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(a)nceas.ucsb.edu
<mailto:semantics4biodiversity@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(a)nceas.ucsb.edu Skype: mark.schildhauer
Phone: 805-892-2509 FAX: 805-892-2510
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu
