SOLICITATION NOTICE
99 -- ITK Algorithms, Extensibility, Integration, & Outreach for SimpleITK 2015: - Attachment 1
- Notice Date
- 8/25/2015
- Notice Type
- Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
- NAICS
- 611310
— Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 105, Bethesda, Maryland, 20894, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20894
- Solicitation Number
- RFP_NIHLM2015597KB
- Archive Date
- 9/23/2015
- Point of Contact
- Keturah D. Busey, Phone: 3014966546, Robin V. Hope, Phone: 301-435-4379
- E-Mail Address
-
buseyk@mail.nlm.nih.gov, hoperv@mail.nih.gov
(buseyk@mail.nlm.nih.gov, hoperv@mail.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- Attachment 2: NLM(RC) Right in Data- Special Works Statement of Work The enclosed RFPis to provide support for the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Lister Hill Center (LHC). This acquisition is being conducted in accordance with FAR 13: Simplified Acquisitions and FAR Part 12: Commercial Items. Interested parties should submit their proposals in accordance with the following instructions. Offerors are required to submit both a written Technical Proposal and Business Proposal to Government officials for the purposes of acquiring supplies and/or services from the Contractor(s) that is fully cognizant of the scope of this requirement and has the capability to complete all requirements described in the solicitation. Proposals which merely offer to conduct a program in accordance with the requirements of the Government's scope of work will not be eligible for award. The Statement of Work for this requirement is included in the Attachments Section of this solicitation in a single file as Attachment 1. FAR 52.216-1 TYPE OF CONTRACT (APR 1984) The Government contemplates award of multiple firm-fixed price type purchase orders resulting from this solicitation. The Government intends to award without discussions with offerors. However, the Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if later determined by the Contracting Officer to be necessary. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE The resulting awards period of performance will be for a period of 12 months from the date of award. SOLICITATION TECHNICAL INQUIRIES AND QUESTIONS All questions regarding the solicitation, of a contractual nature or technical nature, must be submitted in writing via e-mail to Keturah Busey at buseyk@mail.nlm.nih.gov and cc: Robin, Hope at hoperv@mail.nlm.nih.gov no later than Tuesday, September 1, 2015, 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Please include the solicitation number "RFP_NIHLM2015597KB" in the subject line. Questions with the Government's responses will be posted to Fedbizopps through an amendment. Please be advised that the Government reserves the right to transmit those questions and answers of a common interest to all prospective Offerors. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION NLM requires proposals to be submitted electronically through the NLM Electronic Contract Proposal System (eCPS) using the following link: https://ecps.nih.gov/nlm. All proposals received via eCPS by September 8, 2015 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time will be considered by NLM. For directions on using eCPS, go to https://ecps.nih.gov/nlm and click on "How to Submit." NOTE: To submit your electronic proposal using eCPS, all offerors must have a valid NIH External Directory Account, which provides authentication and serves as a vehicle for secure transmission of documents and communication with the NLM. The NIH External Directory Account registration process may take up to 24 hours to become active. Submission of proposals by facsimile or e-mail is not accepted. Firms interested in responding to this notice must be able to provide the professional services required by NLM outlined in the attached Statement of Work. The offeror shall include all information necessary to document and/or support the qualification criteria in one clearly marked section of its proposal. All responses from responsible sources will be considered. INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARING TECHNICAL PORTION OF PROPOSAL: The Technical Portion of your proposal shall include: (i) the purpose of the proposed work; (ii) the relationship and benefits of the project to the SimpleITK/ITK effort; (iii) the advantages that the proposed work derives from SimpleITK/ITK; (iv) how the proposed work differs from or relates to existing work in ITK and its related software; (v) the personnel and resources to be committed to the proposed work; and (vi) a budget for the work. The Technical Proposal for each response to the RFPshall be limited to 5 pages, single-spaced, 12 point font with 1-inch margins (top, bottom, left, and right). Beyond the 5 pages of technical proposal, resumes of key investigators, reprints of relevant technical papers, and other supplemental materials can be provided outside the page limit. A cover page for the Technical Proposal is required. The cover page is not part of the 5-page limit for the technical proposal. The cover page should include the following information: 1. Title for the Proposal 2. Name of the Offering Institution 3. Name of the Principal Investigator 4. Expected cost (include direct and indirect/overhead costs) for the proposed work. 5. Short description or abstract of the proposed work (150 word limit) 6. Address of the Offering Institution (including e-mail, fax, phone, and surface-mail address). 