2nd Call for Papers: First International Workshop on Ontologizing Industrial Standards - OIS 2006

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++ Proceedings as Springer LNCS ++ Abstracts May 1, Submissions May 15 ++

Call for Papers
---------------

First International Workshop on Ontologizing Industrial Standards - OIS
2006

http://events.deri.at/ois2006/

in conjunction with the

25th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER2006)

November 6-9, 2006, Tucson, Arizona, USA

============================================================================
Important Dates:
----------------
Abstracts: 	May 1, 2006
Full papers: 	May 15, 2006
Notification: 	June 14, 2006
Camera-ready:	July 5, 2006
Workshop:	Nov 6, 2006 (to be confirmed)
============================================================================

Theme and Objectives:
----------------------------------
A major bottleneck towards business applications of Semantic Web
technology and machine reasoning is the lack of industry-strength
ontologies that go  beyond academic prototypes. The design of such
ontologies from scratch in a textbook-style ontology engineering process
is in many cases unattractive,  for (1) it would require significant
effort, and (2) because the resulting  ontologies could not build on top
of existing community commitment. Also, real-world problems of data and
systems interoperability can only be overcome using Semantic Web
technology if ontologies exist that represent the very standards
currently in use in systems and databases.

There exist at least four major categories of such standards:

     1. XML schema definitions for message exchange (OAGIS, BMEcat, ebXML,
        RosettaNet, OASIS UBL, …)
     2. Non-XML message format standards (UN/EDIFACT, X12, SWIFT, VDA,
        SEDAS, EANCOM, CIF,…)
     3. Taxonomies and thesauri (eCl@ss, UNSPSC, RosettaNet technical
        dictionary, …)
     4. Numbering schemes and other shallow vocabularies (EAN, UPC, DUNS,
        ILN, ISO 639,…)

These specifications, though mostly informal in nature, are likely the
most valuable asset on the way to real business ontologies that can help
solve real business interoperability problems, since they reflect some
degree of community consensus and contain, readily available, a wealth
of concept definitions. However, the transformation of such standards
into useful  ontologies is not as straightforward as it appears, because
of the following reasons:

1. The specifications come in a variety of formats, e.g. XML, CSV,
     Microsoft Access, PDF, or plain text, and mostly lack a formal
     meta-model.
2. The specification and the documentation can be very voluminous,
     rendering manual translation unfeasible.
3. The same standard can be used in different ways with incompatible
     semantics in different contexts.

In this workshop we want to advance the state of the art in mechanized
and semi-automated transformation of existing industrial standards into
useful ontologies.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to

- Conceptual approaches and algorithms for deriving ontologies from
    thesauri and inconsistent taxonomies and XML Schema definitions
- Axiomatization of resulting ontologies using Human-Language
    Technologies on textual descriptions and other HL elements
- Work-arounds and modeling patterns in RDF-S and OWL and other popular
    ontology languages
- Semi-automated and fully mechanized extraction of standards from
    human-readable specifications (e.g. PDF)
- Correct interpretation and representation of the original semantics of
    existing standards
- Ontology Grounding and Upper Ontologies
- Standards alignment (e.g. mapping, matching, merging, mediation, and
    reconciliation)
- Intellectual Property Rights issues
- Optimal degree of mechanization

Submissions:
------------------
We invite submissions of short or full papers reflecting both research
in progress and validated results that address any relevant dimension of
the problem. Especially welcome will be papers covering successful
examples, lessons learned, and best practices of such transformations,
e.g. in the Web Services domain so that existing Web Services
specifications can be used for Semantic Web services frameworks like
WSMO and OWL-S.

All papers will be peer-reviewed by at least two members of the Program
Committee. Papers should be formatted in Springer LNCS format
(http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) and submitted as PDF
documents. Full papers should be 14 pages (maximum: 16), short papers
should be up to 8 pages.

Accepted papers will be published as part of the ER2006 Workshop volume,
planned for publication by Springer in their LNCS series. Camera-ready
versions must not be longer than 14 pages.

The submission system for the workshop will be available by April 15 at

http://events.deri.at/ois2006/

If you have any questions, please contact Martin Hepp at
mhepp(AT)computer(DOT)org.

For accepted submissions, at least one author must register for the
workshop in order for the paper to appear in the proceedings and to be
scheduled in  the workshop program.

More information on the venue, registration, hotels, and related events
will be available at http://adrg.eller.arizona.edu/ER2006/

In addition, we will provide more detailed information on the workshop
Web site
http://events.deri.at/ois2006/.

Organizing Committee:
---------------------
Martin Hepp
Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), University of Innsbruck
E-Mail: mhepp[AT]computer[DOT]org
Web site: http://www.heppnetz.de / http://www.deri.at

Miltiadis Lystras
Athens University of Economics & Business, Athens, Greece
E-Mail: mdl[AT]aueb[DOT]gr
Web site: http://www.eltrun.aueb.gr/content/members/m_mdl.html

Richard Benjamins
iSOCO - Intelligent Software for the networked economy, Madrid, Spain
E-Mail: rbenjamins[AT]isoco[DOT]com
Web site: http://www.isoco.com/

Program Committee:
------------------
Chris Bizer, Free University of Berlin
Chris Bussler, Cisco
Jorge Cardoso, University of Madeira
Oscar Corcho, University of Manchester
Jos de Bruijn, DERI Innsbruck
Doug Foxvog, DERI Galway
Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento
Karthik Gomadam, LSDIS Lab, University of Georgia
Michel Klein, Free University of Amsterdam
Paavo Kotinurmi, Helsinki University of Technology
York Sure, University of Karlsruhe

Administrative Contact:
-----------------------
Martin Hepp
Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) Innsbruck
University of Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 21a, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Phone: +43 512 507 6465, Fax: +43 512 507 9872
E-mail: mhepp[AT]deri[DOT]org
http://www.heppnetz.de


http://events.deri.at/ois2006/


--------------------------------
Check eClassOWL, the first real-world e-business ontology
for products and services in OWL at
http://www.heppnetz.de/eclassOWL

Received on Friday, 21 April 2006 13:58:22 UTC