National Library of Medicine, Office of Acquistions Management, 8600 Rockville Pike, Building 38A, Room B1N17, Bethesda, Maryland 20894

70 -- 70 - LICENSE FOR A STATISTICAL PROGRAMMING SYSTEM FOR MAINFRAME, PCS, MACINTOSHES, AND WORKSTATIONS SOL NLM 95-208/RMC DUE 061895 POC Robin M. Cummings, Contract Specialist, (301) 496-6546. It is the intent of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to negotiate on a sole source basis pursuant to FAR 6.302-1 and U.S.C. 253(c)(1) with the SAS Institute, Cary, North Carolina, for site licenses, new software products, documentation, service bureau fees, technical support, and training, for a statistical software system with a high level programming language which performs ten major functions: 1) information storage and retrieval; 2) data modification and programming; 3) report writing; 4) statistical analyses; 5) file handling and maintenance; 6) color graphics; 7) access data directly from IBM's DB2 product, SPSS SAVE FILES and BMDP system files; 8) econometrics and time-series procedures; 9) operations research procedures; and 10) full screen editing. The system shall be able to read data in virtually any form from tape or disk, and store the data in a self-documenting system file. Reports on the status and contents of the system file shall be easily obtained. The system shall have the capability to modify data, compile program statements that perform standard operations such as creating new variables, accumulating totals, detecting and correcting errors, and storing compiled code without recompiling each time the code is executed. The report writing features of the system shall be very flexible. In addition to creating preformatted reports, the user must be able to program his own uniquely styled reports for reports reproduction on tape, disk, or printer. The system shall: support financial report writing; provide all the standard statisical capabilities such as descriptive statistics, regression analysis, analysis of variance on unbalanced data using virtually any design, categorical data analysis, multivariate analysis, discriminant analysis, cluster analysis; and have the capability to handle any nonstandard statistical analysis so long as it can be expressed in traditional matrix notation. The file handling capabilities shall be extensive. Sorting, editing, subsetting, concatenating, merging and updating data sets shall be handled with ease. On-line editing and querying of system input files must be possible. Users must be able to: process multiple input files simultaneously and write multiple output files in one pass of the data; copy data sets, with ease, investigate and report on the contents of a tape; and move entire program libraries. The system shall: provide color graphics capabilities that include producing bar, pie and star charts, 2 and 3 dimensional plots and maps (U.S. and World), and support virtually any device driver; interface to major database management systems such as ORACLE and IBM's DB2 and shall interface with other major statisitcal packages such as SPSS and BMDP; process time series data, model the behavior of univariate or multivariate time series processes and perform computer systems modeling with a view toward increasing operating system efficiency; and provide interactive menu-driven facilities for data entry, editing and retrieval. The application facility shall have the ability to create a user-friendly front-end for data analysis or information processing application, customized training programs and help facilities. These capabilities shall be operable on an IBM 327x or compatible display terminal. The operations research capabilities shall include solutions to assignment problems, critical path analysis, linear programming methods, network analysis and solution to transportation problems. The system shall be open-ended to allow for additional capabilities to be programmed using the C language. These new capabilities can in turn be called using the standard language of the system; must have the ability to compile the C language; and must include an Open Database Connectivity that shall provide other software the ability to read and write the system files. The system's capability shall also include an E-mail dialog to send system files and reports, and support client/server applications in order to establish connections with one or more remote sessions. All the above capabilities shall: 1) be included in one language and shall operate on an MVS mainframe using in batch mode and under TSO, OpenVMS, Alpha OpenVMS, IBM PC and compatibles, WINDOWS, WINDOWS NT, OS/2 and UNIX workstations; and 2) have the capability to upload and download both programs and system files so applications can be developed and run either on the MVS mainframe or desktops. SAS Intitute is the sole owner of the site licenses for its proprietary software system. NIH has been using SAS products since 1974 and currently has approximately 2,000 users on the mainframe and approximately 400 users on PCs and workstations. It has been determined that SAS Institute is the only source with the necessary statistical software system containing the above features and the only firm capable of fulfilling NLM's requirements without undue delays. All responsible sources may submit a proposal which will be considered by the National Library of Medicine. A fixed price, indefinite delivery (indefinite quantity) type contract with a basic term of nine (9) months with options for four (4) successive one-year periods and an option for three (3) months for a potential term of sixty (60) months is contemplated. Negotiation with SAS Institute is pending receipt of a Delegation of Procurement Authority from GSA. See Numbered Note(s): 22. (0124)

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