7. List of all named personnel/investigators in the proposal along with their affiliations A single offeror or institution may submit multiple project proposals for different deliverables, providing each proposal is a separate and discrete software development project. Multiple awards are anticipated, and a single P.I. may receive more than one award. INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARING BUSINESS PORTION OF PROPOSAL The Business Proposal for each offer shall be limited to 10 pages, single spaced, 12 point font with 1-inch margins (top, bottom, left, and right). The Business Proposal should include a description of the offering firm or institution, its history, location, and the place of performance for the proposed work. Since the funding for this effort is being provided by the NLM, the majority of the proposed work must be completed in a place of performance within the United States. The Business Proposal should also describe any experience by the offering institution for software quality assurance, open-source software development and delivery, and policies regarding the distribution of intellectual property under open source licenses (specifically the use of a BSD-style license, familiarity with the licensing practices associated with ITK,or direct release of property to the public domain). A cover page for the Business Proposal is required. The cover page is not part of the 10-page limit for the business proposal. The cover page should include the following information: 1. Title for the Proposal 2. Name of the Offering Institution 3. Name of the Prinicipal Investigator 4. Expected cost (include direct and indirect/overhead costs) for the proposed work. 5. Short description or abstract of the proposed work (150 word limit) 6. Address of the Offering Institution (including e-mail, fax, phone, and surface-mail address). 7. List of all named personnel/investigators in the proposal along with their affiliations A. Cost/Price Technical Factors are more important than cost or price. Selection of the firm to perform this task order will be based on the Government's assessment of the best overall value. Offerors will be evaluated based upon cost/price completeness and accuracy to determine the validity of the price and cost/price reasonableness. Total estimated ceiling price to accomplish the requirement will be utilized as a basis for evaluating price. The factors below will be used to assess whether the Offerors' proposal is complete, accurate, and realistic to minimize cost or performance risk. Cost/Price Completeness and Accuracy: The Government will review the cost/ price schedules for completeness and accuracy. A determination will be made as to whether the Offeror has properly understood the business proposal instructions and properly completed the cost/price schedules. Changes to the evaluation quantities, blanks or zeros in the pricing columns, and/or mathematical mistakes are subject to clarification for confirmation of the Offeror's intent. The Offeror's proposal will be checked for mathematical correctness to include the following: 1. Checking arithmetic in all computations. 2. Making sure that all prices/costs are summarized correctly. 3. Comparing electronic submittals with hard copies; if applicable. A determination will be made regarding whether the cost/price appears unbalanced, either for the total cost/price of the proposal or separately priced line items. An analysis will be made by item, quantity, and year to identify any irregular or unusual pricing patterns. An unbalanced proposal is one that incorporates prices that are less than cost for some items and/or prices that are overstated for other items. TRANSMITTAL AND COVER LETTER The offeror's transmittal and cover letter for the proposal must contain the name, phone number, and e-mail address of the person to be contacted concerning any matter related to the solicitation. The National Library of Medicine may, for example, contact that individual to schedule and make arrangements for the offeror's discussion meetings, if necessary. Include the following information in your proposal 1. DUNS number and TIN; 2. Company Name mailing address, and website address; 3. Date submitted and proposal expiration date; 4. All of the above-cited information for each entity on the proposed team, if a team is proposed; 5. NAICS code appropriate to this Solicitation; 6. Do you have a Government approved accounting system? If so, please identify the agency that approved the system; 7. Type of Company (i.e., small business, 8(a), woman owned, veteran owned, College, University, etc.) as validated via the System for Award Management (SAM). All offerors must register in SAM located at http://www.sam.gov/; 8. Company Point of Contact, Phone and Email address. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The offeror should provide an executive summary for the technical proposal. In the executive summary, the offeror should highlight the significant factors of its technical proposal. The executive summary for the technical approach should be no more than 1 page long. In the event that the offeror is planning to propose a teaming, mentor/protégée, or a subcontracting relationship, narrative statements must also be included for the additional organizations, as well as a clear delineation of tasks that they will be expected to support. REVIEW OF PROPOSALS Review of proposals will be accomplished by a Technical Evaluation Group (TEG) in compliance with NIH policy and procedure. The technical proposal will receive paramount consideration in the selection of the offerors for this acquisition. In the event that the technical evaluation reveals that two or more offerors are approximately equal in the technical ability, then cost may become a significant factor in determining award. In any event, the government reserves the right to make an award based on a best value determination, cost and other factors considered. Vendors merely proposing to provide a service in accordance with the statement of work