SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO SEPT. 19

SEMANTIC TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
March 6-9, 2006 * Fairmont Hotel * San Jose, California


Interested practitioners, developers and researchers are hereby
invited to present a paper at the second annual SEMANTIC TECHNOLOGY
Conference, focused on the application of Semantic Technologies to
Information Systems and the Web. The event will be held on March 6-
9, 2006 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California.

Proposals can be submitted here:

http://www.semantic-conference.com/STC06/cfp.htm

Last year's inaugural conference was an enormous success, bringing
together 300 attendees from around the world. The agenda was
distinguished by the number of real-life examples of success, and
practitioners who came to learn how to apply semantics to their
corporate applications.

The conference will comprise multiple educational tracks, including
tutorials, technical sessions and case studies. We are particularly
seeking presentations on currently implemented applications of
semantic technology in both the enterprise and internet
environments. A number of appropriate topic areas are identified
below. Speakers are invited to offer additional topic areas related
to the subject of semantic technology if they see fit.

The conference is designed to maximize cross-fertilization between
those who are building semantically-based products and those who are
implementing them. Therefore, we will consider research and/or
academic treatments, vendor and/or analyst reports on the state of
the commercial marketplace, and case study presentations from
developers and corporate users. For some topics we will include
introductory tutorials.

The conference is produced by Semantic Arts, Inc. and Wilshire
Conferences, Inc. Questions regarding speaking opportunities can be
addressed to Tony Shaw of Wilshire Conferences at (310) 477-4475
x102, or by email at speaker@...
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Sponsorship opportunities are also available for appropriate media
and vendor organizations. For sponsorship information, please
contact Rick Froton at 603-305-0660 or email
rick@....
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Audience
The first conference drew 300 attendees. We expect this to double in
2006.
The attendees, most of whom were senior and mid-level managers, came
from a wide range of industries and disciplines. About half were new
to Semantics and we expect that ratio to be the same this year. When
you respond indicate whether your presentation is appropriate for
those new to the field or only to experienced practitioners (we're
looking for a mix).
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Topic Areas
The conference program will include papers and/or 50-minute
presentations and three-hour tutorials on the following topics:

Business Vocabularies
Topics should cover methods or approaches to building and/or using
shared business vocabularies and the role that Semantics plays in
ensuring that consistent meaning is captured.

Taxonomy Development
This topic should cover methods and tools for more structured
organization of data or knowledge. The marketplace should review the
ontology and taxonomy editors and how this functionality is being
grafted onto existing products.

Ontology Engineering
Discussions on methodology or approaches to building ontologies.

Specific Ontologies
We are looking for case reports of the use of specific ontologies,
such as the Dublin Core, FOAF, RSS, and the many others.

OWL
Topics of interest in OWL would include introductory or tutorial
coverage, as well as more advanced usage. We are also interested in
case reports.

RDF
Recent developments in RDF, including use of RDF facilities in
commercial products.

Relational to Semantic Mapping
Experience with mapping relational schemas to semantic models.

Integration of Standards
Most of the topics in this presentation deal with standards. Under
this heading we are looking for the integration of specific
standards, especially those dealing with reference data such as ISO
11179, ISO 3166, FIPS and the like.

Semantic Modeling
Current practices in semantic conceptual modeling. Case studies to
describe how semantic modeling led to superior solutions. Topics
might examine how commercial products and modeling techniques can
support Semantic Modeling (from Protégé to UML or ERWIN).

Semantic Brokers
Use of Semantic Brokers to achieve Enterprise Application
Integration. We are specifically looking for case studies and
comparison of vendor products in this area.

OWL-S
OWL-S is the OWL-based web services ontology. We'd be interested in
implementation experience or reports from the standards groups.

WMSO
Web Service Modeling Ontology (WMSO) is a proposed ontology for
describing web services. We'd be interested in implementation
experience or reports from the standards groups.

WSDL-S
WSDL-S is an extension to the Web Services Description Language. As
this is a relatively new standard, we wouldn't expect experience
reports, but a description and/or discussion of the standard and how
it fits with other standards would be well received.

Semantic Queries
Talks in this section will focus on emerging query languages that
operate at a semantic model level. Distributed and/or agent-based
technologies could be discussed.

