STREAMLINING TASK AND DELIVERY ORDER COMPETITIONS WITHIN FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION SUBPART 16.5 FLEXIBILITIES

Includes supplementary materialThe flexibilities offered in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505 allow contracting officers (COs) to establish streamlined ordering procedures for the award of task orders and delivery orders (TOs/DOs) among existing qualified multiple award contract (MAC) awardees. However, because there is no specific guidance in the FAR or its supplements regarding less formal fair opportunity competition strategies, COs often default to the more familiar FAR Subpart 15.3 procedures. As a result, agencies expend valuable time and resources and potentially waste both in the process. For the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, the time and resource constraints associated with frequent competitive MAC orders have led to the desire to identify best practices and perhaps formalize a streamlined approach to award. As such, the purpose of this research is to identify best practices for streamlining local TO/DO awards and provide recommendations for standardized streamlining procedures and documentation. The researchers analyzed 169 sources related to case law and six local MACs as well as policy and regulation to test their hypothesis that local MAC competitions could benefit from streamlining. Their hypothesis was confirmed, and the researchers utilized case law rulings to develop recommendations such as streamlining intentional use of terminology, simplifying evaluations through means like the decision authority and ordering instructions, and simplifying documents such as the BCM.Civilian, Department of the NavyCivilian, Department of the NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Soule\u27s manual on auditing, suggestions to auditors, receivers and liquidators, and on points on higher and expert accounting; Manual on auditing, suggestions to auditors, receivers and liquidators, and on points on higher and expert accounting

The following Manual on Auditing is presented to aid in disseminating, in an economical form, knowledge which is of practical interest to all Book-keepers and to all Business Aspirants. A thorough knowledge of Auditing is a crown of honor, and it should be worn by all who hope to achieve victory in their manifold contests for fortune and fame on the fields of Business. The work here given, though brief, will, it is believed, be of service to thousands of book-keepers and business men, who have not heretofore had an opportunity to study the subject, for want of books treating thereof. The author\u27s large work, the New Science and Practice of Accounts, which combines this subject with Higher and Expert Accounting, Joint Stock Company Book-keeping, and Complex Adjustments in Corporation Accounting, is too expensive to be possessed by many who need this knowledge, and hence these few pages are presented, at a small cost. Indulging the hope that the work may be of some service to the aspiring lover and learner of Auditing and Accounting, the author submits it to the business public with his professional greetings

Two-point theory for the differential self-interrogation Feynman-alpha method

A Feynman-alpha formula has been derived in a two region domain pertaining the stochastic differential self-interrogation (DDSI) method and the differential die-away method (DDAA). Monte Carlo simulations have been used to assess the applicability of the variance to mean through determination of the physical reaction intensities of the physical processes in the two domains. More specifically, the branching processes of the neutrons in the two regions are described by the Chapman - Kolmogorov equation, including all reaction intensities for the various processes, that is used to derive a variance to mean relation for the process. The applicability of the Feynman-alpha or variance to mean formulae are assessed in DDSI and DDAA of spent fuel configurations.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to EPJ Plu

Development of Quantitative PCR Assays to Aid in Root-knot Nematode (Meloidogyne spp.) Diagnostics and Resistance Breeding Efforts in the Pacific Northwest

