Apologies for cross-posting: ICBO 2014 Call for Participation
5th International Conference on Biomedical Ontologies (ICBO 2014) Houston, Texas October 6 - 9, 2014 http://icbo14.com Overview The biomedical area has seen an explosive growth in data in the last decade from electronic health records, procedures, imaging, lab tests, genomics, and sensors. More recently the emergence of consumer health devices and the improved understanding of the microbiome has contributed greatly to this growth. While Big Data approaches have been useful to tackle the volume and velocity aspects, variability aka the 'small data’ issue is especially challenging in the healthcare and life sciences areas. Ontologies provide the means to tackle this variability challenge with the ability to represent the meaning of the data formally in a computable manner. In addition, a large part of healthcare data is unstructured data. Natural Language Processing (NLP) and data mining techniques are being used for information extraction into a more structured form, a process wherein ontologies provide the knowledge models and the lexicon to extract the information meaningfully. A large number of biomedical ontologies are now available, and ontology frameworks and ecosystems have also emerged to facilitate interoperability among the models. The 5th International Conference on Biomedical Ontologies (ICBO) aims to bring together application of ontologies as well as foundational issues in biomedical ontologies. The theme of ICBO 2014 is Ontologies driving Innovation - the main emphasis will be on the applied aspects of ontologies and demonstration of innovative ontology-driven solutions for all areas of healthcare and life sciences. Important dates Date Events 1/01/2014 Call for Papers 4/01/2014 Workshop and tutorial proposal submission deadline 4/15/2014 Notification of acceptance of workshops and tutorial proposals 5/01/2014 Scientific paper submission deadline 7/01/2014 Notification of scientific paper acceptance 7/15/2014 Software demo, early career, and workshop paper submission deadline 8/15/2014 Notification of software demo, early career, and workshop paper acceptance 8/15/2014 Poster submission deadline 9/01/2014 Notification of acceptance of posters 9/15/2014 Deadline for all camera-ready copies for the proceedings 10/6/2014 ICBO Topics Papers, posters, workshops, tutorials, and software demonstrations are invited on a broad range of topics covering ontology development and use in the healthcare and life sciences areas. These include, but are not limited to, ontology engineering and reuse, ontologies promoting data integration, fluidity and reuse, data visualization, pathway analysis, and especially knowledge discovery. Areas of special focus: - Foundational issues in Biomedical Ontologies - Ontology development tools, reuse, and interoperability - Data Science and Big Data - Linked Open Data and Semantic Web services - Ontologies for clinical decision support - Pharma-biotech and genomics - Personalized medicine - Translational science - Consumer health data - Ontologies for life sciences, biodiversity, and evolutionary biology - Reasoning with biomedical ontologies - Natural language processing, text mining, and information extraction - Bridging between ontologies and controlled vocabularies such as ICD-9/10 Submissions - Scientific paper - up to 6 pages - Early career track paper - 4 pages (students/post-docs should be the first authors) - Poster abstract - 2 pages - Software demos - 2 pages (include screenshots and links to demos) - Workshop and tutorial proposals - 2 pages (1 page for proposal, 1 page for organizers) Submission Format - Submissions must be submitted in the IEEE conference proceedings format: http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html - Submissions will be handled via Easy Chair <https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icbo2014> Submission Types Scientific paper A scientific paper describes a major advance in the field of biological and biomedical ontologies. It can report a new ontology, a major revision or extension to an existing ontology, a new application of an existing ontology, a substantial critique of an existing ontology with a proposed alternative approach, the result of applying an ontology--for example--to data interoperability and/or data analysis. Minor additions and/or refinements to an existing ontology are not appropriate. Note that per the topic list above, a scientific paper may also describe thorough analysis of foundational issues in biological and biomedical ontologies without the requirement for a use case or specific application domain. Advancements and innovations in the field benefit from theoretical analysis and discussion. Early career track paper An early career track paper describes mentored work in the field of ontology carried out by a student (undergraduate and graduate) or post-doctoral fellow, who must be the first author on the paper. This category of paper gives early career ontologists the opportunity to benefit from constructive criticism, feedback, and advice from a broad audience of senior scientists and practitioners in the field. Poster abstract A poster abstract describes formative work, early or preliminary results, late-breaking developments, minor refinements to existing ontologies, proposed or planned applications of ontologies to particular use cases, and the opportunity to showcase mature work in a visual format. Software demonstration Demonstrations showcase innovative uses of ontologies and engage the audience providing a deeper understanding of how the software works, how different parts of the system interact, and the ways in which ontologies form a core aspect of the solution. Publication All accepted submissions will be included in the conference proceedings and published at CEUR Workshop Proceedings. A selection of high quality paper submissions will be invited for revision and publication in Journal Special Issues in a timely manner. Organizing Committee Members Scientific Chair: Sivaram Arabandi, ONTOPRO & Health 2.0 Scientific Chair: Bill Hogan, Univ. of Arkansas Medical Sciences Local Organizer: Brian Lang, Seniors in Touch & Health 2.0 Program Chair: Mathias Brochhausen, Univ. of Arkansas Medical Sciences Workshop and Tutorial Chair: Melissa Haendel, Oregon Health & Science University Proceedings and Special Issue Chair: Cui Tao, SBMI, UT Health Sciences in Houston Early Career Chair: Alexander Diehl, University at Buffalo Poster and Demonstrations Chair: James P. McCusker, 5AM Solutions Sponsorship and Publicity: Health 2.0 Houston
