January 2014 - tdwg - lists.tdwg.org

In Memoriam Dr Richard Pankhurst
by Mergen Patricia 14 Dec '15

14 Dec '15

Dear Colleagues, On behalf of TDWG we are very sorry to inform you that Richard John Pankhurst passed away on Tuesday 26 March after fighting oesophageal cancer for many years. He was a very important contributer and friend of TDWG, as can be judged from his short CV from the BioCISE directory: Dr Richard Pankhurst began his career in computing in the computer section at CERN, Geneva in 1963, and moving back to Cambridge to work on Computer-Aided Design in 1966. In 1971 he moved to the Botany School, Cambridge to begin work on his PANKEY programs for identification and key construction. This was continued at the Botany department of the Natural History Museum from 1974 until 1991, where he was for many years curator of the British herbarium, and also worked on the Flora Meso-Americana. "Biological Identification", 1978, was the first textbook on computer methods in identification. A new version of this book was published by C.U.P in 1991. Also published in that year was the Flora of the Outer Hebrides. With over 50 publications of refereed papers and books in the fields of taxonomic computing he has made major contributions to these fields. Dr. Pankhurst has been very active recently in programming and managing botanical databases (Flora Europaea, BSBI database and PANDORA) and systems with images. He was appointed Principal Scientific Officer at the RGB Edinburgh in 1991. Dr. Pankhurst served on various committees of British and international organizations, among others. Botanical Society of the British Isles, Committee for Scotland and Database Committee. Botanical Society of Scotland, Council. Taxonomic Databases Working Group, convener of Descriptors Group. International Organisation for Plant Information, co-convener of Information Systems Committee, Checklist Committee. Dr. Pankhurst was the head of the Department of Taxonomic Computing at RGBE. After his official retirement, he compiled a large database of the Rose family. His work on recording the wild flowers of the Outer Hebrides took him frequently to these remote islands on behalf of the Botanical Society of the British Isles. His interest in Taraxacum (dandelions) was acknowledged when a species found only on St. Kilda was named *Taraxacum pankhurstianum*. In Richard, not only a very important scientist was lost to our community, but also a very pleasant collaborator and friend . <patricia.mergen(a)africamuseum.be> Dr. Patricia Mergen (General Secretary of TDWG, on behalf of the Executive Committee) Head of Biodiversity Information and Cybertaxonomy Royal Museum for Central Africa Leuvensesteenweg 13 B-3080 Tervuren Belgium + 32 2 769 5 *626* patricia.mergen(a)africamuseum.be

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BioVeL Training Workshops Autumn 2013
by Jong, Yde de 19 Mar '14

19 Mar '14

[cid:_2_0D2267A80D226240004E96E980257BF0] BioVeL, a virtual laboratory for biodiversity research data, is offering two training workshops «Introduction to workflows for taxonomic refinement, biogeographic analysis, and species distribution modelling» November 26-27, 2013, Cardiff University, UK Description of the workshop and registration<http://frb.eole-emailing.net/l.php?q=C7R0bdUyZhX7O4KA8AcP&l=mhEt9SDFpiH4jmM…> «Building workflows with Taverna workbench» December 5-6, 2013, Manchester, UK Description of the workshop and registration<http://frb.eole-emailing.net/l.php?q=C7R0bdUyZhX7O4KA8AcP&l=qx%2B%2F%2F2hFK…> Note that these training workshops are free to attend but registration is required. The number of participants is limited. For further information, please write contact(a)biovel.eu<mailto:contact@biovel.eu>. More information on BioVeL: www.biovel.eu<http://frb.eole-emailing.net/l.php?q=C7R0bdUyZhX7O4KA8AcP&l=ai9CNhKZGxdfg76…> BioVeL is funded by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (FP7) as part of its e-Infrastructures activity (Grant no. 283359).