In the Pacific Northwest (PNW), the two most common root-knot nematodes are Meloidogyne hapla and Meloidogyne chitwoodi. These nematodes can infect a wide variety of crops and can cause significant losses. Currently, it is common for the field of nematology to use labor-intensive microscopy to identify plant-parasitic nematodes based on morphology. There is a need for molecular techniques such as quantitative PCR (qPCR) for faster, more reliable Meloidogyne spp. identification and quantification. Still, there is difficulty with designing molecular tools for the Meloidogyne spp. present in the PNW due to the limited amount of sequence data for PNW populations in the NCBI Genbank repository. The gene Hsp90 was chosen as the assay target because it is conserved among most living organisms but has highly variable functionality, conferring enough sequence variation for primer and probe design. One set of primers with two species-specific probes were designed for use in hydrolysis probe singlepex or multiplex qPCR to detect and quantify M. chitwoodi and M. hapla in the PNW. Chapter 2 of this thesis describes the development of the Hsp90 multiplex qPCR for M. hapla and M. chitwoodi and its use in field samples from a diagnostic laboratory to compare morphological and molecular diagnostics. This molecular assay is not able to distinguish between M. fallax and M. chitwoodi, but M. fallax is not found in the PNW. No cross reaction was observed among plant-parasitic nematodes commonly found in the PNW and the assay was able to detect populations of M. hapla and M. chitwoodi from areas of North America outside of the PNW. High DNA concentrations of M. hapla or M. chitwoodi affected the proficiency with which the assay could detect low DNA concentrations of the opposite target nematode in the sample. The reliability of testing 1 M. hapla or 1 M. chitwoodi in a sample was 50% and 80%, respectively. A test of three soils from the PNW did not indicate that soil type had an effect on Ct value. In the comparison between morphological and molecular field samples obtained from a diagnostic laboratory, the standard curve was unreliable. In determining presence or absence of M. hapla and M. chitwoodi, the multiplex qPCR and morphological diagnostics were in agreement 68% of the time. A subset of 25 samples where morphological and molecular diagnostics disagreed on the presence of M. chitwoodi were run in singleplex with the probe specific to M. chitwoodi and 17 of those 25 samples replicated the result of the multiplex assay. In Chapter 3, a high-throughput screening method termed “the canister assay” was optimized for evaluating the reproduction of M. chitwoodi on potato. In the canister assay, soil is added to the canister and planted with potato. The canister is then inoculated with M. chitwoodi and incubated at a constant temperature for the duration of the experiment. The canisters are then harvested and eggs are extracted and enumerated to calculate reproduction factor (RF = final population density/initial population density). Among the factors investigated, inoculating at time of planting and an incubation period of at least 6 weeks caused the greatest increase in RF values. The canister assay was also applied to a potato breeding population, for which enumeration of extracted eggs at the end of the experiment by microscopy was compared to the Hsp90 M. chitwoodi singleplex qPCR. There was no significant difference in calculated RF values between molecular and microscope enumeration. However, when samples with a low nematode density are considered (less than 200 eggs) there is a significant difference in egg density estimations, with the qPCR producing much more sensitive results. Broadly, the research in this thesis aims to contribute to the high-throughput methods that will advance nematology research and diagnostic efforts through molecular biology techniques

Release of ecologically relevant metabolites by the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus CCMP 1631

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Society for Applied Microbiology for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Environmental Microbiology 17 (2015): 3949–3963, doi:10.1111/1462-2920.12899.Photoautotrophic plankton in the surface ocean release organic compounds that fuel secondary production by heterotrophic bacteria. Here we show that an abundant marine cyanobacterium, Synechococcus elongatus, contributes a variety of nitrogen-rich and sulfur-containing compounds to dissolved organic matter. A combination of targeted and untargeted metabolomics and genomic tools was used to characterize the intracellular and extracellular metabolites of S. elongatus. Aromatic compounds such as 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and phenylalanine, as well as nucleosides (e.g., thymidine, 5’-methylthioadenosine, xanthosine), the organosulfur compound 3-mercaptopropionate, and the plant auxin indole 3-acetic acid, were released by S. elongatus at multiple time points during its growth. Further, the amino acid kynurenine was found to accumulate in the media even though it was not present in the predicted metabolome of S. elongatus. This indicates that some metabolites, including those not predicted by an organism’s genome, are likely excreted into the environment as waste; however, these molecules may have broader ecological relevance if they are labile to nearby microbes. The compounds described herein provide excellent targets for quantitative analysis in field settings to assess the source and lability of dissolved organic matter in situ.This project was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant #3304 to E. Kujawinski.2016-07-0