Q A_to_Solicitation_AG-32SB-S-16-0036.pdf

Questions & Answers on Solicitation AG-32SB-S-16-0036

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1. Whether there is an incumbent contractor? If so, would you be able to provide the current or previous contract number? Or is this a new requirement for the government?

Previous incumbent was ChalkLabs and the previous contract that was just considered a bridge contract was AG-32SB-P-16-0081.

2. Page 11 states:

FACTOR 1: PAST PERFORMANCE- The past performance history of successfully providing like or similar services of agency data analytics or data science requirements to the Federal Government. If you do not have Federal Government or any experience at all you will be rated neutral.

Question: In an effort to increase small business competition, we respectfully request that the government remove the restriction to Federal Government experience and also accept state, local government and corporate experience of similar size and scope.

It’s not that we are not accepting proposals that do not have Federal Government experience, it’s just any vendor with ‘other’ will rate neutral.

3. Is the process data analytics project is open for all type of vendors? This solicitation is open to any business that is certified as a small business under the listed NAICS code.

4. Does this constitute a greenfield or brownfield project? Neither term is appropriate.

Constraints are as indicated in the PWS.

5. What tech stacks does USDA currently have in place for this project? Technology stack for incumbent solution is managed by contractor. Solution presents to NIFA as a browser-based application.

6. Does the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) currently use an analytics data store? If yes, it centralized or shared? There is a centralized analytics store as part of incumbent solution.

7. What database platforms does NIFA currently use for analytics? Not relevant

8. Does NIFA use data for visualization? If yes what tools are being used? Yes, incumbent solution provides visualization.

9. Does NIFA use Big Data analytics? If yes what tools are being used? Big data is a part of this requirement, however NIFA is in early stage of leveraging it.

10. Does NIFA currently do any data mining? If yes what tools are being used? Not relevant to this solicitation.

11. Does NIFA currently do any Data modeling? If yes what tools are being used? Not relevant to this solicitation

12. Does NIFA currently do semantic or contextual search? If yes what tools are being used?

Incumbent solution provides this capability.

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13. Does NIFA currently do text analytics? If yes what tools are being used? Incumbent solution provides this capability.

14. What are the current skillsets of the expected users of the new solution (to determine the extent of training required based on previous experience levels)? Range from advanced to novice/beginner.

15. Will 24 x 7 x 365 support be required for the final solution? If not, what is the expected support window? It is expected that the software system is available all the time except the scheduled system maintenance time; however, there is no expectation that 24x7x365 technical support is needed.

16. How many USDA NIFA users do you expect that will need the ability to create, interact, and publish data views/templates? We don’t have an estimate at this time

17. How many USDA NIFA users do you expect that will need the ability to view and interact with published views/templates? All NIFA users

18. How many USDA NIFA users employees are there in the Enterprise? Between 350 to 450; however, number of NIFA users will vary.

19. What is the current solution you have deployed for Data Analytics at USDA NIFA?

ChalkLabs Pushgraph

20. Are you looking for implementation support services and training to be included in the bid? If so please describe more specifically. Requirement is specified in the solicitation.

21. What is the size of data sets are you analyzing? Current database instances range from thousands to hundreds of thousands of rows. Unstructured text has no practical upper limit.

22. What are the skill sets of your analysts and what tools are they currently using for machine learning? Range from advanced to novice/beginner.

23. What are your analysts currently doing with the R programming language? Not relevant to this solicitation.

24. Other than your grant document classification system, what other machine learning models are you currently using? Not relevant to this solicitation.

25. What will the evaluation factors be for choosing the winning vendor? As specified in solicitation.

26. How many USDA NIFA users do you expect that will need the ability to create, interact, and publish data views/templates? Please refer to #16.

27. How many USDA NIFA users do you expect that will need the ability to view and interact with published views/templates? Please refer to #17.