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Semantics for Biodiversity special issue (updated submission date Feb. 28)
by Ben Adams 27 Jan '14

27 Jan '14

*Semantics for Biodiversity -- call for papers* *February 28, 2014 - Paper submission deadline (updated)* The study of biodiversity examines the richness and variety of life on Earth across multiple organizational and spatial scales, ranging from genomic to organismal through populations and ecosystems; and from local to global scales. Presently, biodiversity observational data are collected by scientists around the world using a diverse set of methods and stored in a variety of formats. Because the problems that biodiversity scientists are investigating are time-critical, societally-relevant, and often global in scale, there is a pressing need to enable scientists to better share, discover, and synthesize biodiversity data from multiple sources. Modern semantic technologies provide a promising way to accomplish this, by capturing rich representations of biodiversity data in ways that afford maximum interoperability and detailed description for re-use. The goal of this special issue is to bring together a collection of papers on biodiversity semantics - to present current state-of-the-art semantic efforts in representing biodiversity data, to spur advances in semantic technologies for biodiversity research, and to help define a common strategy for advancing semantic approaches for describing biodiversity, including considerations about the broader ecological and environmental contexts that inform biodiversity investigations. Semantic approaches for describing biodiversity data are currently being explored on several fronts. The international-scope Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) group has developed metadata standards such as Darwin Core (specimen data), ABCD (biological collections), the Taxonomic Concept Schema (names and concepts), and the proposed Audubon Core (biodiversity multimedia). Darwin Core is very broadly accepted as a transfer schema for sharing biodiversity data, and is the standard adopted by GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility - that currently aggregates over 400 million biodiversity records from collections around the world. However, all current TDWG standards are lacking in semantic expressivity and compatibility with reasoning requirements for effective knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR), and tend to focus on observations of specimens without descriptions of their environmental context. In parallel, the Earth and environmental science community, through emerging efforts like NSF's EarthCube, will be developing semantic models for describing environmental systems and processes. The genomics community also has a growing interest in linking biodiversity information to genetic samples. For example, metagenomics research often involves collection of aggregate samples of biodiversity, such as an amount of soil or ocean water, where genetic sequencing then provides a characterization of the variety of microbial and other life forms that are in the sample. Under the banner term of phenotype ontologies, research communities focusing on model organisms and (increasingly) broader taxonomic groups have assembled structured vocabularies for anatomical features that permit reasoning and integration with genomics and evolutionary analyses. Clarifying the semantics of biodiversity will provide an essential linchpin among investigations that enable us to understand how environmental factors, both biotic and abiotic, influence phenotype, community composition, and species' ranges and viability, as well as provide insights into the evolutionary relationships among Earth's life forms. This special issue calls for original papers describing the latest developments, trends, and solutions for biodiversity semantics and its applications. The topics of interests include, but are not limited to: - Formal models of biodiversity - specimens, occurrences, samples, etc. - Taxonomic and nomenclatural semantics, classification representation and provenance - Field observation and measurement semantics - Semantic approaches for enhancing discovery of biodiversity data - Interoperability of biodiversity with Earth and environmental science data - Linking taxonomic with trait and genomic data - Semantic representations of phylogenetic data - Semantic descriptions of biodiversity models and semantic approaches to support model-data confrontation - Integration of species, ecosystems, and genetic level data - Semantics of populations, communities, and ecosystem services - Data integration for critical zone studies - Geospatial semantics for biodiversity - locations, ranges, co-occurrences, etc. - Software for semantic annotation of biodiversity data - Bottom-up biodiversity ontology development - Ontology design patterns and methods for ontology evolution for biodiversity - Linked Open Data (LOD) for biodiversity - Representing provenance of biodiversity data - Limitations of, alternatives to, and extensions to Semantic Web languages and methodologies to serve biodiversity research needs *Submissions* *February 28, 2014 - Paper submission deadline (updated)* Submissions shall be made through the Semantic Web journal website at http://www.semantic-web-journal.net. Note that you need to request an account on the website for submitting a paper. Please indicate in the cover letter that it is for the *Semantics for Biodiversity* special issue. Submissions are possible in all standing paper type of the journal, see http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/authors for descriptions: full research papers, surveys, linked dataset descriptions, ontology descriptions, application reports, tool/systems reports. *Guest editors* Benjamin Adams (The University of Auckland, New Zealand) Nico Franz (Arizona State University) Birgitta König-Ries (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) Deborah McGuinness (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) Mark Schildhauer (NCEAS, University of California, Santa Barbara)

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Call for speakers (deadline March 20): Taxonomy Boot Camp 2014, Washington DC, November 4-5
by DCMI Announce 18 Jan '14

18 Jan '14

*** Apologies for cross-posting *** ————————————————————————— *10th annual Taxonomy Boot Camp* November 4-5 as part of KMWorld Washington, DC *Website:* http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2014/ *Call for Speakers:* http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2014/CallForSpeakers.asp *Deadline:* March 20, 2014 ————————————————————————— The 10th annual Taxonomy Boot Camp will be held again in Washington DC from November 4-5 as part of KMWorld. The call for speakers is now open, deadline for proposals is March 20. Proposals for individual sessions, panels and workshops are all welcome, covering any aspect of taxonomy/ontology/vocabulary design, management, integration and use. See full details at http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2014/, or submit your proposal online at http://www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2014/CallForSpeakers.aspx . Taxonomy Boot Camp brings together practitioners and experts in taxonomy, vendors who have created tools to help manage your taxonomies, and novices who are starting out in the world of information management. Two parallel tracks on the first day provide those new to the field with the nuts and bolts they need to get up to speed, and expert practitioners with insights into how other professionals have made their organizations more successful through better use of taxonomies. On the second day of the Boot Camp, everyone shares in case studies, practical sessions on taxonomy tools and their use, and cutting edge developments in the field. Don't miss this unique opportunity to learn about tools and techniques you can use to bring your information clouds together, and meet the people who can help you be successful in your efforts. Michael Crandall, Conference Chair Senior Lecturer and Director, iAffiliates Program and Chair, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) The Information School Box 352840 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98105-2840 (206) 897-1798 mikecran(a)uw.edu http://ischool.uw.edu/people/faculty/mikecran http://ischool.uw.edu/iaffiliates

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CfP DC-2014, Austin, Texas
by DCMI Announce 07 Jan '14

07 Jan '14

*[image: Inline image 1]* *Metadata Intersections: Bridging the Archipelago of Cultural Memory* DC-2014 International Conference and Annual Meeting of DCMI 8-11 October 2014 AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center The University of Texas at Austin *Call for Participation: http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2014/cfp <http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2014/cfp>* *Researchers, practicing professionals and students* with broad interests in principled metadata design and best practices have gathered annually since 1995 under the DCMI banner to exchange ideas, to discover important common ground, and to work on shared problems. As one of the first broadly inclusive efforts at crowdsourcing expertise on the Web, the DCMI community has been a key player in the evolving information environment of the Web of documents and data. *DC-2014 CONFERENCE THEME:* Metadata is fundamental in enabling ubiquitous access to cultural and scientific resources through galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM). While fundamental, GLAM traditions in documentation and organization lead to significant differences in both their languages of description and domain practices. And yet, the push is on for "radically open cultural heritage data" that bridges these differences as well as those across the humanities and the sciences. DC-2014 will explore the role of metadata in spanning the archipelago of siloed cultural memory in an emerging context of linked access to data repositories as well as repositories of cultural artifacts. *BEYOND THE THEME:* Submissions of papers, reports, and posters are welcome in all areas of innovative metadata design and best practices. *IMPORTANT DATES:* *Peer-Reviewed Papers, Project Reports & Posters:* — Submission Deadline: 3 April 2014 — Author Notification: 12 July 2014 — Final Copy: 16 August 2014 *Special & Panel Sessions, Workshops:* — Submission Deadline: 3 April 2014 — Author Notification: 1 June 2014 *Best Practice Posters & Demonstrations* — Submission Deadline: 2 June 2014 — Author Notification: 30 June 2014 (All deadlines: Midnight, Pacific Standard Time) *Program Committee Chairs:* — William Moen, *School of Library and Information Sciences, University of North Texas, United States* — Amy Rushing, *University of Texas at San Antonio, United States*

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