ICBO'14 - Deadline for Workshop and Tutorial proposal submission is April 01, 2014

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*ICBO 2014 Call for Participation*
*5th International Conference on Biomedical Ontologies (ICBO 2014) *
Houston, Texas   |   October 6 - 9, 2014
http://icbo14.com
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*4/01/2014  Workshop and tutorial proposal submission deadline*

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*
*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.

*Workshops & Tutorials:*  A workshop brings together a group of people to
engage in intense discussion and activity on a particular subject or
project. A tutorial is an educational event where participants can get
hands-on experience to learn or improve on a particular subject, language,
tools or frameworks. Both are half-day long events.

*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*

*Contact*
For more information or to offer sponsorship, please send us a note at:
info@icbo14.com

best regards
Sivaram
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Sivaram Arabandi, MD, MS
Ph:  832.726.2322