will not be eligible for award. The proposal must include a comprehensive plan for meeting the needs of the Government, addressing each of the requirements of the statement of work and explaining the proposed technical approach to be used. Failure to provide the information required to evaluate the proposal may result in the rejection of the proposal without further consideration. In determining which offer represents the best value to meet the Government's needs, the Government will evaluate responses using the following evaluation criteria that are listed in descending order of priority: Criteria 1 (30 Points): Understanding the Requirement and Technical Approach (scientific, technical, or analytical approach to achieve project objectives, including a demonstrated understanding of potential problems.) The proposal must demonstrate a thorough understanding of the requirements of the Statement of Objectives and Research Requirements and describes an approach that will demonstrate the achievement of timely and acceptable performance. The proposal presents a comprehensive statement of the problem, scope, and purpose of the project to demonstrate an understanding of the requirements from a management and technical standpoint. The proposal should describe: I. programming that extends ITK through incorporating additional algorithm families not already represented in ITK or projects that incorporate ITK into software and hardware systems in support of clinical or medical research applications (with an emphasis on multidisciplinary, practical applications not yet covered by ITK such as microscopic image analysis, ultrasonography, video processing, and other topics). All work on these core algorithm developments should be executed in C++ in ITK, and the necessary JSON files and other metadata produced to generate the necessary language bindings for extended use through SimpleITK. AND/OR II. programming to overhaul and upgrade some valuable or necessary existing applications, examples, or algorithm family within ITK with the express purpose of improving compile and performance testing, enabling streaming for large data, out-of-core computing, promoting thread safety and encouraging multithreaded programming, and leveraging ITK hardware acceleration techniques. All work improving such core algorithm developments should be executed in C++ in ITK, and the necessary JSON files and other metadata produced to generate the necessary language bindings for extended use through SimpleITK. AND/OR III. extension of SimpleITK and ITK to other development environments, notably exposing data structures for easy access with NumPy/SciPy programming. Specifically, we are seeking integration improvements with the core scientific Python package NumPy by having the SimpleITK's Image class directly export the "buffer interface", while preserving the Image's controlled access patterns to enable copy-on-write behavior. Alternately or additionally, to facilitate importing data from Numpy and other generic "buffers", we would like more support for more complicated memory layouts which include strides should be explored for ITK's ImportImageContainer class. AND/OR IV. easing the use of SimpleITK with current scientific computing environments, namely Python-based NumPy/SciPy models, through automated CMake-supported building, installation and packaging of SimpleITK through Python's standard distutils' "setup" interface from the python setup script. This will enable Python users to use Python standards tools for package management such as pip with SimpleITK without directly using CMake. Additionally this should support automatic downloads and compilation of source code for installation directly from source code archives. AND/OR V. demonstration of SimpleITK and ITK by assembling image analysis suites from available algorithmic building blocks, for example constructing a framework for atlas-based segmentation through existing SimpleITK/ITK tools in segmentation of individual datasets and SimpleITK registration of unknown datasets to known atlas models. AND/OR VI. planning and executing educational efforts to promote SimpleITK as part of university curricula in the form of undergraduate or graduate course material on the subject of bio-medical image analysis as well as tutorials at conferences and professional societies, while building tutorials, examples, and teaching materials that can be incorporated into the SimpleITK web site and other portals for continuing outreach. Specifically the proposal must demonstrate: (a) Relevance of the proposed application area to the specific areas of interest outlined in the Statement of Objectives and Research Requirements, including the emphasis of the solicitation on 3D (or higher dimensional) algorithms or data suitable for algorithm validation. (b) The importance of the proposed application area, that is, the potential for its use as part of the Visible Human Project Insight Toolkit. Importance will be judged on the contribution of the datasets, the algorithms, educational material, or software demonstration of SimpleITK to the broadening of the community of ITK users. Classes of algorithms that are already represented in ITK will be scored lower than methods that are not currently covered by the toolkit. Interfacing ITK to software packages with established user communities will help amplify the contribution of the ITK project among researchers in medical image analysis. Proposals should describe the expected impact of their contribution both to the intended user group, and the concomitant benefit to the Visible Human Project Insight Toolkit. (c) The demonstrated level of understanding of the image understanding issues and problems related to the proposed application as they pertain to the analysis and processing of medical images. (d) The demonstrated level of understanding of the software development issues and problems associated with distributed code development among a consortium of programming teams. Criteria 2 (40 Points): Qualifications and Availability of Proposed Personnel (demonstrated evidence of the qualifications, experience, and availability of professional and technical personnel comprising the necessary project staff.) The proposal must demonstrate and document the relevant expertise, education, availability, and experience of the proposed personnel to be assigned and available for work under the project. Specifically, the proposal must demonstrate and document: (a) Background expertise - the extent to which the key personnel and the project team as a whole have access to the range of educational backgrounds in software engineering for revising open source software. (b) Experience - the extent to which the key personnel and the project team include significant experience and expertise in the design and implementation of C++ object oriented programming. Qualifications may include: 1) Demonstrated and documented experience with ITK in the form of software contributions, bug fixes, examples, tutorials, testing, or other to ITK. 2) Published papers in the Insight Journal 3) Documented experience in advanced applications incorporating ITK. 4) Experience in volume data collection and data analysis for clinical applications, biomedical research, and/or algorithm validation. 5) Published materials documenting research projects that demonstrate programming experience in biomedical image analysis or biomedical data visualization using object-oriented languages 6) Other published materials documenting research projects that demonstrate user interface development to ease the use of complex programming environments. (c) Knowledge of Application Domains - Implementing ITK requires more than just programming expertise, but also knowledge of key scientific or biomedical user domains necessary to meet the objectives of this requirement. Proposals may be evaluated on the extent to which the key personnel and the project team include significant experience and expertise in the specific fields required for the applications area proposed. Qualifications may include: i) Experience in High Performance Computing for routine volume data analysis, including methods such as: general purpose GPU programming, multi-core/many-core computing, or cluster/grid/cloud computing, especially using C++. ii) Experience in improving user accessibility of complex computing environments, multiple language binding, or technical writing including tutorials, primers, or other user-level documentation. iii) Experience in data-intensive image processing fields such as high-resolution 3D microscopy or DICOM programming. The staffing plan must map named personnel to technical objectives or tasks described in criterion 1 of this technical evaluation plan. Criteria 3 (15 Points): Institutional Experience/Commitment (Commitment to open-source software and open science: a clear understanding and support from the institution that all deliverables will be part of the Insight Toolkit, that all deliverables will be released in the public domain as open source software, that no limitations will be placed on the intellectual property associated with any deliverables, and that the final deliverables will be released under the ITK license.) The proposal must demonstrate and document the degree of commitment of the various entities involved in the proposed software development process and the commitment to distributing the product code and related deliverables in source-code form under the ITK license. Support of this experience and commitment should be expressed through (a) documentation of previous releases of software using SimpleITK or ITK with an appropriate open source license, (b) a letter of support from the offeror's Dean or Chief Operating Officer or similar official stating the offeror's commitment to releasing patent privileges and copyrights of work performed under this requirement to the public domain, and/or (c) the text of the copyright or license, documented or clearly cited for its source, used by the offeror in previous releases of open source software and/or public domain data. Criteria 4 (10 Points): Proposed Facilities and Equipment (availability and proposed utilization.) The contractor should have a demonstrated ongoing active research interest and an in-house program in clinical or biomedical information processing or the use of medical computing in health services research. This requirement is necessary to ensure the contractor has the established background and knowledge required to make practical advances in these complex areas of research. NLM wishes to establish relationships with institutions or organizations that have independent/complementary research interests to ensure continued development towards the eventual goal of comprehensive algorithm coverage in ITK. The contractor should also have access to members of the principal user groups for which ITK is intended (i.e., computer software designers and toolbuilders for health sciences practitioners, educators, health services researchers, biomedical researchers) who can be used to test the effectiveness of the structures and models developed. The proposal must describe the availability and proposed utilization of appropriate facilities and equipment required to successfully perform work in the proposed application area. This includes access to source data and validation instrumentation. Criteria 5 (5 Points): Past Performance Offeror's past performance information will be evaluated subsequent to the technical evaluation. However, this evaluation will not be conducted on