[Obo-discuss] Call for submissions: Semantics for Biodiversity Symposia at TDWG 2013

[Ramona W. <rw...@ip...>]

Hello all:

Below is the announcement for 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, please note 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)

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

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

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*Semantics for Biodiversity Symposium -- Call for Abstracts
*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 for additional
information on each of the sessions.  Questions for the organizers can be
directed to sem...@nc...

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