Tue, 08 Jul 2003 12:14:38 GMT

Call for Papers

Semantic Web Technologies for Searching and Retrieving
Scientific Data
Monday, October 20, 2003
Sundial Resort, Sanibel Island, Florida, USA

http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/projects/scisw2003/cfp.htm

A workshop in conjunction with The Second International
Semantic Web Conference

Submission of papers: July 18, 2003
Notification of acceptance: August 22, 2003
Submission of camera-ready version: September 19, 2003
Workshop: October 20, 2003

This one-day workshop aims at exploring the Semantic-Web requirements
for scientific communities. The particular focus is on methods for search and retrieval of scientific data that match the needs of domain scientists. In most scientific disciplines today, such as earth sciences, bio-informatics, environmental science, physical sciences, medical informatics and others, scientists access a number of online sources that provide information and services in that domain. Currently available methods and capabilities for searching, locating, retrieving, querying, and integrating scientific data from multiple online sources are inadequate for scientists who still use collections of stand-alone sources. There are several efforts in progress on applying semantic web technology for data retrieval in scientific domains such as integrating Geospatial data, integrating bio-informatics sources and services, integration of GeoSciences data, Earth Science information sources and also Medical Informatics data sources, which are all based on tailoring upcoming Semantic Web technologies to science data search and retrieval.
The objective of this workshop is to gain new insights into the information search and retrieval needs of scientists and the applicability
of semantic web technology to this task by reviewing efforts in progress as well as new perspectives on building semantic web-based approaches for scientific communities. We welcome submissions that describe a vision or work in progress on building a semantic web for a particular science discipline.

Topics of Interest (Include but are not limited to)

– Types of search and retrieval requests typical for science data users. – Iterative search scenarios typical for a scientists search profile.
– Specifications of properties of scientific data sets relevant for successful search, inference, and retrieval. – Granularities of ontologies for scientific data. – Specifications of search purpose and search result within the setting of scientific investigations.
– Ontological differences about fundamental concepts that are present across different scientific domains, such as space, time, and processes. – Experience reports with using state-of-the-art technologies for developing building blocks such as “wrappers” or interfaces to science information sources. – Application or development of semantics-based search, query, and retrieval agents and softbots.
– Connections between ontologies for scientific and generic use, over the same domains. – Semantic web technologies aiding interdisciplinary science activities. – Data quality, pedigree and provenance issues. – Scientific workflows and applicability of Web services to workflows.

Paper Submission

We invite submissions of short papers in the area of Semantic-Web-based search and retrieval of scientific data. Papers are solicited in the following categories:

– Experience papers (upto 6 pages) describing completed
work or work in progress.
– Position papers (upto 3 pages) articulating a new problem, approach, vision, or position.
Authors should submit a PDF file of their paper to scisw2003@email.arc.nasa.gov

Organizing Committee Naveen Ashish USRA RIACS, NASA Ames Research Center, USA
ashish@email.arc.nasa.gov
Max Egenhofer University of Maine, USA
max@sparial.maine.edu
Carole Goble University of Manchester, UK
carole.goble@cs.man.ac.uk

Program Committee
Terence Critchlow, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Isabel Cruz, University of Illinois at Chicago Susan Davidson, University of Pennsylvania Natasha Fridman Noy, Stanford University School of Medicine Kathleen Hornsby, University of Maine Vipul Kashyap, National Library of Medicine Bertram LudŠscher, San Diego Supercomputer Center Brian McBride, HP Laboratories Dennis McLeod, University of Southern California Eric Miller, W3C World Wide Web Consortium Amit Sheth, University of Georgia
For questions or comments, please send email to scisw2003@email.arc.nasa.gov