| R -- Operation, Maintenance, Support and Enhancement of the Neuroscience Information Framework |
| Program Summary |
 |
| Title: |
R -- Operation, Maintenance, Support and Enhancement of the Neuroscience Information Framework |
| GovCB Opps ID : |
ADP12021713610001104 |
| Document Type: |
Presolicitation Notice |
| FSC Code: |
R - Professional, Administrative and Management Support Services
|
| Solicitation No.: |
Reference-Number-NIH-NIDA-SSSAB-2008-01 |
| Source: |
http://www2.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/NIDA%2D2/Reference%2DNumber%2DNIH%2DNIDA%2DSSSAB%2D2008%... |
Place of
Performance: |
Address: San Diego, California Postal Code: 92103-8433 Country: UNITED STATES
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Posted Date:
|
Feb 04, 2008 |
| Last Update: |
Feb 04, 2008 |
| Due Date: |
Mar 20, 2008 |
|
| Description |
|
General Information
| Document Type: |
Presolicitation Notice |
| Solicitation Number: |
Reference-Number-NIH-NIDA-SSSAB-2008-01 |
| Posted Date: |
Feb 04, 2008 |
| Original Response Date: |
Mar 20, 2008 |
| Current Response Date: |
Mar 20, 2008 |
| Original Archive Date: |
Apr 04, 2008 |
| Current Archive Date: |
Apr 04, 2008 |
| Classification Code: |
R -- Professional, administrative, and management support services |
| Naics Code: |
541990 -- All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services |
Contracting Office Address
Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Station Support/Simplified Acquisitions, 31 Center Drive Room 1B59, Bethesda, MD, 20892, UNITED STATES
Description
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Station Support/Simplified Acquisition (SS/SA) Branch intends to negotiate and award a cost-reimbursement completion-type contract on a noncompetitive basis to the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) for an initial two-year effort, with three one-year options, to operate, support and enhance the NIH Blueprint Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF). (Statutory authority 41 U.S.C.253(c)(1), FAR 6.302-1)
The NIF is an inventory and registry of information and resources within a system employing multiple strategies that enable neuroscientists to identify resources and data relevant to their research interests. A key feature of the system enables users to make concept based queries (spanning multiple levels of biological organization and function) within and across the diverse types of resources and data constituting the NIF inventory and registry. Implementation of this feature critically relies on advancing semantic interoperability by developing and implementing ontologies relevant to the data and resources associated with neuroscience research. The participating NIH Neuroscience Blueprint Institutes and Centers (ICs) recognize the importance of expediting system availability to the broader research community to expand the NIF inventory, since the value of the system multiplies as its inventory becomes increasingly populated with trusted content. Similarly, the NIH Blueprint ICs also recognize the reliability and usefulness of NIF depend upon its being current with respect to both content and implementation of technological best practices.
Previous NIF support included a limited one year period for development and testing of NIFv1, but not its operation, support and enhancement, once developed. Work and services to be acquired under this procurement include (1) providing facilities, materials, services, and technical and scientific expertise to host, operate, maintain, support, and enhance the functionalities and components of the NIF; (2) maintaining, modifying, updating, extending, and enriching the ontological underpinnings of the system, known as the NIF vocabularies, and engaging in community efforts to assure their timely public availability, adoption by the research community, and consistency with the principles of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry; (3) further populating the NIF inventory and the NIF document archive; (4) providing support and training on using the NIF system for both queries and resource registration; (5) and conducting outreach through scientific events, publications, partnerships, and other means to increase public awareness and participation in NIF, and to promote and advance semantic and computational interoperability for locating and using research resources and data within the worldwide neuroscience research community.
The work and services are required in a timely, efficient, and cost-effective manner for the government necessitates confluence of four factors: (1) computational resources and expertise sufficient to impart in-depth knowledge and experience with providing national cyber infrastructure(2) expertise familiar with the diverse resources for conducting neuroscience research and acquiring and using neuroscience-relevant data across multiple biological scales (3) experience in developing and implementing neuroscience-relevant ontologies consistent with OBO Foundry principles, and (4) fundamental understanding of the components and functionalities of NIFv1. UCSD has the vision and needed experience to expedite the implementation and delivery of this information framework. These needs are entirely satisfied by UCSD. (1) As an organized research unit of UCSD, the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC) is internationally recognized for its leadership in grid computing, bioinformatics and data management. SDSC provides UCSD researchers and students with a wide range of services and resources for high performance computing, thus endowing UCSD with in-depth knowledge and experience about providing cyberinfrastructure. (2) Through its Center for Research in Biological Systems (CRSB), UCSD has established a cadre of investigators engaged in multidisciplinary and multi-scale studies familiar with the expanding universe of resources needed for acquiring and integrating multiple data types to understand functional relationships in central nervous system processes. A major project of the CRSB is the Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN), which builds infrastructure and technologies to enable national, large scale biomedical data mining and refinement. The BIRN testbeds involving neuroscience are internationally recognized as models for data federation. (3) UCSD led the focused integration of the semantic modules and vocabularies of NIFv1 (including important contributions which it uniquely provided), encoding them in Web Ontology Language (OWL) to enable them to be machine readable and thus permit possible future information inference. UCSD also has a working relationship with the NIH National Roadmap Center for Biomedical Ontologies (NCBO) to assure consistency of the NIFSTD vocabularies with OBO Foundry principles. Separately, UCSD also is collaborating with NCBO to develop an OBO compliant ontology for neurodegenerative disorders, again demonstrating leadership in establishing vital national partnerships for achieving machine readable semantic interoperability in the neurosciences (4) UCSD has detailed knowledge of NIF components and functionalities. UCSD greatly contributed to the NIFv1 tools for semantic description and registration of resources such as catalogues and databases, which enable concept mapping and deep queries of these resources. UCSD took the lead in implementing the NIF web component of the current Framework. It played an important role in developing the necessary web services enabling interaction among NIF components, hosted the NIF beta, and provided valuable web tutorials explaining the system. Another source within the NIF project would cause inordinate delays in project implementation and result in more government staff time in overseeing and re-orienting a new contractor to the NIF and its requirements. See Numbered Note 22 and 26.
Point of Contact
Susan Nsangou, Contracting Officer, Phone 301-443-2104, Fax 301-480-1358, Email nsangous@mail.nih.gov
Place of Performance
| Address: |
San Diego, California |
| Postal Code: |
92103-8433 |
| Country: |
UNITED STATES |
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