Single Source Under SAT.docx

Single Source/Brand Name Justification United States Department of Agriculture FAR 13.106-1(b)(1) – Simplified Acquisitions

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting office.

USDA/ARS/COB

5601 Sunnyside Avenue Beltsville, Md 20705

2. Description of supply or service required to meet the agency’s needs.

The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is focused on developing support and infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), along with its high-speed network, SCINet and high-performance computer, Ceres, to empower ARS researchers. Even ARS management is developing AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to synergize budget and other constraint analyses to support ARS research and partnering efforts around the world. The National Agricultural Library (NAL) Indexing and Informatics Branch (IIB) can be a great resource for this work by developing and supporting AI to improve NAL indexing quality and production, and also to develop resources that researchers and others can and will use for AI research and development. We can meet this challenge by optimizing the NAL Thesaurus (NALT) for AI and enhancing its online presence. An optimized NALT can be used by NAL for Knowledge Services Division or other projects, and to improve the indexing quality of NAL resources such as AGRICOLA, PubAG, and Ag Data Commons, as well as improving the search results for NAL online products and tools. ARS researchers or managers will be engaged in NALT curation activities and use the optimized NALT for their own AI research and development. This approach will provide NAL and ARS Administrators with exciting new stories to inform about results, data, and other advances in AI, NLP, and ML as a result of our research and development, or by those in ARS using these new NAL resources.

The project integrates assessment to recommend or apply changes to IIB overall business operations and workflows, and state of the art technology. The expected outcomes are to 1) develop quality metrics and increase automation of NAL subject indexing using NALT, and 2) support quality assessment and curation of NALT itself through automation, and 3) through the engagement of subject matter experts, and 4) allow NAL to provide relevant, new state-of-the-art tools and services for the agricultural research and library communities.

Mr. Baker will lead assessment and integration of changes to overall business operations and workflows, and state-of-the-art technology for thesaurus design and curation, and the overall project coordination and communication. (WP1, WP3 of the SOW, with support for WP2)

3. The rationale or circumstances for limiting competition.

Mr. Baker is uniquely qualified to provide consulting services to

1. Define a revolutionary “NALT Core” sub-scheme structure, within the Global Agricultural

Concept Space (GACS).

a. Mr. Baker has extensive firsthand knowledge of GACS as an initial partner, he served in a leadership role along with the three GACS founders, the NAL, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI).

b. His consultation will be based on the extensive analytical and editorial work jointly completed over a period of four years by the GACS project in the early to mid-2010’s.

c. A curation platform for NALT meeting the requirements both of NAL staff and of expert communities will be evaluated and deployed.

d. NAL support and services for expert communities will be tested with one or two groups in-house (NAL, ARS, ).

2. Evaluate the structure of NALT and existing workflows for its curation.

a. Mr. Baker is a global leader who has worked on Semantic Web standards and vocabularies since the late 1990s, when he helped organize the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), which he co-directs. He co-chaired the W3C working group that published the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), and currently contributes to the community developing the Shape Expressions language (ShEx) for RDF validation.

b. In the area of agriculture, Mr. Baker has worked on projects with the United Nations Food and Agriculture (FAO) thesaurus (AGROVOC) and the FAO Geopolitical Ontology and the NAL.

3. A testbed for subject indexing will be created by training the open-source platform Annif, from the National Library of Finland (NLF), with NALT Core that Mr. Baker will develop. Its results will be compared with the results of NAL’s existing or proposed indexing systems. Mr. Baker is highly skilled working with this type of tool and its development, and the various file formats and challenges associated with manipulating and managing the data and systems required for the best results.

4. A description of the market research conducted and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

Mr. Baker is uniquely qualified to provide the assessments and recommendations outlined in the SOW. His work will enhance the quality of market research planed for the coming Fall/Spring for related automated indexing software solutions required by NAL, with a decision by late summer, or early fall, 2021.

5. Estimated price, including all options, if applicable.

Limited Source Firm Fixed-Price Contract: $20,000

6. Recommended source(s).

List proposed sole source vendor, or vendors, including any sources, that expressed an interest in this acquisition.

Thomas Baker (Plain Semantics) Martin-Luther-King-Str. 23 Bonn, Nordrheim-Westfalen, 53175 Germany

Template for Single Source or Brand Name Justification under SAT, March 2019