FOIS HOME NEWS CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION ORGANIZING COMMITTEE TOPICS IMPORTANT DATES SUBMISSIONS PROGRAMME COMMITTEE WORKSHOP PROGRAMME REGISTRATION ACCOMMODATION CONFERENCE LOCATION SPONSORS BALTIMORE ACCEPTED PAPERS	FOIS-2006 International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems Johns Hopkins University’s Gilman Hall; picture courtesy of JHU Conference Services November 9-11, 2006 Baltimore, Maryland (USA) Download pdf leaflet 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.
	Organizing Committee Program Chairs Brandon Bennett (University of Leeds, UK) brandon@comp.leeds.ac.uk Christiane Fellbaum (Princeton University, USA and Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany) fellbaum@clarity.princeton.edu Conference Chair Nicola Guarino (ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy) guarino@loa-cnr.it Local Chair Bill Andersen (Ontology Works, USA) andersen@ontologyworks.com Publicity Chair Leo Obrst (The MITRE Corporation, USA) lobrst@mitre.org
	Topics We seek high-quality papers on a wide range of topics. While authors may focus on fairly narrow and specific issues, all papers should emphasize the relevance of the work described to formal ontology and to information systems. Papers that completely ignore one or the other of these aspects will be considered as lying outside the scope of the meeting. Topic areas of particular interest to the conference are: Foundational Issues Kinds of entity: particulars vs. universals, continuants vs. occurrents, abstracta vs. concreta, dependent vs. independent, natural vs. artificial Formal relations: parthood, identity, connection, dependence, constitution, subsumption, instantiation Vagueness and granularity Identity and change Formal comparison among ontologies Ontology of physical reality (matter, space, time, motion, ...) Ontology of biological reality (genes, proteins, cells, organisms, ...) Ontology of mental reality (mental attitudes, emotions, ...) Ontology of social reality (institutions, organizations, norms, social relationships, artistic expressions, ...) Ontology of the information society (information, communication, meaning negotiation, ...) Ontology and natural language semantics, ontology and cognition, ontology and epistemology, semiotics Methodologies and Applications Top-level vs. application ontologies Role of reference ontologies; Ontology integration and alignment Ontology-driven information systems design Requirements engineering Knowledge engineering Knowledge management and organization Knowledge representation; Qualitative modeling Computational lexica; Terminology Information retrieval; Question-answering Semantic web; Web services; Grid computing Domain-specific ontologies, especially for: Linguistics, Geography, Law, Library science, Biomedical science, E-business, Enterprise integration,
	Important Dates Submission of electronic abstracts and keywords: May 1, 2006 Deadline for uploading paper submissions: May 5, 2006 Acceptance Notification: June 26, 2006 Submission of camera-ready paper: July 28, 2006 FOIS-06 Conference: November 9-11, 2006
	Submissions Submitted papers must not exceed 5000 words (including bibliography) and must minimally be in 10 pt font size. Papers should be submitted electronically in PDF format, via the website. If you intend to submit a paper, please submit an electronic abstract and select keywords describing your paper by May 1, if possible. To do this go to the submission website, click the "new submission" button and enter your keywords and abstract (up to 300 words). You will be assigned a pass-code enabling you to access and modify your submission details. You can then revisit the submission website later to upload your actual paper. (Having the abstracts and keywords in advance will help us to assign papers promptly to reviewers.) Details of the camera ready format will be posted later on the FOIS-06 website. Proceedings will be published by IOS Press and made available at the conference.
	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) JŽr™me Euzenat (INRIA Rh™ne-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, University of 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)
	Co-located Workshop: Biomedical Ontology in Action November 8, 2006, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Workshop organized by the National Center for Ontology Research (NCOR) and the Working Group on Formal (Bio-)Medical Knowledge Representation of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). Co-located with FOIS 2006. Please note that this workshop requires separate registration and separate payment of the Workshop fees at the above site.
	Registration Academic: Early: $250 Late: $300 Onsite: $350 Corporate / Government Early $300 Late: $400 Onsite: $450 Student: Early: $50 Late: $75 Onsite: $100 Early registration is through October 18, 2006. Late registration will begin October 19, 2006. To register for FOIS 2006, please enter the appropriate information at the registration website.
	Accommodation Hotel: Inn at The Colonnade. This is the conference hotel. 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 obtain the FOIS 06 Conference rate online, please be sure to enter "FOI" into the "Group/Convention code" field. If the reservation system through the Hotel's web site indicates the hotel is full, please try to call the reservation number: 1-800-222-TREE. NOTE: The special conference rate is $129 and is not sold out as of this date October 14. Please mention FOIS when you make your reservation, to obtain best rates.
	Conference Location The conference will take place at the very new Charles Commons facility of Johns Hopkins University. Charles Commons features conference space, a central dining facility, and a major campus bookstore. Charles Commons is located at 33rd Street between Charles and St. Paul Streets, Baltimore, Maryland. The address is: Charles Commons, John Hopkins University, 3301 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218. John Hopkins University John Hopkins University Main (Homewood) Campus Map John Hopkins University Map (pdf) Visitor Information for Johns Hopkins University Driving directions to John Hopkins University, and additional maps Johns Hopkins University: Wikipedia entry
	News *** THE SPECIAL CONFERENCE HOTEL RATE AT THE INN AT THE COLONNADE IS $129 AND IS NOT SOLD OUT AS OF THIS DATE OF OCTOBER 14. Please mention FOIS when you make your reservation, to obtain best rates. *** *** PRE-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. *** The Preliminary Programme is now available. List of Accepted Papers Conference Location Information Accomodations are at the Inn at the Colonnade, Baltimore, Md. Sponsors
	Sponsors Ontology Works, Inc. Ontology Works is the leading source of ontology construction software, ontology-based database software, and ontology-based information integration software.
	Baltimore The following are some useful links for information about the city of Baltimore, Maryland. The Official Home Page of the City of Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. Wikipedia - Baltimore, Maryland.
	Programme Provisional FOIS-06 schedule.
	Accepted Papers List of accepted papers.