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Final Call for Papers

FOIS-2006

International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems

http://www.formalontology.org/

Electronic abstracts: May 1, 2006
Final submissions: May 5, 2006

Papers should be submitted electronically at: http://www.softconf.com/start/FOIS06/.

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Conference Description

Since ancient times, ontology, the analysis and categorisation of what exists, has been fundamental to philosophical enquiry. But, until recently, ontology has been seen as an abstract, purely theoretical discipline, far removed from the practical applications of science. However, with the increasing use of sophisticated computerised information systems, solving problems of an ontological nature is now key to the effective use of technologies supporting a wide range of human activities. The ship of Theseus and the tail of Tibbles the cat are no longer merely amusing puzzles. We employ databases and software applications to deal with everything from ships and ship building to anatomy and amputations. When we design a computer to take stock of a ship yard or check that all goes well at the veterinary hospital, we need to ensure that our system operates in a consistent and reliable way even when manipulating information that involves subtle issues of semantics and identity. So, whereas ontologists may once have shied away from practical problems, now the practicalities of achieving cohesion in an information-based society demand that attention must be paid to ontology.

Researchers in such areas as artificial intelligence, formal and computational linguistics, biomedical informatics, conceptual modeling, knowledge engineering and information retrieval have come to realise that a solid foundation for their research calls for serious work in ontology, understood as a general theory of the types of entities and relations that make up their respective domains of inquiry. In all these areas, attention is now being focused on the content of information rather than on just the formats and languages used to represent information. The clearest example of this development is provided by the many initiatives growing up around the project of the Semantic Web. And, as the need for integrating research in these different fields arises, so does the realisation that strong principles for building well-founded ontologies might provide significant advantages over ad hoc, case-based solutions. The tools of formal ontology address precisely these needs, but a real effort is required in order to apply such philosophical tools to the domain of information systems. Reciprocally, research in the information sciences raises specific ontological questions which call for further philosophical investigations.

The purpose of FOIS is to provide a forum for genuine interdisciplinary exchange in the spirit of a unified effort towards solving the problems of ontology, with an eye to both theoretical issues and concrete applications.

Program Chairs
Brandon Bennett (University of Leeds, UK) brandon <at> comp.leeds.ac.uk
Christiane Fellbaum (Princeton University, USA and Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany) fellbaum <at> clarity.princeton.edu

Conference Chair
Nicola Guarino (ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy) guarino <at> loa-cnr.it

Local Chair
Bill Andersen (Ontology Works, USA) andersen <at> ontologyworks.com

Publicity Chair
Leo Obrst (The MITRE Corporation, USA) lobrst <at> mitre.org

Topics

We seek high-quality papers on a wide range of topics. While authors may focus on fairly narrow and specific issues, all papers should emphasize the relevance of the work described to formal ontology and to information systems. Papers that completely ignore one or the other of these aspects will be considered as lying outside the scope of the meeting. Topic areas of particular interest to the conference are:

Foundational Issues

• Kinds of entity: particulars vs. universals, continuants vs. occurrents, abstracta vs. concreta, dependent vs. independent, natural vs. artificial

• Formal relations: parthood, identity, connection, dependence, constitution, subsumption, instantiation

• Vagueness and granularity

• Identity and change

• Formal comparison among ontologies

• Ontology of physical reality (matter, space, time, motion, ...)

• Ontology of biological reality (genes, proteins, cells, organisms, ...)

• Ontology of mental reality (mental attitudes, emotions, ...)

• Ontology of social reality (institutions, organizations, norms, social relationships, artistic expressions, ...)

• Ontology of the information society (information, communication, meaning negotiation, ...)

