[DL] CFP: Workshop on PRACTICAL AND SCALABLE SEMANTIC SYSTEMS

[Raphael Volz]

________________________________________________________

    Workshop on PRACTICAL AND SCALABLE SEMANTIC SYSTEMS
      http://km.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/ws/psss03

    Collocated with ISWC 2003, October 19th-23th,
      Sanibel Island, Florida, USA

      http://iswc2003.semanticweb.org/

    CALL FOR PAPERS   --   Submission deadline: July 1, 2003
________________________________________________________

   The Semantic Web is widely accepted as a means to enhance the Web
   with machine processable content. For making the Semantic Web work
   in practice it is paramount to be able to use the existing
   infrastructure, and to enable an evolutionary transition from
   today's infrastructure towards a connected web using Semantic Web
   technologies. Making Semantic Web technology practical has two
   facets:

   o **Making existing technologies work**: often useful *tricks of the
     trade* are required to make existing systems work with Semantic
     Web technology. Examples include various mappings of
     semi-structured data on relational databases or the realization of
     ontology languages for relational, object-relational, and
     object-oriented databases. Only these *tricks of the trade*
     enable to spread Semantic Web technology.

   o **Identifying different research assumptions**: the existing research
     in databases is often based on slightly different assumptions than
     required by Semantic Web technologies. Existing research on
     semi-structured data storage and retrieval does not take into
     account that stored data might have heterogeneous semantics, e.g.,
     based on different ontology languages. Based on the identification
     of different assumptions, new research tasks, based on existing
     database research, can be identified.

   Both aspects are critical for the success of the Semantic Web –
   the first aspect provides necessary solutions for how to make the
   Semantic Web practical right now, whereas the second aspect
   indicate the long term research by identifying the different
   assumptions behind past database research and current Semantic Web
   needs, and how to bridge the gap between both fields. The workshop
   provides a forum for both aspects, which did not exist yet.

Important Dates

 o July, 1st 2003      Paper Submissions

 o September, 1st 2003   Author Notification

 o September, 20th 2003  Final Version Due

 o October, 19th 2003  Workshop takes place at
                       ISWC 2003, Sanibal Island, Florida, USA

Submission Instructions

   Your submission should be formatted according to the guidlines for
   the "Journal of Universal Computer Science (JUCS)"
   (cf. http://www.jucs.org/jucs_submit/style_guide.html).
   Latex style sheets and Word templates are provided.

   The paper should not exceed 14 pages, longer papers will not be
   accepted for review. Submissions have to be received by the
   first of July 2003 and must be send electronically in PDF or PS
   format.



Topics

   Specific example topics include, but are not limited to:

   o **Integration of semi-structured data technologies** with ontology
   languages, mappings, storage and query techniques. First results
   have been published, but a systematic evaluation of possible
   alternatives is still missing. Example technologies include
   relational, object-relational  and object-oriented databases

   o **Query optimization for RDF repositories**. Although some results
   from the semi-structured database field are reusable, those
   results usually have the assumption that the data has no semantics
   by itself. Ontology languages provide a semantics, which needs to
   be taken into account by the storage and retrieval system for
   querying the instance data as well as the ontologies itself.

   o **Integration of Semantic Web technologies in current software** and
   network technology. Query languages and interfaces are required
   for the effective use of Semantic Web databases in applications. A
   couple of interfaces exist so far, but no systematic comparison
   had been conducted yet.

   o **Evaluation and benchmarking suites**, allowing to compare
   performance and utility of existing technologies.

Program Committee (Partialy Unconfirmed):

   o   Karl Aberer (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne)
   o   Rakesh Agrawal (IBM Almaden)
   o   Jose-Luis Ambite (ISI/USC)
   o   Juergen Angele (Ontoprise, Karlsruhe, Germany)
   o   Sean Bechhofer (University of Manchester)
   o   Jeen Broekstra (Free University of Amsterdam)
   o   Chris Bussler (Oracle Corporation)
   o   Isabel Cruz (University of Illinois at Chicago)
   o   Stefan Decker (ISI/USC)
   o   Rainer Eckstein (Humbold University, Berlin)
   o   Benjamin Grosof (MIT, Cambridge )
   o   R.V. Guha (IBM Almaden, San Jose)
   o   Alon Halevy (University of Washington)
   o   Frank van Harmelen (Free University of Amsterdam)
   o   Ian Horrocks (University of Manchester)
   o   Vipul Kashyap (National Library of Medicine)
   o   Michael Kifer (SUNY)
   o   Bertram Ludaescher (SDSC/UCSD)
   o   Alexander Maedche (Bosch, Germany)
   o   Boris Motik (FZI, Karlsruhe, Germany)
   o   Wolfgang Nejdl (University of Hannover and Learninglab Lower Saxony)
   o   Brian McBride (Hewlett Packard)
   o   Amit Sheth (University of Georgia)
   o   Steffen Staab (University of Karlsruhe)
   o   Raphael Volz (University of Karlsruhe)
   o   Ubbo Visser (University of Bremen)

The Workshop is organized by:

  o Isabel Cruz (The University of Illinois at Chicago)
  o Stefan Decker (USC Information Sciences Institute, Los Angeles)
  o Raphael Volz (Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe, Germany)