� https://www.hhs.gov/grants/contracts/contract-policies-regulations/hhsar/index.html�� (End of provision) The following provisions apply to this acquisition and are incorporated by reference: FAR 52.204-7, System for Award Management (Oct 2018) FAR 52.204-16, Commercial and Government Entity Code Reporting (Aug 2020) FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items (Mar 2023) FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items (Dec 2022) FAR 52.216-31 Time-and-Materials/Labor-Hour Proposal Requirements�Commercial Acquisition (Nov 2021) FAR 52.229-11 Tax on Certain Foreign Procurements�Notice and Representation (Jun 2020) HHSAR 352.239-73, Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Notice (December 18, 2015) The clause at FAR 52.252-2, Clauses Incorporated by Reference (Feb 1998), applies to this acquisition. This contract incorporates one or more clauses 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. Also, the full text of a clause may be accessed electronically at these addresses: https://www.acquisition.gov/browse/index/far���� https://www.hhs.gov/grants/contracts/contract-policies-regulations/hhsar/index.html� (End of clause) The following clauses apply to this acquisition and are incorporated by reference: FAR 52.204-13, System for Award Management Maintenance (Oct 2018) FAR 52.204-18, Commercial and Government Entity Code Maintenance (Aug 2020) FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions�Commercial Products and Commercial Services (Dec 2022). Addendum to this FAR clause applies to this acquisition and is attached. FAR 52.227-14, Rights in Data-General (May 2014). Pursuant to paragraph (d), the Contractor may not assert copyright, make use of release to others, reproduce, distribute, or publish any data first produced or specifically used by the Contractor in the performance of this contract without prior approval of the contracting officer. HHSAR 352.222-70, Contractor Cooperation in Equal Employment Opportunity Investigations (December 18, 2015) HHSAR 352.239-74, Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility (December 18, 2015) The following provisions and clauses apply to this acquisition and are attached in full text.� Offerors MUST complete the provisions at 52.204-24 and 52.204-26 and submit completed copies as separate documents with their proposal. FAR 52.204-24 Representation Regarding Certain Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Services or Equipment (Nov 2021) FAR 52.204-26 Covered Telecommunications Equipment or Services-Representation (Oct 2020) FAR 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders--Commercial Items (Jun 2023) NIH Invoice and Payment Provisions (ix)������ The Government will perform a comparative evaluation of responses in accordance with FAR 13.106-2(b) to award a contract from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose response meets the solicitation�s requirements and, as a whole, is most advantageous to the Government, considering price and other factors in this solicitation. The evaluation will compare: (a) Technical capability of the service offered to meet the Government requirement including the Performance Work Statement (PWS) and Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) submitted. The technical capability must also include a description of the Quoter�s plans, if any, to provide services through a subcontractor; (b) Price; and (c) Past Performance as defined under FAR 13.106-2(b)(3). If only one quotation is received it will be evaluated on the preceding basis. All evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined, are more important than price. If the proposed contract exceeds a total estimated cost of $750,000 for the entire period of performance, the offeror shall be required to submit an acceptable subcontracting plan in accordance with the terms of the clause entitled ""Small Business Subcontracting Plan,"" FAR Clause No. 52.219-9, incorporated herein by reference in the Solicitation. Instructions on how to submit the subcontract plan are provided in the attached Terms and Conditions. Quoters are encouraged to provide specific Technical Capability, Key Personnel, and Past Performance on services related to Translational Science, HEAL initiative, Natural Language Process (NLP), and knowledge graphs, for evaluation purposes. The Contractor must designate both a Project Manager (PM) as Key Personnel for this project. The PM will be a direct liaison to the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) and will be responsible for the supervision and management of all of the Contractor�s personnel. The PM must have a full understanding of the technical approach to be used by the Contractor�s development team and will be responsible for ensuring that the Contractor�s development team follows that approach. The quoter shall provide a resume for each person proposed for the project. All staff for which resumes are submitted will be considered key staff and dedicated to this project if a contract is awarded. A description of all corresponding commercial job titles, experience, functional responsibility and education for those types of employees who will perform services shall be provided. The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced. Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s). Responses may exceed capability or performance characteristics of the solicitation�s requirements. The Government reserves the right, but is not required, to award to a response that exceeds capability or performance characteristics of the solicitation�s requirements if it provides a benefit to the Government; and the Government is not requesting or accepting alternate proposal(s). (x)������� The Offerors to include a completed copy of the provision at FAR clause 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications�Commercial Products and Commercial Services (Dec 2022), with its offer. If the offeror has completed FAR clause 52.212-3 at www.sam.gov, then the offeror does not need to provide a completed copy with its offer. (xi)������ The clause at FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items (Dec 2022), applies to this acquisition. Addendum to this FAR clause applies to this acquisition and is attached. (xii)����� The following additional contract requirement(s) or terms and conditions as determined by the contracting officer are necessary for this acquisition and consistent with customary commercial practices. The additional terms and conditions apply to this solicitation and are provided as an attachment. (xiii)���� The Defense Priorities and Allocations System (DPAS) are not applicable to this requirement. (xiv)���� Responses to this solicitation must include sufficient information to establish the interested parties� bona-fide capabilities of providing the product or service. The price capability of fulfilling the requirement as it relates to the technical evaluation criteria. The price proposal must include the labor categories, an estimate of the number of hours required for each labor category, fully loaded fixed hourly rate or each labor category, breakdown and rationale for other direct costs or materials, and the total amount. The contractor may reallocate, without prior written approval, the number of hours by labor category within the labor CLIN as needed to effectively manage the project, provided the total funded labor cost is not exceeded. Any additional labor categories or increases to ceilings or labor rates required during performance must be approved by the Contracting Officer and added to the contract by modification. The Unique Entity ID from SAM.gov, the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size must be included in the response. All offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov. All questions must be received by 9 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, on June 29, 2023, and reference Solicitation Number 75N95023Q00223-RFQ. Questions may be submitted electronically to Nick Niefeld, Contract Specialist at nick.niefeld@nih.gov All quotations must be received by 9 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, on July 17, 2023, and reference Solicitation Number 75N95023Q00223-RFQ. Responses must be submitted electronically to Nick Niefeld, Contract Specialist at nick.niefeld@nih.gov. All questions received for RFQ�75N95023Q00223 have been answered in Amendment 1 as an attachment to this soliciation. Fax responses will not be accepted. Attachments: Statement of Objectives (SOO) FAR 52.204-24, Representation Regarding Certain Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Services or Equipment (Nov 2021) FAR 52.204-26, Covered Telecommunications Equipment or Services-Representation (Oct 2020) Addendum to FAR 52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions�Commercial Products and Commercial Services. FAR 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders�Commercial Products and Commercial Services (Jun 2023) Invoice and Payment Provisions with and without IPP (Apr 2022) Other Terms and Conditions Amendment 1 - Questions answered
- Web Link
-
SAM.gov Permalink
(https://sam.gov/opp/292016f2b35647c4bf662f757c01e33f/view)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Rockville, MD 20850, USA
- Zip Code: 20850
- Country: USA
- Zip Code: 20850
- Record
- SN06741775-F 20230712/230710230045 (samdaily.us)
- Source
-
SAM.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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