Q-A No 4 NOAA 2011.pdf

NOAA 2011-1 Small Business Innovative Research Questions and Answers #4

January 6, 2011

No further questions shall be accepted.

Q: Can we use color in our proposals for our charts and graphs?

A: The solicitation is silent on whether or not it can be in black and white or color. It is up to the offeror’s discretion. But as stipulated in paragraph 3.2, the print size “must be easy to read with a fixed pitch font of 12 or fewer characters per inch or proportionally spaced font of point size 10 or larger with no more than six lines per inch…”

Q: Should our proposals come in double-sided or single-sided?

A: The solicitation is silent on this issue. It is up to the offeror’s discretion. See paragraph 3.2 for additional details.

Q: For our proposed project, we have material costs in order to conduct research at the facility.

Would these material costs be considered in the 1/3 allotment of total contract price for purchase agreements?

A: As stipulated in the solicitation under section 3.6, “the proposing firm must perform a minimum of two-thirds of the research and/or analytical effort. The total cost for all consulting fees, facility fees, usage fees, and other subcontract or purchase agreements may not exceed one-third of the total contract price.” If the materials are purchased directly from a supplier for use in your research, then they would fall under the two-thirds of research and/or analytical effort.

Q: Research Topic 8.1.1.SG: Is the point of this topic to create new materials that can be used to increase resiliency to coastal hazards? Or is it to engineer new solutions or methods that can be used?

A: The development of new materials that could improve hazard resilience as described would certainly fit into the topic area and be considered. New materials would fall under the concept of new technologies.

Q: Research Topic 8.1.5F: In the topic summary, it indicates that it is anticipated to use “DNA array type method.” Do you mean this is DNA microarray?

A: Yes, a DNA microarray is one type of technology that may be applicable to this research topic. However, this does not exclude any other types of technology that may be capable of accomplishing the same goal. .

Q: Research Topic 8.1.5F: If this is to use Microarray technology, the reference substrate for hybridization should be prepared. The reference substrate can be pre-manufactured using various taxonomic groups of restricted species. Another approach is to use DNA barcoding technology based on 650 base pair region on the 5’ end of the mitochondrial gene. Is it okay to use one of these two technologies or a mix?

A: The goal of this research topic is to generate a tool that can be used by researchers, observers, enforcement agencies, etc. in a more field-based setting rather than in a laboratory.

The methodology to accomplish the goal is flexible. It is anticipated that the “barcode” section of the cytochrome oxidase gene will provide the background information for species identification as these data are already available for many taxa. However, traditional DNA sequencing of this gene region and comparison to the barcode database requires considerable time and infrastructure which is a hurdle that this research topic attempts to overcome.

Q: Research Topic 8.1.6F: The topic refers to thermal sensors (plural). Will multiple sensors operate simultaneously? If so, will they operate in the same bandwidth? The same focal length?

To what extent would the fields of view overlap?

Q: Research Topic 8.2.6W: The solicitation describes a desire to capture photographic or other evidence. Can you share the minimum criteria that would provide evidence of sufficient quality for conviction (i.e. photo quality, time/date stamp requirements, relevant imagery)?

A: The objective of the topic is to detect attempts at vandalism or intrusions on the climate buoys rather than evidence collection for conviction of crimes. The goal is to identify if a vessel is near a buoy and capture that information (such as a photograph or other evidence) for later retrieval or real-time transmission. Image quality should be such that a vessel can be identified either by its name, identification number (if applicable), or from appearance of the vessel.

Q: Research Topic 8.2.6W: The solicitation requests evidence capture to be stored for later retrieval or real-time transmission. Is there a preference and what is the rationale?

A: Preference would be real-time transmission via satellite link if possible and within a reasonable power budget. Some NDBC payloads have the capability to interface to external devices by way of short range, low-power, wireless communications (IEEE 802.15.4). However ability to store locally on the device for later retrieval is believed to be the best approach to reduce cost and simplify design and interfacing. Either method is acceptable. Minimum requirement would be storage/retrieval. Real-time transmission would be desirable capability, but not required.

Q: Research Topic 8.2.6W: If real-time adverse event alerting is required, is there a preferred satellite communications network?

A: Most NDBC buoys use Iridium and/or the GOES satellite networks. Use of one of these existing satellite networks would be preferable, however, a stand-alone capability using other than these networks is also acceptable, depending on cost, power requirements, packaging, and the ability of a satellite network to provide complete coverage of NDBC’s buoy networks.

Q: Research Topic 8.4.2W: The solicitation mentions the fact that in most cases the data is already available, but it is not in the preferred format for traffic management. May you comment more on what this preferred format is?

A: Currently, the data as required is available on scattered sources. Each control tower keeps ‘The Weather Channel’ on for local weather, and keeps two computer screens on for the local and target weather (www.weather.gov), and then a separate screen for radar data that comes in from the FAA WARP system and has to toggle between source and target locations. This means a minimum of 5 screens on 5 independent monitors plus a TV to get weather data. Under USC Title 49, NOAA/NWS is the official designator of the state of the atmosphere. This is the information requested so the tower can assess source and target field data to determine better efficiency of localized weather conditions at the time of takeoff and/or landing to better manage the air space. The task here is to provide a single point of access for that data without the scattered sources. Also, the current weather pages contain only forecasts and not current conditions as stated for this assessment by the tower operations. The intent is to provide those data for real time use.

Q: Research Topic 8.4.2W: Number four on the list of parameters mentions the display should e on one screen of a computer monitor. Does this mean that a section of the screen can be displayed to get more detailed information or having features such as tabbed windows is undesirable?

A: A tabbed or toggle between screens is suitable for this purpose. It can, however, be no more than two screens, source and target, to allow the tower operations to assess real time conditions at any two airports (source and target). The intent is to consolidate the real time data, not currently available in analysis format, but available through multiple sources and only sporadically, in a real time and continuous environment.

Q: Research Topic 8.4.2W: What kind of hardware system(s) will the user interface be installed on? Also, is there a standard size for the display/monitor?

A: The intent is to have this as a software client running on a standard PC (Windows or Linux) system pulling these data from NWS legacy systems. It does not have to be elaborate, but it does have to be consolidated to one machine and real time from each airport location.