Deadline Extended (31 July) - Terra Cognita Workshop on Geospatial Semantics

CALL FOR PAPERS
Terra Cognita 2009 Workshop
http://asio.bbn.com/terracognita2009/
In Conjunction with the 8th International Semantic Web Conference,
(ISWC 2009), http://iswc2009.semanticweb.org/, near Washington, D.C., 
U.S.A.
This is a 5 hour workshop on Monday, October 26, 2009.

Workshop Overview
The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers in an 
increasingly growing field of Semantic Web research - geospatial 
semantics and applications. Enabling synergy between Semantic Web and 
geospatial researchers encourages spatially-related semantic research on 
formal methods and better knowledge representations as well as the use 
of geospatial semantics in applications.

There has been a noticeable trend of increased geospatial data and 
mapping capabilities on the Web, and geospatial information is now 
greatly enhancing the Web environment. This reflects the fact that 
society and scientific research are increasingly engaged with geospatial 
data. However, while many Semantic Web applications may use a map for 
viewing data, processing spatial relationships requires a deeper level 
of understanding. Methods for formally representing and processing 
geospatial information are only now emerging. Also, the semantics for 
various geospatial domains have not yet been established. Building upper 
and domain geospatial ontologies is a first step for alleviating the 
restrictiveness of XML-based and relational database-based schemas. 
Service interoperability also stands to make significant gains by 
incorporating Semantic Web technologies.

Increased interactions and discussions between the geospatial and 
Semantic Web communities are likely to provide a base understanding that 
can contribute to solving important spatial data problems within the 
Semantic Web. In this regard, the workshop encourages participation from 
the geospatial community as well as the Semantic Web community. In 
addition to research papers, we solicit papers detailing applications 
(i.e., in use papers). The workshop agenda will also include an 
interactive session in which other audience members can take a couple 
minutes to talk or present a slide on a relevant topic. The following 
topics are suggested but not exclusive.

Suggested Paper Topics
. Geospatial ontologies, including creation and use
. Semantic Web research regarding geospatial data
. Applying Semantic Web technology to spatial data
. Adding spatial data to Semantic Web applications
. Techniques for processing spatial data within the Semantic Web
. Semantic issues in geospatial standards
. Domain-oriented GIS applications that leverage Semantic Web technology
. Survey delineating the value-added use of geospatial ontologies
. Handling spatial data within formal ontology languages
. Overview of the research landscape regarding geospatial and semantics
. Semantic geospatial services

Paper Submission
Submissions (http://easychair.cs.man.ac.uk/conferences/?conf=terra09) 
will be handled using the EasyChair system. Papers must be formatted in 
the style of the Springer Publications format for Lecture Notes in 
Computer Science (LNCS) (Information for LNCS Authors, 
http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-2-72376-0) Formatted 
papers should be approximately 10 pages and must represent new work. All 
submissions will be reviewed by three members of the program committee. 
At least one author must register to present an accepted paper. We are 
working on the possibility of having selected papers be considered for 
journal publication.

Dates
Submissions: 31 July
Acceptances: 28 August
Camera Ready: 25 September

Organizing Committee
Terra Cognita 2008 is organized by members of the Spatial Ontology 
Community of Practice (SOCoP, http://www.socop.org/). SOCoP is a 
geospatial semantics interest group currently with members from U.S. 
federal agencies, academia, and industry. The group is open to anyone, 
and international collaborations are welcome. The goal of SOCoP is to 
foster collaboration among users, technologists, and researchers of 
spatial knowledge representations and reasoning towards the development 
of a set of core, common geospatial ontologies for use by all in the 
Semantic Web.

Workshop Chairs
Nancy Wiegand, University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA, wiegand@cs.wisc.edu
Dave Kolas, BBN Technologies, USA, dkolas@bbn.com
Gary Berg-Cross, Engineering Management & Integration, USA, 
gbergcross@gmail.com

Program Committee Members
Glen Hart, Ordnance Survey, UK
Dan Adams, Scitor Corp, USA
Ola Ahlqvist, Ohio State University, USA
Harry Chen, ImageMatters, USA
Isabel Cruz, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Mike Dean, BBN Technologies, USA
Max Egenhofer, University of Maine, USA
John Goodwin, Ordnance Survey, UK
Sergei Levashkin, National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico
Joshua Lieberman, Traverse Technologies, USA
Michael Lutz, European Commission-DG Joint Research Center, Italy
Florian Probst, SAP Research, Germany
James Ressler, Northrop Grumman, USA
Angela Schwering, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
Kathleen Stewart, University of Iowa, USA
Dalia Varanka, United States Geological Survey, USA
James Wilson, James Madison University, USA
Naijun Zhou, University of Maryland, USA