28. How many USDA NIFA users employees are there in the Enterprise? Please refer to #18

29. What is the current solution you have deployed for Data Analytics at USDA NIFA? See

#19

30. Are you looking for implementation support services and training to be included in the bid? If so please describe more specifically. See #20

31. What is the size of data sets are you analyzing? See #21

32. What are the skill sets of your analysts and what tools are they currently using for machine learning? See #22

33. What are your analysts currently doing with the R programming language? ? See #23

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34. Other than your grant document classfication system, what other machine learning models are you currently using? See #24

35. What will the evaluation factors be for choosing the winning vendor? See #25

36. Attachment-1 of the solicitation: the word 'agency' is used extensively. Can you Please confirm that usage of this word singly refers to the "National Institute of Food Agriculture" and no other agency, parent agency, or entity in regard to this solicitation?

For this solicitation, the term “agency” refers exclusively to the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

37. In Appendix D. on page #22 of Attachment-1: Forest Service and ARS data are referenced as "Externally sourced data". Is this extramural data received by USDA agencies that is not from NIFA? Is this data currently reported through CRIS/REEport?

Data reported via CRIS/REEport is considered internal to NIFA. Additional ARS or FS data that is not contained in a NIFA data store would be considered externally sourced or “extramural data”.

38. In Appendix D. on page #22 of Attachment-1: There is a reference to defense related award data specified as possible "Externally sourced data" that may be integrated under the Data Analytics Solution. Can you Please: (a) specify exactly What data this is referring to?; and (b) confirm that it only refers to already publicly available data? This primarily relates to publicly available research grant award data, but is not necessarily limited to that.

39. In Appendix D. on page #22 of Attachment-1: "Provide for APIs to integrate new sources of data such as Web of Science, SCOPUS, altmetrics, etc." is listed under "Externally sourced data" section, but this is not specifically data per se. Can you provide clarification if this was meant as developing computer code/internal APIs/services that would integrate with such referenced external data? Or? Yes

40. Pages #12-20 of Attachment-1: Can you provide guidance regarding how to fill out the very robust "Attachment B"? It is not entirely clear how this should be completed in relation to this submission. https://www.section508.gov

41. Will NIFA extend the due date for response to June 29? We could possibly do June 29th but no later.

42. Has NIFA already removed SAP’s Business Objects, which is used by other areas of USDA, from consideration? If the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given consideration.

43. Please explain bullet #2 under Data Analytics Solution (pg 2). There are many ways to offer a complete solution, but they are dependent on data volumes and complexities.

Does NIFA request a front-end solution which can combine various data or an integrated data warehouse built for the enterprise? Primarily front-end toolsets, however integration of data that can be realized via the solution is desirable. This capability would fall short of building a data warehouse.

44. Pg 3, is Contractor responsible for Data modeling (creating logical/physical models) between data sources? No, this refers to developing modelling techniques for unstructured or textual data.

https://www.section508.gov/

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45. Are there a set number of Reports or Dashboards that must be developed by contractor or is PWS focused solely on procurement, installation, configuration, and support? No, there is not a set number.

46. Development scope (report, dashboard, visualization quantities) is not presently defined in the PWS. Would NIFA consider changing the contract type to T&M and establishing an estimated number of work hours for better vendor comparisons? No, this requirement in the past has worked successfully as a FFP contract.

47. Under enterprise licensing, how many users does NIFA expect to use the system initially?

Within 12 months? How many concurrent? Requirement is for enterprise license with no limitations for internal NIFA users.

48. Is hardware sizing, provisioning, and setup the responsibility of the contractor? For example, if specific hardware is required for application hosting, is it the contractor’s responsibility to size, select, deliver, and setup the servers at the NIFA data center? If solution contains hardware components or appliances, then yes, this is offeror’s responsibility. All solutions must comply with the government IT security requirement and must be approved by the government manager. If solution is 100% software, NIFA will provision hardware and requires support in sizing, selection, installation and deployment.

49. Can Contractor provide hardware recommendations without cost information since NIFA will likely have better pricing options or re-usable hardware? Depending on the type of recommendations. In general, yes

50. The PWS does not mention any metadata management capabilities? Is the NIFA responsible for ensuring consistent data names/definitions across users and reports? Yes.

The contractor needs to follow the government policy and build/update/maintain the metadata management strategy that is relevant to the scope of the contract.

51. For the data sources, beyond PDF Format. What file types (excel, etc.) or database platforms (SQL, Oracle, etc.) must be supported as data sources? It is expected that the contractor follows common good practices for supporting different data sources.

52. What is the average data volume (rows or MB/GBTB) for the larger data sources? Please refer # 21.

53. For ‘Data Integration’, does NIFA anticipate the use of a traditional ETL or data virtualization tool for the data integration activities? Or should the analytics tools simply import files and combine the data? All approaches are valid

54. Is the contractor responsible for data cleansing/loading any additional data sources in a database or data warehouse outside? Yes

55. Is the contractor responsible for performance issues created by users combining various data sources? Yes. If performance issues require database changes, is NIFA responsible for implementing those changes? Yes, to the extent that this condition is possible.

56. If required, is database table/view and schema (i.e. ‘backend’) architecture the responsibility of the contractor? Not required and not relevant

57. Does NIFA have Hadoop or any appliance that can handle PDF/unstructured data? No

58. Is training of NIFA resources to use the Data Analytics Solution required as a part of the contract? Yes

59. Most analytical tools can only meet minimum 508 compliance for static visualizations, are the interactive visualizations required to be 508 compliant? Yes, to the extent that it is possible or practical.

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60. In order to provide accurate Enterprise Licensing Costs as requested, we require information on the number and types of users, data input size and frequency, and data storage size. Previously answered in multiple questions.

61. The SOW states that the following standards apply:

· 1194.21 Software applications and operating systems

· 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet information and applications

While RFP Section 6.3 includes two additional standards:

· 1194.24 Video and multimedia products.

· 1194.25 Self contained, closed products..

Please clarify which Section 508 requirements apply to this solution. See https://www.section508.gov

62. Please confirm that this RFP is requesting deployment of an Analytics platform with the Capabilities identified in the SOW, but that actual implementation of reports, analytic models, and data ingestion jobs is not in the scope of this RFP. No, implementation of reports, etc. are within the scope of the RFP.

63. Is this procurement part of an already installed platform or is this a new installation?

This is being solicited as a new installation.

64. Would USDA be interested in a COTS platform to perform all of their requirements? If the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given consideration.

65. How many actual users will be impacted by this program? Please refer to #17.

66. How many users will be using the platform and to what level? [duplicates one of mine, but this one is better because it speaks to levels] Please refer to #17.

67. Will the contractor be required to supply SMEs to support the user base? If so, how many SMEs? The type of SME is not clear in this question. Answer cannot be provided.

68. Can actual users perform ad hoc queries or do they need to put these in a queue for SME activity? Yes. If so, will new queries necessitate immediate action? Not in all cases.

69. Will “new” data sets be ingested on a daily basis and need a quick requirements analysis?

Not every day, but there should be some on demand capability

70. Confirm that commercial (paid for) external data sources are already procured or should not be included in the contractor Price for this response. Yes

71. PWS Page 2 bullet three – Does the solution user interface need to be 100% browser-based? Yes. Are there any exceptions? No.

72. PWS Page 21 bullet three – What is the definition of “Similar” projects or grants?

Similar projects in this use case refers to projects that overlap in stated scope or topic area.

73. PWS Page 21 bullet six – What would be a typical data source and target data set and what would make them similar? Data could represent project abstracts or unstructured text. Projects would be similar in terms of the scope of research or objectives.

74. PWS Page 21 bullet one – Would it be possible to get examples of what is meant by “State-of-the-Art” topic modeling techniques? No.

75. PWS Page 2 bullet six “ad hoc” – Is there a typical external data size and/or source type?

No

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76. Page 2 of the document mentions: “All NIFA users shall have unrestricted access to the data that is integrated as part of the solution; The solution shall have the ability to identify confidential and agency sensitive NIFA data as separate and distinct from NIFA publicly-available data.”

In order to distinguish the data that is restricted from the data that is public, is it expected to implement a manual administrative GUI? Or should the solution automatically flag access restrictions based on configurable rules? Either approach may be valid.

77. Should the document relationships be modeled only around concepts or is entity extraction also required? In other words, should correlations also depend on other aspects about the documents such as: timelines represented in the document, places mentioned in the document in combination with concepts? Yes, correlations should also depend on other aspects.

78. Documents are linked to grants. Is this linkage apparent via data, or has to be inferred?

Both

79. What kind of a web portal is available today in NIFA? This will help identify what changes are required in this portal, or if a new one is to be built. Not relevant.

