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DEFINITION AND SCOPE
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Ontology, originally a fundamental part of philosophical enquiry, is concerned with the analysis and categorization of what exists. In recent years, however, a complementary focus of ontological inquiry gained significant momentum fueled by the advent of complex information systems which rely on robust and coherent, formal representations of their subject matter. The systematic study of such representations, their axiomatics, their corresponding reasoning techniques and their relations to cognition and reality, are at the center of the modern discipline of formal ontology.

Formal ontology in this modern sense is now a research focus in such diverse domains as conceptual modeling, database design, software engineering, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, the life sciences, bioinformatics, geographic information science, knowledge engineering, information retrieval, and the Semantic Web. Researchers in all these areas increasingly recognize the need for serious engagement with ontology to provide a foundation for their work, where ontology is understood as a general theory of the types of entities and relations making up their respective domains of enquiry.

The FOIS conference is designed to provide a meeting point for researchers from all disciplines with an interest in formal ontology. The conference encourages submission of high quality articles on both theoretical issues and concrete applications. As in previous years, FOIS 2014 is intended as a nexus of interdisciplinary research and communication.

FOIS is the flagship conference of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA, website: http://iaoa.org/), which is a non-profit organization the purpose of which is to promote interdisciplinary research and international collaboration at the intersection of philosophical ontology, linguistics, logic, cognitive science, and computer science, as well as in the applications of ontological analysis to conceptual modeling, knowledge engineering,
knowledge management, information-systems development, library and information science, scientific research, and semantic technologies in general.

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SCOPE OF FOIS - TOPICS OF INTEREST
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We seek high-quality papers on a wide range of topics. Concerning scope, an ideal FOIS paper will address both content-related ontological issues and their formal modeling, as well as their impact and relevance for some aspects of information systems.

Areas of particular interest to the conference include the following:

Foundational Issues
* Kinds of entities: particulars/universals, continuants/occurrents, abstracta/concreta, dependent entities/independent entities, natural objects/artifacts
* Formal relations: parthood, identity, connection, dependence, constitution, causality, subsumption, instantiation
* Vagueness and granularity
* Space, time, and change

Methodological issues
* Role of reference ontologies
* Top-level vs. domain-specific ontologies
* Relationship with cognition, language and semantics
* Formal comparison among ontologies
* Ontology integration and alignment

Domain-specific ontologies
* Ontology of physical reality (matter, space, time, motion, etc.)
* Ontology of biological reality (genes, proteins, cells, organisms, etc.)
* Ontology of mental reality and agency (beliefs, intentions, emotions, percepts, etc.)
* Ontology of artifacts, functions and roles
* Ontology of social reality (institutions, organizations, norms, social relationships, artistic expressions, languages, etc.)
* Ontology of perception (human and artificial)

Applications:
* Ontology-driven information systems design
* Ontological foundations for conceptual modeling
* Knowledge management
* Qualitative modeling
* Computational linguistics
* Information retrieval
* Semantic Web, Web services
* Business modeling
* Ontologies for particular scientific disciplines (biology, chemistry, geography, physics, cognitive sciences, linguistics etc.)
* Ontologies for engineering: shape, form and function, artifacts, manufacturing, design, architecture, etc.
* Ontologies for the humanities: arts, cultural studies, history, law, literature, philosophy, etc.

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IMPORTANT DATES
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Paper Submission Deadline: January 31st, 2016
Notification: March 31st, 2016
Conference Dates: July, 6-9, 2016