Harmonisation of multimedia ontologies

Dear colleagues

As a result of the recent research trend in the convergence between  
Multimedia, Knowledge and Semantic Web technologies, the number of  
ontologies used for multimedia related research approaches,  
applications and systems has been significantly increased. A number  
of relevant research activities were presented during the Multimedia  
& Semantic Web workshop (http://www.acemedia.org/ESWC2005_MSW/) held  
as part of ESWC05 and as an outcome of this workshop, a Multimedia  
Ontology Meeting (http://www.acemedia.org/aceMedia/reference/ 
multimedia_ontology/index.html) was organised as part of EWIMT 2005.  
The objective of the meeting was to discover if it is feasible to  
build an overall multimedia ontology, re-using existing work and current
approaches, and to identify how multimedia ontologies could be  
harmonized and shared.

During this meeting it was agreed that a possible approach for  
harmonization is to aim defining a set of core features and  
specifications which is a “minimum set” for a multimedia ontology to  
be used as a basis for all multimedia related applications to build  
on and extend. A profiling approach could be followed where features  
are allocated to various hierarchical levels. Towards this objective,  
it was agreed to draft a document with requirements, definitions and  
objectives.

All interested organizations are invited to submit proposals by 24  
January 2006 listing requirements in which we need multimedia  
ontologies and describing potential approaches for harmonization.   
The results will be collated and a first analysis will be carried  
out. During a future meeting the requirements document will be  
finalized and a timeplan for a potential harmonisation activity will  
be decided.
The Call for Requirements relating to multimedia ontologies is  
available at

http://www.acemedia.org/aceMedia/reference/multimedia_ontology/ 
index.html

and is also attached here.

Everyone is invited to respond to the call for requirements (deadline  
24 January 2006) and we also would be grateful if you would circulate  
the call for requirements to any colleagues and contacts who you  
think would like to contribute.

Thanks in advance for your contributions.

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Dr Yiannis Kompatsiaris
Senior Researcher
Multimedia Knowledge Group, Head
Informatics and Telematics Institute
Centre for Research and Technology Hellas
1st Km. Thermi-Panorama Road
P.O. Box 361, 57001 Thermi-Thessaloniki, Greece
Tel: +30 2310 464160 (ext. 114), Fax: +30 2310 464164
email : ikom@iti.gr WWW : http://mkg.iti.gr
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