80. Is the temporal and spatial analytics limited to structured data or does it apply to unstructured data? Applies also to unstructured data. Should the system be capable of extracting temporal/spatial meta-data (latitude and longitudes of places mentioned automatically)? Yes

81. What type of metadata (structured data) do we expect to receive along with documents from various agencies (not social media data)? Types of metadata may vary. Will this metadata contain time, place, and organization details information? In some cases, yes.

Can it be inferred based on who the documents are sourced from or when they are received? In some cases, yes.

82. How will the news and social media sites be determined? Will NIFA use a subscription service for specific news site or social media key words? Both

83. Will grants and awards data received from all external agencies be in the same consistent format? Not necessarily. Eg. Grants and contracts data downloaded from www.usaspending.gov, has a fixed schema. Can we expect the same in this case? Will the unstructured data obtained (outside of news or social media) be explicitly tied to the appropriate grant or award? Part of the significant value of the solution is to determine the non-explicit linkages.

http://www.usaspending.gov/

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Likewise, for internal documents, like RFA or proposal data, will we receive structured meta-data along with the document, like the application number, date of the document, any spatial information associated with it? Where that data is available, yes. There will be an ample number of cases where relationships must be inferred.

84. Will the government consider or allow CTA agreements as part of submitting a prime response?

If the government will accept a CTA agreement, will the government also consider the CTA team members past performance when rating past performance in the Proposal evaluation?

No, we are not looking for this type of arrangement for this requirement as it is already complex, it would also be hard for a small business to do 51% of the work in a CTA.

85. Considering the nature of the requirements outlined, is the government going to consider a T&M contract type instead of Firm Fixed Price contract type? No, this project has been quoted and successfully worked as a FFP contract in the past.

86. Can the government elaborate more on the service to be provided under this contract? For example, how many dashboard or report is expected, number statistical model and machine learning algorithm to be built for what timeframe in which area? No

87. For data integration, do we need to build ETL and Data Warehouse? Or using the build-in Tool capability to ingest data from multiple sources is good enough? Any approach is valid.

88. Is the environment going to be COCO or GOCO (Contractor Owned, Contractor Maintained vs Government Owned, Contractor Maintained)? Government owned.

89. Is government going to be purchasing the servers based on the vendor’s GSA schedule and providing them to us or are we purchasing them for them? General-purpose server hardware will be provisioned and administered by NIFA.

a. We are hoping this would give us enough information around the hardware costs associated with the bid. N/A

90. Is there an USDA enterprise wide technical architecture that all COTS products need to adhere to – the architecture that would guide where the servers need to be installed and the firewall setup and ports. Or can we follow the best practices and install and deploy the product based on our past experience? There is no such USDA architecture, however cyber-security posture of deployed technology is an ever-increasing concern. This will be a point of collaboration between offeror and NIFA. We will follow good practices established for the solution within the backdrop of evolving USDA and federal government-wide requirements.

91. Will Cloud solution be considered as an acceptable alternative to setup hardware in NIFA Waterfront Center? Cloud solutions must have an Authority-to-Operate (ATO) recognized by USDA. Is the government planning to give preference to solutions that are Cloud-based (because of GSA’s Cloud First policy) especially since the FISMA classification for the solution to be developed is low? If solution has USDA ATO, the solution will be considered. Or does the hardware and solution developed should be based out of the physical data center in DC. If the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given consideration.

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92. Can government set a max number of the data sources to be integrated as part of the service provided under this contract? Not at this time.

93. What is the variety/types of the data sources that needs to be integrated? This is described in the solicitation.

94. Will our solution have direct access to these data sources? After the data privacy and access agreement is signed, the solution will have access to these data sources.

95. What are the data volumes of the sources to be integrated and how often does the integration need to occur (daily/monthly/quarterly)? Refer to #21.

96. How many reports and analytical solutions does the government expect to be developed out of this implementation? There is no limit.

97. What are the requirements around the reports to be developed? Cannot answer at this time.

98. Do our reports and visualizations need to be integrated into an existing traditional Business Intelligence (BI) solution? In general, no

99. How frequent are the users going to be added to the environment and disconnected?

Users might be on-boarded or off-boarded at any time.

