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Call for
Participation
International
Conference on Formal Ontology in Information
Systems
November
9-11, 2006
Baltimore, Maryland (USA)
November
8, 2006: Co-located Workshop: Biomedical Ontology in Action (separate
registration required).
Early registration is through October
9, 2006.
Late registration will begin October
10, 2006.
The
conference hotel is: Inn at The Colonnade. The Inn at the Colonnade is
right off the John Hopkins University campus, about a 5-10 min walk
from the conference location, the new Charles Commons
facility.
To register for FOIS 2006, please enter
the appropriate information at the registration website.
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.
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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 (New York
State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, SUNY at
Buffalo)
-
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)
-
Jérôme Euzenat (INRIA
Rhône-Alpes)
-
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)
-
Bernardo Magnini (Centre
for Scientific and Technological Research, ITC, Trento, Italy)
-
David Mark (Department of
Geography, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA)
-
William McCarthy (Michigan
State University)
-
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)
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