PWS.pdf

Performance Work Statement / Specifications Predictive Heat Stress Application

GENERAL INFORMATION

1.0 Background and Purpose:

1. Scientists at the Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC) are developing scientific information and new technology to solve high priority problems for the U.S. beef, sheep, and swine industries. As part of this effort, in 2013 USMARC developed predictive heat stress maps for feedlot cattle. These maps were available on the USDA’s web site and by an application available on Android and Apple devices. The web site and apps are out of date and need updated or replaced.

CONTRACTOR REQUIREMENTS

2.0 Technical Requirements/Tasks:

The Contractor shall develop an updated website for predictive heat stress in cattle, and an application for both Android and IOS that can provide heat stress forecast maps for cattle.

The website will be hosted by the USDA and the app are to be freely available on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Heat stress forecast maps are made using the seven-day forecasts of four weather parameters (temperature, humidity, wind speed, and cloud cover) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - National Weather Service (NWS).

The applications should access the forecast information to produce a map showing stress categories by color. The prediction of animal stress is based on an equation that combines weather forecast data to estimate cattle heat stress response. These maps are to be used as an estimate of general trends of stress levels over the forecast period. The maps should also be designed to forecast the anticipated peak heat stress category for each day.

The applications should provide national, regional, and local heat stress predictions.

The equation used for temperatures higher than 80 degrees F is:

Breathing Rate = (2.83 x Temperature) + (0.58 x Humidity) - (0.76 x Wind Speed) + (0.039 x Solar Radiation) - 196.4

The chart below illustrates stress categories as defined by predicted breathing rate.

Predicted Breathing Rate Heat Stress Category

Less than 90 breaths per minute Normal From 90 - 110 breaths per minute Alert From 110 - 130 breaths per minute Danger Above 130 breaths per minute Emergency

Features for Heat Stress App

1. Scalable Heat Stress forecast map. The image would be scalable using a two-finger zoom. These images are taken from a radar app; the zoom range would be similar.

The entire map would be covered with a semi-transparent image that would have four colors (green=normal, yellow=alert, orange=danger, red=emergency).

2. User defined “Push Notifications”. The user would select 1 to 5 locations. Then the app would generate notifications if the conditions were in the danger or emergency categories. The user could define the # of days to be pre-warned (Current day, 3 days out, 5 days out, 7 days out). The user could also turn off the notifications. When notifications are turned on a message would appear on the home screen and a sound would play (if sound was active on the phone). An example message is shown below.

The notification would happen once a day first thing in the morning (~6AM).

3. Additional information… Calculations should be done on a daily basis.

4. The website and applications must meet USDA security requirements outlined in the following web sites.

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/ssdf https://mas.owasp.org/

The contractor will provide one year of support with five option years to maintain and update the web site and apps as need to maintain functionality.

HEAT STRESS WARNING: It has been forecasted that in 3 days the conditions will in the DANGER category at the MARC Feedlot (a USER

DEFINE NAME).

HEAT STRESS WARNING: It has been forecasted that in 2 days the conditions will in the EMERGENCY category at the MARC Feedlot (a USER

DEFINE NAME).

https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/ssdf https://mas.owasp.org/

3.0 Deliverable / Schedule/ Address:

Period of performance is 90 days after award. Facility address is listed below:

USMARC

844 Road 313 Clay Center NE 68933

Key Deliverables

Item No.

Deliverable

Number

Due

1 Website for predictive heat stress in cattle

1 90 days after award

2 Heat Stress application to run on Android devices

1 90 days after award

3 Heat Stress application to run on Apple devices

1 90 days after award

4 One year support 1 90 days after award

4.0 Government Furnished:

A Supermicro server with 96G RAM, Intel Xeon Gold 5222 processor, 1 TB boot drive, and a mirrored 4 TB data drive is available if needed. The server is currently running Oracle Linux 8.9 but could be rebuilt using a different OS.

Programming code from the previous website and applications can be made available to assist in this project.

5.0 Performance Requirement Measures:

Heat Stress application to run on Android devices and Heat Stress application to run on

Apple devices within the expected delivery time.

6.0 Government Point of Contact:

Phil Anderson, phone (402) 762-4157, phil.anderson@usda.gov mailto:phil.anderson@usda.gov