a bit on the side, but possibly of interest. See below for info.<br>
<br>
(open for everybody)<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Amund Tveit<br>
<a href="http://amundtveit.info/">http://amundtveit.info/</a> - +47 416 26 572
<br><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br><span class="gmail_quote">From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Waclaw Kusnierczyk</b> <<a href="mailto:waku@idi.ntnu.no">waku@idi.ntnu.no</a>><br>Date: Aug 21, 2006 12:08 AM
<br>Subject: [Dis-alle] On ontologies in biomedicine and petroleum engineering - a seminar with Barry Smith<br>To: <a href="mailto:dis-alle@idi.ntnu.no">dis-alle@idi.ntnu.no</a><br>Cc: Astrid Laegreid <<a href="mailto:astrid.lagreid@ntnu.no">
astrid.lagreid@ntnu.no</a>>, Øystein Nytrø <<a href="mailto:nytroe@idi.ntnu.no">nytroe@idi.ntnu.no</a>><br><br></span>Dear All,<br><br>I have the pleasure to invite you to a series of talks on ontologies -<br>the current state of the art, and principles for future developments -
<br>that will be given by Barry Smith on 18.-19. September. The talks are<br>focused on issues of ontology development in two domains: biomedicine and<br>petroleum engineering, but the general issues discussed are relevant
<br>in any other domain.<br><br>The schedule is detailed below. Locations and further details will be<br>announced at a later time. Please forward this message to everyone that<br>might be interested. If you have any questions, please contact me (Wacek
<br>Kusnierczyk, <a href="mailto:waku@idi.ntnu.no">waku@idi.ntnu.no</a>, 73591875; I will not be available until 6.<br>September)<br><br>## On the speaker:<br><br>Barry Smith is Julian Park Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in the
<br>University at Buffalo (New York, USA) and Director of the Institute for<br>Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science in Saarbrücken, Germany.<br>He studied at Oxford University and at Manchester University, and has held
<br>faculty positions in Sheffield, Manchester, Liechtenstein and Leipzig, as<br>well as visiting positions in Erlangen, Graz, Paris, Turku, Innsbruck,<br>Padua, Hamburg, Konstanz, Malta, Leiden, Vienna and Koblenz.<br><br>
He is the author of some 400 scientific publications, including 15<br>authored or edited books, and editor of The Monist: An International<br>Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry. His research has been<br>funded by the US, Swiss and Austrian National Science Foundations, the
<br>Volkswagen Foundation, and the European Union. In 2002 he received in<br>recognition of his scientific achievements the 2.2 Million Euro Wolfgang<br>Paul Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.<br><br>[ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Smith_%28ontologist%29">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Smith_%28ontologist%29</a> ]<br><br>Find more about Barry Smith's research at his homepage:<br><a href="http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/">http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/</a><br><br>
<br>## On the talks:<br><br>18.09 (Monday)<br><br>1000-1130 Clinical Coding and Terminologies: The Past and the Future<br><br>Abstract:<br>Ontologies, terminologies and coding schemes are now in common use in the<br>domain of medical informatics: in electronic health records, clinical
<br>trials, epidemiological studies. We examine a representative collection of<br>such terminologies, and draw (somewhat sad) conclusions as to the current<br>state of the art.<br><br><br>1300-1430 A General Introduction to Biomedical Ontology
<br><br>Abstract:<br>Ontologies to support scientific research and clinical medicine have special<br>characteristics, which we shall outline in terms of a distinction between<br>three levels: (1) the level of reality; (2) the level of cognitive
<br>representations; and (3) the level of the publicly accessible<br>concretizations of such cognitive representations. Against this background<br>we shall clarify the relations between ontologies, terminologies,<br>information models, databases, patient records, and similar artifacts, and
<br>we shall show how the ontologies of the future need to be constructed in<br>such a way as to support the research and clinical needs of the future.<br><br><br>1500-1630 How Ontologies Create Research Communities<br><br>
Abstract:<br>We will describe the OBO Foundry, a collaborative experiment involving a<br>group of influential biomedical ontology developers who have agreed in<br>advance to the adoption of a growing set of principles specifying best
<br>practices in ontology development. The primary goal of the Foundry is to<br>establish gold standard reference ontologies, one for each core domain of<br>biomedical science. We shall describe how this objective is already being
<br>realized, and show how it can not only help solve familiar problems of data<br>retrieval and re-use in the biomedical domain, but also help to foster the<br>development of the powerful tools that will be needed to reason with
<br>biomedical data in the future.<br><br><br>19.09 (Tuesday)<br><br>1000-1200 Critical Comments on ISO Standard 15926<br><br>Abstract:<br>The world of ontology development is full of mysteries. Recently, ISO<br>Standard 15926 "Lifecycle Integration of Process Plant Data Including Oil
<br>and Gas Production Facilities", a data model initially designed 'to<br>support the integration and handover of large engineering artefacts', has been<br>proposed for general use as an upper level ontology. When examined in light
<br>of this proposal, however, ISO 15926 is seen to be marked by a series of<br>quite astonishing defects, which may however provide general lessons for the<br>developers of ontologies in the future.<br><br><br>1400-1530 The Nature of Disease: Future Pathways in Biomedical Ontology
<br><br>Abstract:<br>Current conceptions of health and disease focus on the signs and symptoms<br>visible to the clinician and patient. Increasingly, however, the demands of<br>molecular medicine will enforce a new understanding of diseases and of their
<br>molecular origins. We will sketch an outline of this new understanding and<br>of its applications in clinical informatics.<br><br><br><br>Best Regards,<br>Wacek<br><br><br>--<br>Waclaw Kusnierczyk<br>-----------------------------------------------
<br>Dept. of Information and Computer Science<br>Norwegian University of Science and Technology<br>Sem Saelands vei 7, 7491 Trondheim, Norway<br><br>Office: itv303<br>Phone: +47 73591875<br>Mail: <a href="mailto:waku@idi.ntnu.no">
waku@idi.ntnu.no</a><br>Web: <a href="http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~waku">http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~waku</a><br><br clear="all"><br>