CALL FOR PAPERS
WORKSHOP ON HEALTH CARE AND LIFE SCIENCES DATA INTEGRATION FOR THE SEMANTIC WEB held in conjunction with THE 16th INTERNATIONAL WORLD WIDE WEB CONFERENCE MAY 8-12, 2007 BANFF, ALBERTA, CANADA Biomedical researchers need to be able to access all relevant data in order to make well-informed decisions. In order for this objective to be reached, data about genes, proteins, pathways, diseases, and chemical compounds must be effectively integrated and available to the scientist. Yet the integration of disparate biomedical data continues to be a challenge to achieve. Difficulties with data integration stem from the fact that many biomedical research disciplines require the integration of data sets that have been produced by using different experimental/clinical protocols, across many groups, that are using heterogeneous data formats, and are referring to the data at different levels of abstraction. Further challenges include inconsistent use of terminology and identifiers, rapidly increasing data volumes, and the growing diversity in data types and formats. In the hope of easing the effort of data integration many life science researchers are exploring the use of the Semantic Web. The benefits promised by the Semantic Web include aggregation of heterogeneous data using explicit semantics, simplified annotation and sharing of findings, the expression of rich and well-defined models for data aggregation and search, easier reuse of data in unanticipated ways, and the application of logic to infer additional insights. To help realize the vision of the Semantic Web, W3C has established the Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group (HCLSIG), which is chartered to develop and support the use of Semantic Web technologies to improve collaboration, research and development, and innovation adoption in the of health care and life science domains. As a part of realizing this vision, we are organizing the first workshop on the Semantic Web for Health Care and Life Sciences Data Integration for the Semantic Web in conjunction with WWW 2007. The workshop will foster discussion and exchange of ideas relating to the use of the Semantic Web for data integration in health care and life sciences. Audience: The workshop encourages participation from both academia and industry with an emphasis on the theoretical and practical aspects of applying Semantic Web technologies to the challenges of health care and the life sciences. We encourage participation from: * Universities, Research Institutes and Centers * Health Care, Clinical, and Life Science Consortia * Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology Companies * IT Solution Vendors * Government Agencies We invite papers that focus on the application of the Semantic Web to health care and/or life sciences. Topics of Interest: * Integration of health care and/or life science data using Semantic Web technologies. * Semantics of health care and/or life science data * Semantic Web applications for health care and/or life science data * Semantic Web Services * Ontology-based data integration * RDF/OWL data querying languages * Experience using triple stores Submissions: Prospective authors are invited to submit research or demo papers in any of the areas listed above. Research papers should be 8-10 pages in length and demo papers 1-2 pages in length. Instructions for preparing the papers (in Word and Latex format) are available at the following Web site: http://www2007.org/submission.php. All papers must be written in English and submitted in PDF format in the same style as the main WWW2007 conference papers via the EasyChair system (details to be announced). E-mail any one of workshop organizers for questions relating to the submission of papers. Important Dates: Paper submission: February 7, 2007. Notification of acceptance: February 21, 2007 Final version of accepted papers: February 28, 2007 Workshop date: May 9, 2007 (this may change) Organizing Committee: Kei Cheung, Yale Center for Medical Informatics, Yale University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Huajun Chen, College of Computer Science, Zhejiang University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Yimin Wang, Institute AIFB <http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/> , University of Karlsruhe <http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/> ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Joanne Luciano, Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Susie Stephens, Oracle ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Vipul Kashyap, Partners HealthCare System ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) For more information on the workshop, the following workshop link at the conference Web page at http://www2007.org/