• Ontology and natural language semantics, ontology and cognition, ontology and epistemology, semiotics

Methodologies and Applications

• Top-level vs. application ontologies

• Role of reference ontologies; Ontology integration and alignment

• Ontology-driven information systems design

• Requirements engineering

• Knowledge engineering

• Knowledge management and organization

• Knowledge representation; Qualitative modeling

• Computational lexica; Terminology

• Information retrieval; Question-answering

• Semantic web; Web services; Grid computing

• Domain-specific ontologies, especially for: Linguistics, Geography, Law, Library science, Biomedical science, E-business, Enterprise integration, ...

Deadlines and Further Information

Electronic abstracts: May 1, 2006
Final submissions: May 5, 2006
Acceptance Notification: June 26, 2006
Submission of camera-ready paper: July 28, 2006

Submitted papers must not exceed 5000 words (including bibliography). Abstracts should be less than 300 words. Papers should be submitted electronically at: http://www.softconf.com/start/FOIS06/. Additional information will be provided on the conference web page: http://www.formalontology.org/ .

Proceedings will be published and available at the conference.

Programme Committee

• Bill Andersen (Ontology Works, USA)

• Nicholas Asher (Department of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin, USA)

• Nathalie Aussenac-Gilles (Research Institute for Computer Science, CNRS, Toulouse, France)

• John Bateman (Department of Applied English Linguistics, University of Bremen, Germany)

• Brandon Bennett (School of Computing, University of Leeds, UK)

• Stefano Borgo (Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Italy)

• Joost Breuker (Leibniz Center for Law, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

• Roberto Casati (Jean Nicod Institute, CNRS, Paris, France)

• Werner Ceusters (European Centre for Ontological Research, Saarbrücken)

• Tony Cohn (School of Computing, University of Leeds, UK)

• Matteo Cristani (University of Verona, Italy)

• Ernest Davis (Department of Computer Science, New York University, USA)

• Martin Dörr (Institute of Computer Science, FORTH, Heraklion, Greece)

• Carola Eschenbach (Department for Informatics, University of Hamburg, Germany)

• Christiane Fellbaum (Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University, USA and Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin, Germany)

• Antony Galton (School of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Exeter, UK)

• Aldo Gangemi (Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Roma, Italy)

• Pierdaniele Giaretta (Department of Philosophy, University of Verona, Italy)

• Michael Gruninger (University of Toronto, Canada)

• Nicola Guarino (Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy)

• Udo Hahn (Jena University, Germany)

• Jerry Hobbs (University of Southern California, USA)

• Eduard Hovy (University of Southern California, USA)

• Ingvar Johansson (Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science, University of Saarbrücken, Germany)

• Werner Kuhn (IFGI, Muenster)

• Fritz Lehmann (USA)

• Alessandro Lenci (University of Pisa, Italy)

• Leonardo Lesmo (Department of Computer Science, University of Torino, Italy)

• David Mark (Department of Geography, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA)

• Claudio Masolo (Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy)

• Chris Menzel (Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University, USA)

• Simon Milton (Department of Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Australia)

• Philippe Muller (Research Institute for Computer Science, University of Toulouse III, France)

• John Mylopoulos (Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada)

• Leo Obrst (The MITRE Corporation, USA)

• Barbara Partee (University of Massachusetts, USA)

• Massimo Poesio (Department of Computer Science, University of Essex, UK)

• Ian Pratt-Hartmann (Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK)

• James Pustejovsky (Department of Computer Science, Brandeis University, USA)

• David Randell (Imperial College London, UK)

• Robert Rynasiewicz (Johns Hopkins University, USA)

• Barry Smith (National Center for Ontological Research and Department of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, USA; Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science, Saarbrücken, Germany)

• John Sowa (Vivomind Intelligence Inc., USA)

• Veda Storey (Department of Computer Information Systems, Georgia State University, USA)

• Richmond Thomason (University of Michigan, USA)

• Mike Uschold (The Boeing Company, USA)

• Achille Varzi (Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA)

• Laure Vieu (Research Institute for Computer Science, CNRS, Toulouse, France)

• Chris Welty (IBM Watson Research Center, USA)