OWL and RDF for internal use
The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is the W3C standard for
representation of Semantics on the Web. It is the direct successor
to RDF (and DAML+OIL).
Presentations in this section should focus on the application of
these technologies to internal systems, which many companies have
been working on for some time.

The Semantic Web
We will be looking for a number of presentations on this topic.
Presentations can focus on external or Web-based application of the
semantic web technologies, as well as internal corporate/enterprise
apps.
We are looking for presentations to explain the underlying
technologies, demonstrations of existing products and Case Studies
of Web-based companies using these technologies.

Unstructured Data
This topic will focus on the use of semantic based technologies to
extract meaning and structure from unstructured data, such as email
or unstructured text.

Business Rules
We are looking for presentations that present either an ontology of
business rules (a formal, structured decomposition of type of rules
that can be instantiated in a given framework) or case studies of
methodologies covering experience using a domain ontology for the
expression of Business Rules.

Meta Data
Many of the other topics deal with Semantics from a Meta Data angle.
This topic is for meta data solutions that are in some way inspired
by Semantics, without being covered already in the other topics.

Semantic Search
This topic is for the application of Semantics to search technology.
We are looking for case studies from existing search sites, research
into applying Semantics to deepen search results and analysis of the
current state of the market for search. Also enterprise search
technologies.

Upper Models
Topics in this section should discuss progress with and use of any
of the various proposed "upper ontologies" including Cyc, SUMO,
WordNet, UBL, RossettaNet or others.

Knowledge Representation
There is of course a great deal of overlap between Semantic
Technology and Knowledge Management. In this topic we're looking for
Knowledge Management products or projects that have specifically
benefited from the application of semantic technologies.

XML
We're interested in topics that discuss the relationship of XML to
Semantics, including but not limited to: naming conventions for XML,
RDF expression in XML, XML based on semantic design.

Data Warehousing/BI
Semantic technologies are being used to correlate data from diverse
sources into a common data repository. We're looking for case
studies, vendor products that use semantics, and any research in the
area of applying semantics to the population or querying of data
warehouses.

Application Semantics and Data Semantics

Other
You are welcome to suggest other topic areas.

Proposal Submissions - due September 19, 2005 All proposals must be
submitted via the Call for Papers forms at:
http://www.semantic-conference.com/STC06/cfp.htm
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Key Dates & Speaker Deadline

September 19 Presentation proposals due
September 28 Speakers notified of selection
January 28, 2006 Speaker Papers and/or PowerPoint files
due
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Presentation Guidelines

Tutorials
The first day will be several tracks of half day tutorials. If you
submit a tutorial presentation, plan for three hours of material.
There will be a half hour break in the middle of each tutorial.

Conference Presentations
Each conference presentation will be 50 minutes in length.
Presentations must not be sales presentations for vendor products.
Where vendors have done something unique in the field they are
encouraged to describe this and how it can impact the participants
whether or not they implement the vendor's product.

PowerPoint slides must be provided for each presentation. Copyright
remains with the author/speaker, however certain usage rights are
granted to the conference organizers. Full details of usage rights
can be viewed during the submission process.

Presentations due January 28, 2006
The conference proceedings will be published on CD-ROM. In order for
a paper to be included in the proceedings the final paper must be
made available by January 28, 2006.

Honorarium
One speaker for each selected topic will be given a free pass to the
conference as well as a $300 honorarium. Additional speakers may be
nominated for any session, however the additional speakers must
register and pay for their conference attendance (additional
registration will be at 50% reduced rates and must be completed
prior to the start of the conference). Travel expenses will not be
provided.

Honorarium for Tutorials will be $600.
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Questions and Inquiries
All questions and inquiries about speaking at the conference may be
directed to:

speaker@...

General inquiries about the conference may be directed to:

info@...

Submit proposals at http://www.semantic-conference.com/STC06/cfp.htm

You may also download the white paper, "The CIO's Guide to
Semantics" at:
http://www.wilshireconferences.com/wilshireconf_cfmfiles/stc05/white-
paper-r
equest1.cfm

Wilshire Conferences, Inc.
11500 W. Olympic Blvd,
Suite 510
Los Angeles, CA 90064
Tel: (310) 477-4475