[tdwg-tag] TDWG 2013: "Semantics for Biodiversity" symposia

Mark Schildhauer schild at nceas.ucsb.edu
Thu Aug 22 02:36:19 CEST 2013


Hello folks,

We want to bring to your attention a recently approved TDWG proposal for 
a set of 3 symposia on the "Semantics for Biodiversity", planned for the 
upcoming TDWG meeting in Florence, Oct. 28-Nov. 1.  Due to the short 
time frame involved, we want to bring to your immediate attention these 
special aspects:

*Details and instructions about symposia: 
http://semantics4biodiversity.nceas.ucsb.edu (linked from the TDWG site 
under the symposium announcement)

*Submission site: 
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=s4bdtdwg2013 (i.e., not the 
TDWG site)

*Accelerated submission deadline" of SEP 4
*Accelerated review process, with acceptance notifications: SEP 11 (as 
courtesy to those needing approved submissions to attend)

We are hoping this "mega-symposium" will bring together at TDWG 2013 
many of the exciting and important efforts currently underway in 
advancing biodiversity semantics.

There is also an upcoming opportunity worth noting, viz. a planned 
special issue of the /Semantic Web Journal/ on "Semantics for Biodiversity":

*http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/blog/call-papers-special-issue-semantics-biodiversity

We anticipate that many of the TDWG contributions could be suitable for 
elaborating into a full paper submission for this special issue, on 
which several of the co-organizers of this TDWG effort are also involved 
as guest editors.  These papers are, thankfully, not due until January 
31, 2014.

Please spread the word!  Many thanks for your submissions, and hoping to 
see you at TDWG 2013!
(Sorry for the cross-posting, but we wanted to get the word out broadly...)

Sincerely,
Mark Schildhauer, John Deck, Ben Adams, Nico Franz, Rob Guralnick, 
Ramona Walls

(on behalf of additional co-organizers: Stan Blum, Steve Baskauf, Bob 
Morris, Norman Morrison, Evangelos Pafilis, Joel Sachs, Pelin Yilmaz)

====================================
*Semantics for Biodiversity Symposium -- Call for Abstracts
*http://semantics4biodiversity.nceas.ucsb.edu 
<http://semantics4biodiversity.nceas.ucsb.edu/>

at TDWG Conference 2013
October 28 - November 1, 2013 - Florence, Italy.

*Symposium Description and Scope
*
This Symposium includes a series of three, 90 minute sessions at TDWG 
that together constitute a "Semantics for Biodiversity" track, focused on --

    Ontologies and formal models
    Technologies, Reasoning and Annotation methods
    Interoperability with genomic and ecological semantics


These sessions are not parallel tracked and they are placed on separate 
days to avoid saturation on the topic. Additionally, there will be an 
initial "primer/tutorial" session of 60 minutes, to provide basic 
background for TDWG participants about semantic technologies, and how 
these can help inform biodiversity research.

The conveners of this Symposium will be soliciting participation from 
diverse communities, including those from the biodiversity informatics 
and standards-development community per se, but also researchers 
interested in knowledge modeling and semantic application development in 
the biodiversity sciences, including relevant linkages to investigations 
in the ecological, genomic and phylogenetic sciences. These thematic 
areas recommend a stronger-than-usual outreach to the computer science 
community, as researchers in that community will be particularly 
attracted by the prospects of reporting their work in a planned (and 
approved) special issue of the Semantic Web Journal on "Semantics for 
Biodiversity". Multiple groups of informaticians and technologists are 
currently developing semantic technologies to enhance 
discovery, interpretation, and interoperability of biodiversity data, so 
the upcoming meeting will provide a signal opportunity to present and 
discuss these activities in a coordinated fashion before perhaps the 
most relevant community who can inform, critique, and contribute to 
these efforts. Further, it's anticipated that these sessions will 
significantly raise awareness among computer scientists and engineers 
relative to the informatics challenges confronting the biodiversity 
community, particularly among those developing generalized knowledge 
representation and reasoning technologies, and machine-learning approaches.

*Important Dates
*
Submission due: September 4, 2013
Acceptance Notification: September 11, 2013
Symposium dates: October 29 - November 1, 2013

*Symposium Format and Submissions*

We invite abstract submissions (500 words maximum) for the three 
sessions, which will be dedicated to short presentations on the topics 
described in abstracts. We anticipate presentations will be for 20 
minutes, with the possibility that these times will change depending on 
the number of quality submissions.

Please visit http://semantics4biodiversity.nceas.ucsb.edu 
<http://semantics4biodiversity.nceas.ucsb.edu/> for additional 
information on each of the sessions.  Questions for the organizers can 
be directed to semantics4biodiversity at nceas.ucsb.edu 
<mailto:semantics4biodiversity at nceas.ucsb.edu>

Submission site: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=s4bdtdwg2013

-- 
Mark Schildhauer, Ph.D.              735 State St., Suite 300
Director of Computing, NCEAS         Santa Barbara CA USA 93101
Email: schild at nceas.ucsb.edu  	Skype: mark.schildhauer
Phone: 805-892-2509      FAX: 805-892-2510
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu

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