Call for Contributions: SPECIAL ISSUE ON SEMANTIC WEB FOR THE LIFE SCIENCES

Call for Contributions
       Journal of Web Semantics

  SPECIAL  ISSUE  ON

  SEMANTIC WEB FOR THE LIFE SCIENCES


Deadline: 15 November 2005

Guest Editors:
  Eric Neumann, Sanofi-Aventis and
  Michael Schroeder, TU Dresden

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The Elsevier Journal of Web Semantics
www.websemanticsjournal.org
solicits high quality papers on semantic web for the life
sciences.

The emergence of the Internet and of high-throughput
technologies in
the biomedical area have led to an explosion of online
accessible
biomedical data and tools. The intelligent integration of
such data is
vital for progress in many biomedical applications. Yet, current
technologies are not sufficient to address this problem.
Therefore, we
are witnessing today the first steps of biomedicine moving
towards the
establishment of a next generation web, a *semantic* web.
Biomedical
researcher are at the forefront of publishing data in XML
formats,
which are often standardized. They actively develop
ontologies as
common reference points to facilitate the annotation of
data. They
start offering their tools as web services. Thus, the
foundation of a
semantic web for the life sciences are laid. Yet, much
research needs
to be done to make the semantic web an every-day reality:

- The design, maintenance and evolution of biomedical
ontologies is a
  practical open problem. Formal and informal guidelines and
  technologies for the development of ontologies need to be
  investigated. Automated integration and creation of
ontologies will
  be an important step in this process.

- The Integration of current Data Sources should also be
considered as
  part of the semantic web strategies through both biomedical
  ontologies and local data semantics. How to best do this
needs to be
  addressed through approved practices.

- The semantic web will not replace the current web, but
there will be
  a transition from the current web to a semantic web. This
transition
  needs to be facilitated by textmining, natural language
processing,
  and modelling technologies which enrich free text with
ontological
  concepts and which structure unstructured text.

- Web services need to be transparently integrated into a
semantic
  web.  Web service discovery and deployment need to be
supported with
  security, privacy, quality-of-service and provenance
appropriately
  addressed.

- If the semantic web transparently links data and tools, it
will be
  possible to reason over such knowledge networks. Suitable
logics and
  rule engines need to be developed to draw conclusions from
these
  knowledge networks.

- Novel methods and algorithms need to be implemented to improve
  searching and browsing by operating on a semantic level
rather the
  keyword-based approaches currently used

- The next generation browsers and views for such complex
information
  need to be defined in terms of how users wish and need to
interact
  with such a rich semantic environment.

- New applications need to be developed which make use of
the richer
  data representation. Currently, online tools are limited
in the type
  of queries they support. A semantic web should demonstrate the
  capability of flexibly considering user constraints in query
  answering.

As documented by a recent W3C workshop on Semantic Web for
the Life
Sciences the life sciences can play an important role in
realizing the
semantic web. This special issue will give an opportunity to
researchers in the area to demonstrate how far we have moved
already
towards the next generation web.



Topics of Interest should combine Semantic Web technologies
with Life
Science applications. These include but are not limited to:
--------------------------------------------------

Semantic Web Technologies...
  - Ontologies
  - Web technologies such XML, RDF, OWL
  - Web services
  - Data and system integration
  - Semantic browsers and visualizations
  - Rules and reasoning on the web
  - Intelligent Agents
  - Textmining and natural language processing

....for Life Science Applications
  - Representing biomedical knowledge
  - Extracting biomedical knowledge from free text
  - Integrating distributed biomedical data sources and tools
  - Reasoning over biomedical knowledge
  - Searching and browsing the biomedical text
  - Biomedical applications
  - Applications in Drug Discovery and Development


Important Dates:
----------------
Deadline for submission :      15 November 2005
Notification of acceptance:    15 February 2005
Final Papers due:              15 March 2006
Special issue's publication:   May 2006


Guest Editors:
--------------
Eric Neumann, Sanofi-Aventis
Michael Schroeder, TU Dresden


Submissions:
------------
Authors are invited to submit a full paper with original
unpublished
work in English to ms@biotec.tu-dresden.de

Further information and guidelines are available from the
Elsevier
author portal:
authors.elsevier.com/JournalDetail.html?PubID=671322&Precis=DESC
and
www.websemanticsjournal.org

In case of any questions do not hesitate to contact the
guest editors.

Contact: ms@biotec.tu-dresden.de and
eneumann@alum.mit.edu


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