100. Does the proposal require us to provide administrative resource for the tool? Do we have the control on the infrastructure and the environment configuration to keep the environment stable or do we need a dedicated full time administrator to manage, monitor and administer the environment? General system administration and monitoring would be handled by NIFA.

101. What is the enterprise development process? Not relevant. Is there a dedicated life cycle requirement to follow during the development of the reports/data visualizations?

Good development practice is expected from the contractor. How involved will the business stakeholders be in the development process? They will participate as needed with oversight of the COR or task manager. Can we get full access to the stakeholders involved in signing-off on the visualizations developed? Stakeholders will be available with oversight of the COR or task manager.

102. Are there any requirement documentation for the visualizations to be developed?

Are there any contract specific documentation requirements that we need to follow. The contractor should follow industry good practices.

103. What style of enterprise license is USDA interested in? Are you looking for a CPU/capacity based license or a specific number of users to meet your enterprise licensing needs? Requirement is for enterprise license with no limitations for internal NIFA users. In order to provide a meaningful price estimate, we will need some guidance. Please refer to #

104. How many users external to USDA staff do you estimate wanting access to the data analytics solution? Please refer to #18

105. Is USDA interested in creating public facing web applications that communicate open government initiative data to the general public? Not relevant.

106. How many data sources can you estimate connecting the data analytics solution to? No specific limit

107. What is your largest data source by MB’s and by number of records? Please refer to #21.

108. If you are already working with a HADOOP implementation, how big is your current implementation? No

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109. Do you have any idea of how many apps or dashboards you are looking to create? No specific limit

110. Do you have an existing number of apps or dashboards that you are looking to replace? No specific limit.

111. In order to provide an accurate services and consulting estimate, we need some data points about the number of applications you anticipate creating, or the number of grant programs using the software. No specific limit.

112. Are you looking for a services vendor to own the entire development of dashboard apps and on-going maintenance of all those apps? No.

113. Our Data Analytics solution runs on commodity hardware, but in order to make a recommendation on server specifics we’d need to know the general data volumes you’re thinking about analyzing. Can you provide an estimate? Question previously answered.

114. How frequently are you looking for data to be pulled from your source systems? Daily basis? More than once a day? On demand.

115. Are there any restrictions to utilizing a cloud-based solution for data storage (ex.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure)? Cloud solutions must have a USDA-recognized Authority-To-Operate.

116. Are there any restrictions to utilizing existing machine learning and business intelligence applications (ex. IBM Watson, Microsoft Power BI, etc.)? If the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given consideration.

117. What is the anticipated size of the user base? (We are just looking for an order of magnitude (ex. 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000)). 1000

118. Is there an approximate count of simultaneous users that the system needs to be able to accommodate? We have no current estimate.

119. Can the government confirm that they are looking for an analytic solution that can ingest structured, unstructured and streaming data sources? Yes.

120. Are resumes of key personnel required upon submission? Not required.

121. If resumes are required, do these resumes count towards the page limit? See #120

122. If resumes are not required, would they be evaluated if submitted? No.

123. Will a Cover Page be exempt from the 40-page limit? See #122

124. Will a Cover Letter be exempt from the 40-page limit? See #122

125. Will a Table of Contents be exempt from the 40-page limit? See #122

126. Can USDA provide an estimated number of end users for this solution? Please refer to #18.

127. Is the Contractor required to submit a completed Section 508 Product

Accessibility Report Template upon proposal submission? Yes, this is required for all technology procurement.

128. If so, is this document excluded from the 40-page limit? It can be excluded

129. Is the Contract Manager considered Key Personnel? No

130. Must the Contract Manager be named in the proposal? Not necessarily.

131. Would USDA consider an extension to the due date given the timeframe for receipt of answers to questions relative to the current deadline of June 22?

Extended to 6/29/2016.

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132. Given the important nature of the USDA NIFA solution, would the Agency consider a 2 week extension of the RFP due date to July 6th, 2016? Could only do 6/29/2016

133. Is the NAICS code for this initiative limited to 541512 or would other small business NAICS codes also be considered compliant? We are looking to award under that NACIS code and therefore vendor should have this NACIS code on their SAM registration and certified as small under it.

134. Would USDA NIFA be interested in building categorical taxonomy definitions in an automated manner using modeling techniques from derived topics?