any offeror whose proposal is determined to be technically unacceptable. The evaluation will be based on information obtained from references provided by the offeror, other relevant past performance information obtained from other sources known to the Government, and any information supplied by the offeror concerning problems encountered on the identified contracts and corrective action taken. The government will assess the relative risks associated with each offeror. Performance risks are those associated with an offeror's likelihood of success in performing the acquisition requirements as indicated by that offeror's record of past performance. The assessment of performance risk is not intended to be a product of a mechanical or mathematical analysis of an offeror's performance on a list of contracts but rather the product of subjective judgment by the Government after it considers relevant information. When assessing performance risks, the Government will focus on the past performance of the offeror as it relates to all acquisition requirements, such as the offeror's record of performing according to specifications, including standards of good workmanship; the offeror's record of controlling and forecasting costs; the offeror's adherence to contract schedules, including the administrative aspects of performance; the offeror's reputation for reasonable and cooperative behavior and commitment to customer satisfaction; and generally, the offeror's business-like concern for the interest of the customer. The Government will consider the currency and relevance of the information, source of the information, context of the data, and general trends in the offeror's performance. The lack of a relevant performance record may result in an unknown performance risk assessment, which will neither be used to the advantage nor disadvantage of the offeror. Vendors shall submit a list and description of the last five contracts completed during the past three years and all contracts currently in process. Offerors shall be evaluated on (1) record of conforming to specifications and to standards of good workmanship; (2) adherence to contract schedules, including the administrative aspects of performance; (3) reputation for reasonable and cooperative behavior and commitment to customer satisfaction; and (4) business-like concern for the interests of the customer. For each contract/subcontract identified, include a brief synopsis which includes the date the work was performed, the client for whom the work was performed (include client name and telephone number), and a description of work performed. The vendor is authorized to provide information on problems encountered on the identified contract/subcontract and the vendor's corrective actions, if necessary. Evaluation of Past Performance should include previous experience with Grants and other assistance vehicles as well as with previous contracts. PURCHASE ORDER AWARD Purchase order awards shall be made to the responsible Offerors whose offer, in conforming to this RFP, provides an overall best value to the Government, technical evaluation factors, and cost considered. The Government's objective is to obtain the highest technical quality considered necessary to achieve the project objectives, with a realistic and reasonable cost. Technical evaluation factors are more important than cost. In the event quotes are evaluated as technically equal in quality, price or cost will become a major consideration in selecting the successful Offeror. 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 Contract 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 proposal. In lieu of submitting the full text provisions, the offeror may identify the provision by paragraph identifier and provide the appropriate information with its proposal. Also, the full text of a solicitation provision may be accessed electronically at this address: http://www.acquisition.gov. Vendor shall comply with all applicable Federal, State and Local laws, executive orders, rules and regulations applicable to its performance under this order. Full text of clauses and provisions are available at Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). The following clauses and provisions shall apply to this acquisition and maybe obtained from the web site: FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items (April 2014), FAR 52.212-2, Evaluation-Commercial Items (October 2014). Offerors are advised to provide with their offer a completed copy of the following provisions: FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications- Commercial Items (March 2015)-With DUNS Number Addendum [52.204-6 (July 2013)]. The following FAR clauses apply to this acquisition: FAR 52.214-4, Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items (December 2014)-With Addenda [Stop Work Order, FAR 52.242-15 (August 1989) and Year 2000 Compliance (July 1997)]; FAR 52.217-5, Evaluation of Options (July 1990); FAR 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items (March 2015), as well as the following clauses cited therein: FAR 52.219-6, Notice of Total Small Business Set-Aside (Nov 2011); FAR 52.222-41, Availability of Funds (April 1984); FAR 52.242-15, Stop Work Order (August 1989) with Alternate I (April 1984); FAR 52.242-17, Government Delay of Work (April 1984); and FAR 52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-Central Contractor Registration (July 2013).
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/OAM/RFP_NIHLM2015597KB/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Vendor's home site, United States
- Record
- SN03854268-W 20150827/150825235406-7939180bd228c5a3dd64c8cb5761c275 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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