Workshop on Working with Multiple Biomedical Ontologies

at the International Conference on Biomedical Ontology (ICBO 2011)

26 July 2011, Buffalo, USA

Submission deadline: Extended to 10 April 2011
Submission of short, longer or position papers invited

Objective

The workshop intends to provide a report and discussion forum concerning aspects of working with multiple biomedical ontologies. Biomedical ontologies are often very large and nevertheless restricted to delineated domains (e.g. anatomy, cells, diseases, genes). Thus they present a dual challenge of managing their size and their adequation to an intended scope. As a result, a number of issues arise relating to the way biomedical ontologies may be either split or combined. In application contexts, similar issues present themselves when using ontologies in, for example, annotating large and diverse datasets or when reasoning with multiple ontologies covering connected domains. The workshop proposes to explore ways in which the rich diversity of biomedical ontologies can be combined and used, in particular, in multiple domain applications and at multiple scales.

Contributions on integration solutions for biomedical ontologies and their applications are invited. Submissions of paper presentations should be conducive to discussions and exchanges. Short papers, position papers as well as longer papers (see submission instructions for maximum length) on the following non-exhaustive list of topics are invited.

Topics (indicative)

• Combination of ontological terms from orthogonal ontologies
• Relations bridging divides between ontologies or between ontology terms
• Cross-products and generalisations
• Modularisation of large ontologies, especially through combination
• Reasoning with multiple, large ontologies
• Scope and domain specification of biomedical ontologies
• Theory, application and implementation for the above
• Lessons learnt from other domains than the biomedical one

Submissions

• Position papers (up to 2 pages)
• Short papers or extended abstract (up to 4 pages)
• Full papers (up to 10 pages)

• Length: Papers are limited to 2500 words, not including abstract or references, and can be at most 10 pages inclusive in the conference format.


• Format: Submissions must be in PDF and follow the Information for LNCS Authors.


• Submission: Papers must be submitted through the ICBO Easychair website. The submission should be marked as a workshop submission. Authors may feel free to notify the workshop organisers of their submission.


• Publication: The workshop's papers will be published with the conference proceedings.

Expressions of interest and clarification questions may be sent to the organisers at the following addresses: g.gkoutos@gen.cam.ac.uk, pgrenon@ebi.ac.uk

Important dates

• Initial submission: April 10, 2011 (extended)
• Notification: April 30, 2011
• Camera-ready: June 10, 2011
• Workshop date: July 26, 2011

Organisation

• George Gkoutos, University of Cambridge, UK
• Pierre Grenon, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK

Programme Committee

• Stefano Borgo, Laboratory for Applied Ontology, Italy
• Bernard de Bono, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK
• John Gennari, University of Washington, USA
• Robert Hoehndorf, University of Cambridge, UK
• Dave Lambert, Knowledge Media Institute, UK
• Phillip Lord, Newcastle University, UK
• Alan Ruttenberg, University at Buffalo, USA
• Uli Sattler, University of Manchester, UK
• Sarala Wimalaratne, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK
• Michael Witbrock, Cycorp, Inc. and Cycorp Europe
• Frank Wolter, University of Liverpool, UK