Possibly, yes.

135. Is USDA NIFA looking for a cognitive computing approach or is the Agency technology agnostic so long as the Vendor can achieve the desired results? If the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given consideration.

136. Can USDA NIFA elaborate on the relationships the Agency is looking for regarding topics derived from project or grant data? Are these similar techniques, or are they concepts such as people, places, and/or outcomes in common with each other? NIFA is seeking previously unrecognized relationships across wide varieties of data for various reasons described in the solicitiation.

137. Would USDA NIFA be looking to apply a predictive modeling approach to the structured and unstructured data to designate target documents, then look for similar or related projects based on the models? If the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given consideration.

138. What is USDA NIFA’s plan to ensure high levels of data quality and data governance throughout the lifecycle of this initiative? Data quality and governance are part of active initiatives at NIFA.

139. How many total users would have access to the environmentPlease refer to #18

140. How many concurrent users would access the system? Unknown

141. What is the expected growth of total users and concurrent users in the Base Year?

In Option Year 1, In Option Year 2? We have no estimates currently.

142. How many total environments does the Agency expect to stand up? What are the environments? Not relevant.

143. What are the specific authentication and/or Single sign on requirements for each environment? Not relevant.

144. What are the total data volumes that will need to be loaded onto disks or lifted into memory? Not relevant.

145. What is the required frequency for data updates? Daily, nightly, weekly, or monthly? On demand.

146. What is the anticipated size of the largest and average data set(s) to be incorporated into this initiative? See #21

147. Does USDA NIFA have an environment for mobile device users or is this a desire in the future? Not relevant.

148. Should the term , "Data Modeling" be corrected to "Meta Data Management"?

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The explanation for this question is provided below:

a) I am writing the proposal and I noticed that the term "Meta Data Management" missing from the Request For Proposal. Meta Data Management is necessary to facilitate the articulation of a common set of terms that are used across multiple documents . It is a known fact that one multiple authors write documents, it is common for different authors to use different terms, topics and concepts to mean the same thing. Our methodology's Meta Data Repository is easy to use and resolves this issue and facilitates semantic content management in a common fashion, from multiple documents and multiple information sources

b) The term "Data Modeling " is not used in this Request For Proposal, in accordance to Industry Standards. Simply put, Data Modeling is a data design method that describes how items of information are related to one another. Associative relationships, hierarchical relationships and related definitions are all addressed within the concept of Data Modeling. Moreover, there are two concepts, ''Structure On Read" - which does not require that the information is actually stored as it is retrieved (i.e., Display the information and how different components of information are related to one another, but do not save the information after a given session) and "Structure On Write" which does store the information in a database/Meta data repository that allows the end user to not have to re-execute their query to access information that was successfully retrieved at a later point in time. Both concepts, ''Structure On Read" and "Structure On Write" require some degree of "Data Modeling", as the term Data Modeling is used, in accordance to Industry Standards “Data Modeling” in the context of the PWS and “Meta-Data Management” from the question are two different things. The contractor needs to follow the requirements of the PWS and propose a solution accordingly. In general, if the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given due consideration.

149. Is the expectation that there is a single tool on the marketplace which will provide all the functions listed in attachment B , complete with a data governance methodology which will ensure that the rules of semantic searches, and context management, data integration, etc.? If the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given consideration. All solutions must be discussed an approved by the government management

150. If the proposer is aware of several tools on the marketplace that can provide support a given feature, can several candidate tools to be identified by the Proposer? No

151. Is the expectation attachment B will be completed and submitted along with the proposal? Yes

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152. Some of the features listed in attachment B refer to sections of CFRs (e.g., Section 1194.23 Telecommunications Products, Section 1194.26 Desktop and Portable Computers ) - we understand that you need to be compliant with these CFRs - given the sheer number of products that meet these criterion, is the proposer expected to list products that address these broad categories? See https://www.section508.gov

153. Will a proposal that provides a practical, intuitive, simple, scalable solution that addresses all of the use cases included in appendix C, and all of the issues included in the request for proposal, but does not include the items listed in appendix B be considered as a competitive proposal? ; or will it be rejected as 'non responsive'? If the solution meets the requirements of the solicitation, it will be given consideration.