[DL] CFP Special Issue of the Journal of Web Semantics on Semantic Web Dynamics

[Mathieu D'Aquin]

Apologies for the inevitable multiple receptions.

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PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS
Journal of Web Semantics

Special Issue on Semantic Web Dynamics
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Description
-----------
Recent years have witnessed the arrival of more and more semantically
annotated data and related ontologies in the Semantic Web. For example,
the linked data initiative has been very successful in making datasets
available online, with a total of about 5 billion triples all together  
so
far. While existing semantic tools and reasoning engines are year after
year getting better in dealing with time invariant domain of ontological
knowledge, supporting rapidly changing information has not yet attracted
sufficient attention.

There are more and more heterogeneous and/or dynamic data types being
created and which integration could lead to interesting applications and
models (e.g. sensor data streams, geospatial information and imagery,
financial transactions, news feeds, 3D models, engineering data,
information for policy intelligence etc.). Current Stream Database
Management Systems provide on the fly analysis of data streams, but they
suffer several limitations: they cannot handle heterogeneous data  
streams
originating from a variety of already deployed sensors; they cannot
combine data streams with slowly evolving knowledge at query time; and
they cannot perform reasoning tasks. And in the area of reasoning, while
the problem of classical, time invariant domain of ontological knowledge
has been extensively studied, the task of reasoning with rapidly  
changing
information has been mostly neglected and constitutes a new challenge.

Furthermore, ontologies, just like any structure holding knowledge and
information, need to be updated too: changes could be initiated  
because of
a change in the world being modeled; or by a change in the users’ needs
which would require a different conceptualization; or by the acquisition
of knowledge previously unknown, unclassified or otherwise  
unavailable; or
by the noticing of a design flaw in the original conceptualization. In  
all
these cases, the representation of knowledge in the ontology should be
modified so as to form a more accurate or adequate conceptualization of
the domain.

This general issue of Semantic Web Dynamics includes difficulties from
both practical and theoretical points of view, raising a variety of
research questions and development challenges, such as how to support  
the
ontology and data publishers in maintaining up-to-date, adequate
representations; how to detect the need for evolution and changes; how  
to
facilitate the integration of new, dynamic sources in existing datasets
and ontologies; how to validate and evaluate the impact of the changes  
on
semantic information; how to handle changes triggered from multiple
sources and collaborative updates; and how to keep track of (possibly
concurrent) versions of and ensure the delivery of up-to-date and valid
knowledge.

Topics of Interest
------------------
For this special issue, we seek articles describing foundational and
theoretical work as well as technological solutions to these challenges.
More specifically, we expect submission on (but not restricted to) the
following topics:

•	Foundational and formal aspects of Semantic Web dynamics
•	Language extensions for Semantic Web dynamics
•	Reasoning with dynamic data and ontologies
•	Engineering dynamic data and ontologies
•	Requirements and practical issues for Semantic Web dynamics
•	Applications of dynamic data and ontologies
•	Theory for stream reasoning
•	Logic language for stream reasoning
•	Scalability issues in stream reasoning
•	Ontologies for dynamic environments
•	Dynamic knowledge building, and (re-)use
•	Ontology evolution and versioning
•	Language extensions for evolution
•	Belief revision for ontologies
•	Change propagation in ontologies dynamic datasets and ontologies
•	Inconsistency in evolving semantic information
•	Incremental  reasoning
•	Case studies and applications of ontology and knowledge evolution
•	Tools to support dynamic data and ontologies

Important Dates
---------------
31 May 2010: 	   Submission deadline
31 August 2010:	   First-round reviews complete
31 October 2010:   Revised papers submitted
23 December 2010:  Final acceptance decisions

Method of Submission
--------------------
Only electronic submissions will be considered. The precise method will
be announced later. Any question can be addressed to the guest editors.

Guest Editors
-------------
Grigoris Antoniou (FORTH, Greece)
Mathieu d’Aquin (The Open University, United Kingdom)
Jeff Z. Pan (University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom)