SOLICITATION NOTICE
B -- Improve the standard errors and confidence intervals for the HD*Calc software.
- Notice Date
- 8/24/2015
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541690
— Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Office of Acquisitions, 9609 Medical Center Drive, Room 1E128, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20852
- Solicitation Number
- N02PC52696-61
- Archive Date
- 9/23/2015
- Point of Contact
- KATHY D. ELLIOTT, Phone: 240-276-5570, Seena Ninan, Phone: 240-276-5419
- E-Mail Address
-
ELLIOTTK@MAIL.NIH.GOV, ninans@mail.nih.gov
(ELLIOTTK@MAIL.NIH.GOV, ninans@mail.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The National Cancer Institute (NCI), Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), Statistical Research and Applications Branch (SRP) plans to procure on a sole source basis services to Improve the standard errors and confidence intervals for the HD*Calc software from Georgetown University, Department of Biostatistics, Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, and Biomathematics, Georgetown University Medical Center, Room 182, Building D, 4000 Reservoir Road, N.W., Washington, District of Columbia 20057-1484, USA. This acquisition will be processed in accordance with simplified acquisition procedures as stated in FAR Part 13.106-1(b)(1) and is exempt from the requirements of FAR Part 6. The North American Industry Classification System code is 541690 and the business size standard is $14.0 Million. Only one award will be made as a result of this solicitation. This will be awarded as a firm fixed price type contract. The period of performance is twelve (12) months from date of award. It has been determined there are no opportunities to acquire green products or services for this procurement. The National Cancer Institute propose to provide the necessary support to evaluate the coverage property of the confidence intervals for the two methods currently available in the HD*Calc through simulation studies and to develop and evaluate improved alternative methods to the two current methods if it's necessary. As an effort to reach the Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020 goals of achieving health equity, eliminating disparities, and improving the health of all groups, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) established a contract to produce two monographs, which compared and reviewed various disparity indices. HD*Calc is a statistical software created as an extension of the two monographs, and was designed so that public health practitioners and researchers can examine and compare different disparities indices using their own data. Two methods of measuring the uncertainty of the estimates are currently implemented in the software: a Taylor series linearization method and a Bootstrap method. No evaluation study has been done to examine the coverage property (how often the confidence interval can cover the true value if the sample is repeated many times) of the two methods. There is a statistical need of practical importance to evaluate the coverage property of the current methods. The Contractor shall perform the following tasks: Task 1: Evaluate the coverage properties of the confidence intervals for the two methods currently available in HD*Calc through simulation studies The contractor shall perform simulation studies to evaluate the coverage properties of the confidence intervals produced by the two current methods in HD*Calc for all the health disparity measures implemented in the software under different scenarios, e.g., assuming independent Poisson distributions for cancer rate problems, assuming proportions from surveys using simple random sampling. Task 2: Develop improved alternative method(s) and conduct simulation studies to evaluate the coverage properties of the new method(s) Upon the evaluation results from Task 1, the contractor shall develop alternative method(s) to the currently available Bootstrap method (this may include other bootstrap methods and/or generalized inference methods). The NCI statisticians will also develop improved Taylor Series methods for a few disparity measures that involve proportions. The contractor shall then conduct simulation studies to evaluate the coverage properties of the confidence intervals for the new methods developed by the contractor and the NCI statisticians. The Georgetown University's Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, and Biomathematics (DBBB) is uniquely qualified to perform the requested services. The Georgetown University's DBBB maintains an active research program both in the development of new biostatistical methodology and in the collaboration on important research projects in the prevention and treatment of cancer and other biomedical research areas. The contractor's extensive experience on cancer prevention and control, health disparity measure studies using the existing HD*Calc software, development of improved confidence intervals in complex situations; and in the evaluation of their performance through simulation studies makes the contractor uniquely qualified source to perform the requested tasks. The Georgetown University's DBBB faculties are well known for their expertise in this unique niche area of statistical methodology for cancer prevention and control, health disparity measure studies, development of improved confidence intervals in complex situations and in the evaluation of their performance through simulation studies. This is substantiated by their presentations at various professional meetings (e.g., Joint Statistical Meetings, the International Conference on Robust Statistics). Based on the contractor's publications, presentations, and searching efforts while in attendance at recent statistical meetings (e.g., attending the most recent joint statistical meetings, the largest statistical conference in North America), NCI found no other company or individual has the knowledge or expertise in this unique area needed by the Statistical Research & Applications Branch at NCI. This notice is not a request for competitive quotation. However, if any interested party, especially small businesses, believes it can meet the above requirement, it may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency. The statement of capabilities and any other information furnished must be in writing and must contain material in sufficient detail to allow NCI to determine if the party can perform the requirement. Responses must be received in the contracting office by 11:00AM EST, on September 8, 2015. All responses and questions must be in writing and faxed 240-276-5401 or emailed to Kathy Elliott, Contract Specialist via electronic mail at Elliottk@mail.nih.gov. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. No collect calls will be accepted. In order to receive an award, contractors must be registered and have valid certification in the System for Award Management (SAM) through sam.gov. Reference: N02PC52696-61on all correspondence.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/RCB/N02PC52696-61/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: 9609 Medical Center Drive, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892, United States
- Zip Code: 20892
- Zip Code: 20892
- Record
- SN03851819-W 20150826/150824234931-7e9c7bf82484aca6d1b71e54afb8c584 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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