ICS-FORTH Workshop on limits of global models for integration and use of historical and scientific information


                     Call for Participation
                          
                          Workshop on 
       Exploring the limits of global models for integration 
            and use of historical and scientific information 
                       
                       October 23-24 2006 
                 ICS-FORTH, Heraklion, Crete, Greece 


Invited Speaker: Nicola Guarino 
                   ISTC-CNR, Laboratory for Applied Ontology, Trento 

Website:   http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/workshops.html 

Effective large scale information integration requires an agreement on 
the common semantics of the data structure elements and other 
categories employed. Recently, there has been increasing doubt about 
the possibility of global ontological models. However, knowledge 
integration based on mere similarity of categories, such as "inexact 
equivalence" does not allow for precise, global querying advanced 
reasoning, or interoperability. On the other hand, practical core 
ontologies such as CIDOC/CRM (ISO/PRF 21127) demonstrate a 
surprisingly wide validity over multiple domains. 

This workshop explores the limits of such global models for 
integrating and making use of historical and scientific information, 
in order to enhance both, our theoretical understanding of the limits 
of ontological agreement in a specific application setting, and our 
practical understanding of how to implement effective large scale 
knowledge integration services and exploit the power of global models. 

Nicola Guarino, Invited Talk 

G. Goerz, Why do we need a Meta-Level for the CIDOC CRM? 

N. Aussenac-Gilles, Ontology or meta-model for retrieving scientific 
     reasoning in documents: The Arkeotek project 

M. Doerr, About Material and Immaterial Creation 

R. Smiraglia, Instantiation: Empirical Emergence of a Global
     Phenomenon 

R. Urban, Folio Metaphysics, Wholes and Parts in Cultural Objects 

M. Généreux, D. Arnold, Preserving meanings in multilingual text
     mining for Cultural Heritage 

P. Constantopoulos, V.Dritsou, A CIDOC CRM – compatible metadata model
     for digital preservation 

Ø. Eide, C. E. Ore TEI, CIDOC-CRM and a Possible Interface between 
     the Two 

R. Kummer, Integrating data from The Perseus Project and Arachne using
     the CIDOC CRM 

K. May, Integrating cultural and scientific heritage: archaeological
    ontological modelling for the field and the lab 

Registration: there is no fee. Please send email to renear@uiuc.edu if you intend 
to attend.  Include contact information and indicate your particular interests in 
these topics of the workshop. 

Location: Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) Institute of 
Computer Science (ICS), Heraklion, Crete, Greece. See http://www.ics.forth.gr/

contact-info.html for directions to ICS-FORTH. Additional information will be 
available on the website. 

Recommended hotels: 
Lato *** (+30 2810 228103) 
Atlantis **** (+30 2810 229103) 
Irini ** (+30 2810 226561) 

All located close to the archeological museum and harbour. 
Please ask for corporate rate for guests of ICS-FORTH. 

Other Hotels, such as the luxury Candia Maris at Ammoudara Beach 
close to FORTH may make special offers in direct contact. 
(http://www.maris.gr/candia/description/gen-info.htm) 

For Greek national flights Aegean Airlines is recommended 
for reliability. 

Additional local and accommodation information will be available on the 
website:  http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/workshops.html 

Program Committee: 

Martin Doer, Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research
     and Technology, Heraklion, Greece 
Allen Renear, Graduate School of Library and Information Science,
     University of Illinois 
Dolores Iorizzo, London e-Science Center, Imperial College London 
Siegfried Krause, Germanisches Nationalmuseum 
Liz Lyon, UKOLN, University of Bath 
Laure Vieu, Laboratory for Applied Ontology (ISTC-CNR), Trento 
Christian-Emil Ore, Unit for digital documentation, 
     Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo 
Laure Vieu, Laboratory for Applied Ontology (ISTC-CNR), Trento 

Workshop Chairs: Martin Doerr and Allen Renear 

Organizers: 
    CIDOC CRM Special Interest Group 
    ICS-FORTH 
    DELOS Network of Excellence. 

Website:    http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/workshops.html 

For more information contact Allen Renear renear@uiuc.edu 

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The application of formal ontologies in cultural domains such as 
museums, libraries, and archives, the semantic web, and other related 
areas, inevitably raises difficult theoretical problems which appear 
to complicate the development of practical ontologies. For 
instance,these problems affect directly the performance of information 
systems, when there is no agreement on the identity and unity of 
referred items, such as: 

* Does Tut-Ankh Amun still exist (i.e. as a mummy)? 

* Is Luther's translation an expression of the Holy Bible or another work? 

* Is Caesar's coming to the Curia a part of the event of his murder? 

* How can the respective ontological choices be objectified, and how 
can they be reconciled in practical applications? 

* To which degree compatible generalizations of a model can compensate 
inconsistencies following the widening of the scope of a model? What 
are the limits of ontology harmonization? 

* Which kinds of concepts tend to be globally compatible and which 
not, and in which sense? This workshop elicits contributions related 
to studies, experiences and practical and theoretical solutions around 
the above problems. As well as formal information systems approaches 
to these problems we welcome contributions based on perspectives from 
philosophy, from cognitive science, and from the social sciences. 
On the other side, this workshop elicits contributions about the 
application and prospects and limits of domain overarching information 
integration, in particular with respect to cultural heritage and 
scientific information. Issues in this area include... 

* Models for the semantic interoperability and integration of 
scientific and cultural information and possibly other disciplines. 

* The long-term preservation and future interoperability of data 
structure semantics. 

* Scalable information architectures, linking and reasoning services 
under semantic models, in particular scalable solutions. 

The following topics are of particular interest: 

* Philosophical implications or controversies with respect ontological 
choices of the CIDOC CRM, FRBR and other core ontologies for 
information in libraries, archives, museum and scientific data 
repositories. 

* Identity and temporal existence of conceptual items. Identity 
ofWorks. Can works or texts gain or lose non-relational properties? Is 
identity based on the continuity of tradition or essential properties? 

* Work as continuant versus Work as occurrent. 

* Identity and substance of events, parts of events, spatiotemporal 
limits of events in non-discrete models compatible with the nature of 
historical records. 

Methods for managing the practical needs of information systems... 

* Objective criteria for selecting and justifying ontological choices 
in information systems 

* Harmonization of ontologies. Can Digital Libraries be based on one 
global information model, or why not? 

* Integrating cultural and scientific heritage: Scientific records as 
historical data. Integrated access and (re)use. E-science metadata. 
The relevance of factual knowledge for e-science. 

* Preservation of data structure semantics -- interoperability with 
the future. 

* Knowledge extraction and core ontologies. 

* Document linking and semantic relationships. 

Website:   http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/workshops.html 

Received on Thursday, 21 September 2006 05:03:22 UTC