Applied Ontology jumps across the semantic gap

Applied Ontology jumps across the semantic gap

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Contact:

Astrid Engelen

Editorial Office IOS Press

Tel.: + 31 20 688 33 55

E-mail: market@iospress.nl

 

Amsterdam, 10 November, 2005 – It is widely recognized that the most
important problems facing information technology today are semantic in
nature—they concern the ways in which the syntax of our systems relates to
the content and objects addressed by real-world applications. The
persisting, ubiquitous distance between syntax and content is called the
semantic gap. Ontologies, which make explicit the semantics of a vocabulary
in a machine-processable way, play a key role in bridging such a gap. 

 

Nicola Guarino and Mark Musen, Co-Editors-in-Chief of the new IOS Press
journal Applied Ontology, acknowledge the explosive interest in ontologies,
reflecting the need to focus squarely on the content of information, rather
than just on the formats and languages used to represent such content.
Musen: “This is the first journal with explicit and exclusive focus on
ontological analysis and conceptual modeling, within an interdisciplinary
view.”

 

“Applied Ontology aims at being a major publication forum for theoretical
and applied research in a variety of topics, including specialized
ontologies in particular fields, ontology-development methodology,
relationships among ontology, language, cognition, and perception, as well
as foundational issues and innovative ontology-based applications, such as
the Semantic Web,” says Guarino.

 

The papers appearing in the first issue are intended to show the journal’s
character, and the overall attitude we shall adopt. They include a number of
short notes from the members of our editorial board, intended to establish a
forum for interdisciplinary discussion, as well as original articles
concerning the ontology of relative space, a presentation of the Web Service
Modeling Ontology, an extension to the OntoClean methodology and an analysis
of the semantics of relationships aimed at comparing and integrating
different database schemes.

 

© 2005 IOS Press. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use prohibited.

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About Nicola Guarino

Nicola Guarino is a senior research scientist at the Institute of Cognitive
Sciences and Technologies of the Italian National Research Council, where he
leads the Laboratory for Applied Ontology in Trento. He has been active in
the ontology field since 1991, playing a leading role in promoting the study
of ontological foundations of knowledge engineering and conceptual modeling
under an interdisciplinary approach. Guarino is general chair of the
conference series on "Formal Ontology in Information Systems" (FOIS). Among
the best known results of his research work are the OntoClean methodology
and the DOLCE foundational ontology. More information on Nicola Guarino can
be found at www.loa-cnr.it <http://www.loa-cnr.it/> .

 

About Mark Musen

Mark Musen is Professor of Medicine (Medical Informatics) and Computer
Science at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. He is co-director of the
U.S. National Center for Ontological Research and principal investigator of
the National Center for Biomedical Ontology, supported by the U.S. National
Institutes of Health. He is principal investigator of the Protégé project,
which has led to the most widely used ontology-management system in the
world. Musen conducts research on the modeling and use of ontologies to
build intelligent systems. More information on Mark Musen can be found at
www.smi.stanford.edu/people/musen.

 

About Applied Ontology - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Ontological
Analysis and Conceptual Modeling

 

Applied Ontology - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Ontological Analysis and
Conceptual Modeling is a new journal whose focus is on information content
in its broadest sense. The first issue will be published at the end of
November 2005 and is already available online. Please visit www.iospress.nl
<http://www.iospress.nl/>  or the journal’s website www.applied-ontology.org
for more information. In 2006, Applied Ontology will be published in one
volume of four issues (volume 2). 

 

About IOS Press

 

Commencing its publishing activities in 1987, IOS Press (
<http://www.iospress.com/> www.iospress.nl) is a rapidly expanding
scientific, technical, medical and professional publishing house focusing on
a broad range of subject areas. Headquartered in Amsterdam, IOS Press
publishes approximately 100 new books per annum and 70 international
journals, covering topics ranging from computer science and mathematics to
medicine and the natural sciences. Electronic access to all journals is now
available. IOS Press also maintains offices in the Washington, DC area and
Berlin and a co-publishing relationship with Ohmsha, Ltd (Tokyo). 

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