5th International Workshop on Semantic Web Applications and Tools for the Life Sciences (SWAT4LS 2012)
http://www.swat4ls.org/workshops/paris2012

Overview

Since 2008, SWAT4LS is a workshop that has provided a platform for the presentation and discussion of the benefits and limits of applying web-based information systems and semantic technologies in the domains of health care and life sciences.
SWAT4LS has been in Edinburgh (2008), Amsterdam (2009), Berlin (2010) and London (2011).
Growing steadily each year as Semantic Web applications have become more widespread, the program of SWAT4LS has grown to include associated events.
The next edition of SWAT4LS will be held in Paris, on November 30th 2012, and it will be preceded by two days of tutorials and hackathons.

We are confident that the next edition of SWAT4LS will provide the same open and stimulating environment that brought together researchers, developers, and users, from various fields including biomedical informatics, systems biology, computational biology, drug discovery, bioinformatics and biocomputing, to discuss goals, current limits and real experiences in the use of Semantic Web technologies in Life Sciences.
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Rationale

The web is a key medium for information publishing, and web-based information systems play a key role in biomedical information exchange and integration. At the same time, the variety and complexity of biomedical information call for the adoption of semantic-based solutions.
The Semantic Web provides a set of technologies and standards that are key to support semantic markup, ontology development, distributed information resources and collaborative social environments.
Altogether the adoption of the web-based semantic-enabled technologies in the Life Sciences has potential impact on the future of publishing, biological research and medicine. This workshop will provide a venue to present and discuss benefits and limits of the adoption of these technologies and tools in biomedical informatics and computational biology. It will showcase experiences, information resources, tools development and applications. It will bring together researchers, both developers and users, from the various fields of Biology, Bioinformatics and Computer Science, to discuss goals, current limits and some real use cases for Semantic Web technologies in Life Sciences.
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Topics

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Standards, Technologies, Tools for the Semantic Web:

- Big Metadata
- Semantic Web standards and new proposals (e.g.: RDF, OWL, SKOS, SPIN, RuleML, Microformats)
- Tools for ontology editing, annotation, versioning and provenance management
- RDF stores, NoSQL, reasoners, query and visualization systems
- Knowledge representation for biomedical knowledge bases
- Query federation systems for distributed knowledge and data discovery
- Tools for semantics-enabled web publication

Systems for a Semantic Web for Bioinformatics:

- Biomedical knowledge bases on the Semantic Web
- Semantic biomedical Web Services
- Semantics-enabled biomedical information systems and solutions
- Linked Data for biomedical research

Existing and prospective applications of the Semantic Web for Bioinformatics:

- Semantic Wikis
- Semantic collaborative research environments
- Semantic crowdsourcing and collective intelligence
- Alternative approaches to biomedical metadata generation and management
- Methods for data sharing and open data
- Approaches to data privacy and security
- Case studies, use cases, and scenarios

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Type of contributions

The following possible contributions are sought:
- Research papers
- Position papers
- Posters
- Software demos

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Proceedings

Previous proceedings of SWAT4LS have appeared in the past in CEUR, Nature Preceedings or ACM.
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Special issue

Authors of accepted contributions to the upcoming edition of SWAT4LS will be invited to submit to a special issue of the BMC Journal of Biomedical Semantics.

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Deadlines

Expression of interest for tutorials: 5th July 2012
Submission opening: 3rd September 2012
Papers submission deadline (abstracts): 28th September 2012
Papers submission deadline (full text): 9th October 2012
Early registration deadline: 15th October 2012
Posters and demos submission deadline: 22nd October 2012
Communication of acceptance: 29th October 2012
PDF ready: 23rd November 2011
Hackathon, Tutorials 28-29th November 2012
Workshop day: 30th November 2012

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Instructions:

All papers and posters must be in English and submitted in pdf format.

Submissions for papers should report original research, and should be between 8 and 15 pages.
Submissions for position papers should report qualified opinions, recommendations or conclusions, and should be between 3 and 6 pages.
Submissions for posters should be between 2 and 4 pages.
Submissions for software demo proposals should also be between 2 and 4 pages.

Please refer to the SWAT4LS website for detailed formatting instructions prior to submission.
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Submission

All submissions will be handled via the EasyChair submission system (to be opened in the beginning of September).
To ensure high quality, submitted papers will be carefully peer-reviewed by at least three members of the Scientific Committee.