20.241 Formal Ontology conference

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 241.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 05:40:36 +0100
         From: "Obrst, Leo J." <lobrst_at_mitre.org>
         Subject: Early Registration ends: OCT. 18, FINAL CFP: FOIS
2006 - Nov. 9-11, Baltimore, MD, USA

*** EARLY REGISTRATION EXTENDED TO OCTOBER 18. This is also the cutoff
date for the special
conference rate at the Inn at the Colonnade conference hotel. So hurry
to register and reserve
your room, to obtain best rates. ***

=============================================

FINAL Call for Participation

FOIS-2006 <http://www.formalontology.org/fois-2006/fois-2006.htm/>

International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems

November 9-11, 2006
Baltimore, Maryland (USA)

Early registration is through October 18, 2006.
Late registration will begin October 19, 2006.

The conference hotel is: Inn at The Colonnade.
<http://www.doubletree.com/en/dt/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=BWICUDT>
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
<https://www.seattletech.com/registration/index.php?%20confno=584&stgun
iv=119&PAYMENTS=TRUE> .

November 8, 2006: Co-located Workshop: Biomedical Ontology in Action
<http://www.imbi.uni-freiburg.de/medinf/kr-med-2006/> (separate
registration required).

________________________________

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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Received on Mon Oct 09 2006 - 01:09:51 EDT