<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Apologies for cross-posting<div style="font-family: Arial; "><span style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Please forward this message to any potential colleagues in the areas of interest</span><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">CALL FOR PAPERS</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">International Workshop on "Definitions in Ontologies" at ICBO 2013 (<span style="font-family: Helvetica; ">International Conference on Biomedical Ontologies)</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">July 7, 2013</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Montreal, Canada</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Website: <a href="http://definitionsinontologies.weebly.com/">http://definitionsinontologies.weebly.com/</a> </div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Ontologies built using OBO Foundry principles are advised to include both formal (logical) definitions, as well as natural language definitions. Depending on the effort, one or the other can be underrepresented. Possible explanations to this bottleneck are the high cost of producing well-written definitions; an insufficient understanding of the nature of natural language definitions or of logic; the lack of an operational theory of definitions; the lack of studies that evaluate usability and effectiveness of definitions in ontologies; a paucity of tools to help with definition authoring and checking. Producing natural language definitions is time-consuming, costly and prone to all kinds of inconsistencies. Producing logical definitions that are effective, correct, and communicative is also difficult. It is therefore worth exploring different ways of assisting, with automation, creation and quality control of definitions.</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">This workshop gathers interested researchers and developers to reflect upon general themes as the selection and modeling of defining information; the relation between definitions in specific domains as opposed to domain-independent definitions; the theoretical underpinnings of definitions; tools that can facilitate relating logical and natural language definitions. In addition, we would want to encourage participation by different communities using definitions so that their needs can be exposed. </div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">FORMAT AND OUTCOMES</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">The workshop will consist of two parts. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 23px; text-align: justify; ">First, selected presentations of short papers from attendees.</span> Second, a guided discussion based on the participants’ suggestions. This discussion is aimed at synthetizing and prioritizing defining practices. All papers should end with a suggestion on the defining practices or users’ needs regarding definitions. We will, based on the presentations and discussion, collect a list of recommendations relating to definitions in ontologies to be posted on the workshop’s website.</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">INTENDED AUDIENCE</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">We solicit participation from developers and users from all around the world and different linguistic communities in the areas of ontology, natural language processing, information retrieval, logics, philosophy, terminology and lexicology. We want to encourage participation of ontologists and tool developers building ontology authoring tools; philosophers and logicians who can shed light on the issues in creating definitions; biomedical researchers interested in the role of definitions in nomenclatures such as SNOMED; computer scientists interested in the treatment of definitions in the framework of languages like OWL; terminologists and lexicologists working on definitions and their modeling; NLP researchers working on definition extraction techniques or on information retrieval methods for definition production; and NLP/IR researchers reusing definitions produced for ontologies. </div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">TOPICS</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Topics of interest are split between foundational aspects, pragmatic issues and user perspectives. See the workshop's website for a list of possible topics.</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">IMPORTANT DATES<br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Deadline for submission: April 15, 2013</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Notification of acceptance: May 15, 2013 </div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Camera-ready copies for the proceedings: June 15, 2013</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Workshop: July 7, 2013</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">SUBMISSIONS</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><b><br></b></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 23px; text-align: left; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">We welcome short papers, up to 6 pages, excluding references.</span><div><span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 23px; text-align: left; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">All papers should end with a suggestion on the defining practices or users’ needs regarding definitions.</span></div><div><br></div></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">ORGANIZING COMMITTEE</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Selja Seppälä (University at Buffalo, USA), <a href="mailto:seljamar@buffalo.edu">seljamar@buffalo.edu</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Alan Ruttenberg (University at Buffalo, USA), <a href="mailto:alanruttenberg@gmail.com">alanruttenberg@gmail.com</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">PROGRAM COMMITTEE</div><div style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">César Aguilar (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Nathalie Aussenac-Gilles (National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), France)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Caroline Barrière (CRIM, Canada)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Thomas Bittner (University at Buffalo, USA)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Mélanie Courtot (British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, Canada)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Christiane Fellbaum (Princeton University, USA)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Natalia Grabar (Université de Lille 3, France)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Janna Hastings (European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge, UK)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Marie-Claude L’Homme (Université de Montréal, Canada)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">James Malone (European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge, UK)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Alexis Nasr (Aix Marseille Université, France)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Fabian Neuhaus (National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA) </div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">James Overton (Knocean, Toronto, Canada)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Richard Power (The Open University, UK)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Patrice Seyed (Tetherless World Constellation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA) </div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Robert Stevens (The University of Manchester, UK)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Allan Third (The Open University, UK)</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Sandra Williams (The Open University, UK)</div><div><br></div></body></html>