Scale of use, ease of use, breadth of use and choice of use have earmarked the most important transitions of semantic technologies in the years since the first ODBASE conference in 2002. Recent methods allow for scaling of semantic technologies to handling dozens of millions of triples; they allow for composing intriguing semantic applications within a few days; they address target applications from the sciences up to eCommerce; and they allow to chose among plenty of existing ontologies and half a dozen of RDF stores, inferencing engines, or ontology mapping systems.

While these developments greatly contribute to the success of semantic technologies, for enterprise-wide and Web-scale applications, the envelope needs to be pushed much higher, faster, wider, and broader. The 2008 conference on Ontologies, DataBases, and Applications of Semantics (ODBASE'08) solicits original research papers that push the current boundaries.

As in recent years, the focus of the conference lies in addressing research issues that bridge traditional boundaries between disciplines such as databases, artificial intelligence, semantic web, or data extraction. Also, ODBASE'08 encourages the submission of papers that examine the information needs of various applications, including electronic commerce, electronic government, bioinformatics, or emergency response.

ODBASE'08 will consider two categories of papers: research and experience. Research papers must contain novel, unpublished results. Experience papers must describe existing, realistically large systems. In the latter case, preference will be given to papers that describe software products or systems that are in wide (experimental) use.

ODBASE'08 intends to draw a highly diverse body of researchers and practitioners by being part of the Federated conferences Event "On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2008" that co-locates five conferences: ODBASE'08, DOA'08 (International Symposium on Distributed Objects and Applications), CoopIS'08 (International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems), GADA'08 (International Conference on Grid computing, high-performAnce and Distributed Applications), and IS'08 (International Symposium on Information Security).

TOPICS OF INTEREST

Specific areas of interest to ODBASE'08 include but are not limited to:

* Semantic data models and semantic querying
* Semantic dataspaces
* Ontology engineering
* Semantic integration, including ontology matching, merging, etc.
* Management of large ontology-driven data and knowledge bases
* Semantic information retrieval
* Emergent semantics
* Social semantic systems
* Semantic multimedia management
* Metadata management
* XML and Semantics
* Hypertext, multimedia, and hypermedia semantics
* Semantic middleware
* Semantic SOA
* Ontological support for location-aware services and mobile information systems
* Searching and managing dynamic knowledge

Applications, Evaluations, and Experiences in the following domains:

* Web 2.0
* Personal Information Management
* Media Archives and Digital Libraries
* Enterprise-wide Information Systems
* Web-based Information Systems
* Web Services
* eCommerce
* eScience
* eOrganizations (virtual organizations, virtual marketplaces, etc.)
* Bioinformatics
* Emergency Response
* Ubiquitous and Mobile Information Systems


IMPORTANT DATES
Abstract Submission Deadline June 8, 2008
Paper Submission Deadline June 15, 2008
Acceptance Notification August 10, 2008
Camera Ready Due August 25, 2008
Registration Due August 25, 2008
OTM Conferences November 9 - 14, 2008

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Papers submitted to ODBASE'08 must not have been accepted for publication elsewhere or be under review for another workshop or conference.

All submitted papers will be carefully evaluated based on originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity of expression. All papers will be refereed by at least three members of the program committee, and at least two will be experts from industry in the case of practice reports. All submissions must be in English. Submissions must not exceed 18 pages in the final camera-ready paper style. Submissions must be laid out according to the final camera-ready formatting instructions and must be submitted in PDF format.

The paper submission site will be announced shortly

Failure to comply with the formatting instructions for submitted papers will lead to the outright rejection of the paper without review.

Failure to commit to presentation at the conference automatically excludes a paper from the proceedings.



ORGANISATION COMMITTEE

General Co-Chairs

* Robert Meersman, VU Brussels, Belgium
* Zahir Tari, RMIT University, Australia

Program Committee Co-Chairs

* Feng Ling, Tsinghua University, China
* Fausto Giunchiglia, University of Trento, Italy
* Malu Castellanos, HP, USA

Program Committee Members

* Harith Alani, University of Southampton, UK
* Franz Baader, University of Dresden, Germany
* Renato Barrera, UNAM , Mexico
* Sonia Bergamaschi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
* Mohand Boughanem, Université Paul Sabatier of Toulouse, France
* Francisco Cantu-Ortiz, ITESM-Monterrey , Mexico
* Edgar Chavez, Universidad de Michoacan, Mexico
* Oscar Corcho, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
* Umesh Dayal, HP, USA
* Benjamin Habegger, Nirva Systems Ltd, France
* Bin He, IBM Almaden Research Center, USA
* Andreas Hotho, University of Kassel, Germany
* Farookh Hussain, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
* Vipul Kashyap, Clinical Informatics R&D, Partners HealthCare System, USA
* Phokion Kolaitis, IBM, USA
* Manolis Koubarakis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
* Maurizio Lenzerini, Universita di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy
* Juanzi Li, Tsinghua University, China
* Alexander Löser, SAP Research, Dresden
* Riichiro Mizoguchi, Osaka University, Japan
* Peter Mork, The MITRE Corporation , USA
* Wolfgang Nejdl, University of Hannover, Germany
* Erich Neuhold, Universität Darmstadt, Germany
* Wenny Rahayu, La Trobe University, Australia
* Rajugan Rajagopalapillai, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
* Arnon Rosenthal, The MITRE Corporation, USA
* Pavel Shvaiko, University of Trento, Italy
* Stefano Spaccapietra, EPFL, Switzerland
* Umberto Straccia, ISTI-CNR, Italy
* Eleni Stroulia, University of Alberta , Canada
* Heiner Stuckenschmidt, University of Mannheim, Germany
* York Sure, SAP, Germany
* Michael Uschold, The Boeing Company, USA
* Yannis Velegrakis, University of Trento, Italy
* Guido Vetere, IBM, Italy
* Kevin Wilkinson, HP Labs, UK
* Jose Luis Zechinelli, CENTIA , Mexico
* Yanchun Zhang, Victoria University, Australia
* Baoshi Yan, Bosch Research, USA
* Jingshan Huang, University of South Carolina, USA
* Laura Zavala, University of South Carolina, USA
* Octavian Udrea, University of Toronto, Canada
* Li Ma, IBM, USA
* Maurizio Marchese, U. Trento, Italy
* Vijayan Sugumaran, Oakland University, USA
* Veda C. Storey, Georgia State University, USA
* Leopoldo Bertossi, Carleton University, Canada
* Lois M. L. Delcambre , Portland State University, USA
* Sudha Ram, University of Arizona , USA
* Il-Yeol Song, Drexel University , USA
* Satya Sahoo, Wright State University, USA
* Matthew Perry, Wright State University, USA
* María Auxilio Mendina, Polythechnic University of Puebla, Mexico
* Jon Atle Gulla, Norwegian University of Science and Technology , Norway