*DIST 2008*

http://events.sti2.at/dist2008

Submission deadline: 21 September 2008
Workshop: 8-11 December 2008 (co-located the with 3rd Asian Semantic Web Conference 2008)

DIST workshop focuses on the use of semantic technologies for heterogeneous data integration. The workshop will particularly focus on ontology mediation techniques and ontology based data integration. As the Web of data is now becoming a reality with the publication of large amount of structured knowledge as linked data, techniques are needed to properly integrate these data together in a consistent and efficient manner. We will study in this workshop the latest advances on the set of techniques relevant to integrate ontologies together, link existing datasets to ontologies, and properly merge and fusion these datasets. The workshop will be organized around presentations of original works, followed by discussions where emergent topics will be drawn.

*Workshop description*
*Topic relevance*

While the semantic Web has been a vision for more than ten years, it is now becoming a reality with the publication of considerable amounts of interlinked data. This effort, mainly driven by the Open Linked Data project enables the development of a multitude of new applications. It also brings semantic technology researchers to experiment the techniques they have studied in the recent years on real cases. It finally brings new issue to the research front. Data integration using ontology supposes to:

1. Being able to relate data-sources to ontologies
2. Being able to interchange data between heterogeneous ontologies
3. Being able to fusion data properly

The successful realization of these three points will enable a web of data as foreseen in visionary papers from the beginning of the millennium. We will in this workshop study these topics and discuss possible other issues needed to be overcome.
Topics of interest

* Ontology matching
* Database to ontology mapping (mapping languages, algorithms and tools)
* Data fusion
* Mediators (instance transformation, query rewriting, ontology merging)
* Mediation frameworks (interoperability between graphical interfaces, matching systems and mediators)
* Ontology alignment representation and tools (languages, graphical tools, correspondence patterns)
* Applications of ontology mediation techniques: biomedical domain, multimedia ontologies, industrial applications.

*Intended Audience*

This workshop is relevant for academics and industrial interested in state of the art data integration. Academics will be interested to either contribute with achievement or discuss emerging topics on semantic data integration. Industrials will bring their experience and problems in practical usage of data mediation.
Workshop format

The workshop will be lasting a full day. First half day scientific presentations will be held. A keynote speech at the beginning will present new trends in data integration and semantic technologies, followed by short presentations exposing the participants topics of interest. The second half of the day will be a discussion based on the workshop topics and the interests raised in the morning session. Post workshop proceedings will be published on-line.
Submission guidelines

Paper submission and reviewing will be electronic via the conference submissions site. Papers should not exceed 15 pages in length and must be formatted according to the information for LNCS authors.
Related events

* Ontology Matching Workshop at ISWC 2006, 2007 and 2008:
* http://www.ontologymatching.org Ontology alignment evaluation initiative (OAEI):
* http://www.oaei.ontologymatching.org Linked data on the web workshop at WWW 2008:
* http://events.linkeddata.org/ldow2008/ Semantic data and service integration workshop at VLDB 2007:
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~sdsi/

*Organizing Committee*

Ryutaro Ichise

Fran�ois Scharffe (contact:francois'dot'scharffe'at'sti2'dot'at)

*Program Committee*

Chris Bizer
Jerome Euzenat
Peter Haase
Wei Hu
Kingsley Idehen
Antoine Isaac
Adrian Mocan
Axel Polleres
Yves Raimond
Pavel Shvaiko
Kangping Wang