Special Issue on Linked Spatiotemporal Data and Geo-Ontologies

Submitted by Krzysztof Janowicz on 01/24/2011 - 07:05

Call for Papers
Semantic Web Journal
Special Issue on Linked Spatiotemporal Data and Geo-Ontologies

Scope
Whilst the Web has changed with the advent of the Social Web from mostly authoritative towards increasing amounts of user generated content, it is essentially still about linked documents. These documents provide structure and context for the described data and easy their interpretation. In contrast, the upcoming Data Web is about linking data, not documents. Such data sets are not bound to a specific document but can be easily combined and used outside of the original context. With a growth rate of millions of new facts encoded as RDF-triples per month, the Linked Data cloud allows users to answer complex queries spanning multiple sources. Due to the uncoupling of data from its original creation context, semantic interoperability, identity resolution, and ontologies are central methodologies to ensure consistency and meaningful results. Space and time are fundamental ordering relations to structure such data and provide an implicit context for their interpretation. Prominent geo-related Linked Data hubs include Geonames.org as well as the Linked Geo Data project which provides a RDF serialization of Open Street Map. Furthermore, myriad other Linked Data sources contain location-based references. This special issue is an open-call follow up to the Linked Spatiotemporal Data 2010 workshop held in conjunction with the 6th International Conference on Geographic Information Science GIScience 2010. The issue aims at defining the data, knowledge representations, reasoning methodologies, and additional tools needed to link locations seamlessly into the Web of Linked Data. Subsequently, with the advent of Linked Locations in Linked Data, the gap between the Semantic Web and the Geo Web will begin to narrow.

List of Relevant Topics
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

  • Application of Linked Spatiotemporal Data

    • Linked Data and the Sensor Web Enablement
    • Linked Data and mobile applications
    • Linked Data gazetteers and points of interest
    • Linked Data in the domain of cultural heritage research

  • Retrieving and Browsing of Linked Spatiotemporal Data

    • Mining Linked Spatiotemporal Data from existing sources
    • Spatiotemporal indexing of Linked Data
    • Harvesting Linked Data from heterogeneous sources
    • Spatial extensions to query languages such as SPARQL (e.g.,
      GeoSPARQL)
    • Visualizing and browsing through the Linked Spatiotemporal Data cloud

  • Integration and Interoperation of Linked Spatiotemporal Data

    • Ontologies and vocabularies to support interoperability
    • Identity assumptions and resolution for data fusion and
      integration
    • The role of space and time to structure Linked Data
    • Versioning of spatio-temporal data
    • Semantic annotation and microformats
    • Adding contextual information to Linked Data

  • Linked Data and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI)

    • Spatiotemporal Aspects of Data Quality, Trust, and Provenance in Linked Data
    • Tag and Vocabulary recommendations for annotating VGI
    • Maintenance of links

    • Submissions
    The special issue on Linked Spatiotemporal Data and Geo-Ontologies calls for original high-quality research on any of the above mentioned topics. Extended versions of manuscripts published in conferences and workshops are welcome as long as the previous publications are clearly acknowledged and the new submission introduces substantial revisions and updates. Authors are requested to follow the author guidelines, submit online via mstracker, and include the name of the call within the submission letter. While there is no official page limit, we request manuscripts between 14-22 pages in length. All manuscripts will be reviewed based on the SWJ open and transparent review policy and will be made available during online the review process.

    Important Dates
    Manuscript submission due: 6. May 2011
    Acceptance notification: 15. June 2011
    Camera-ready copies/revisions: 30. June 2011
    Issue publication: Fall/winter 2011

    Editors
    * Krzysztof Janowicz, The Pennsylvania State University, USA
    * Todd Pehle, Orbis Technologies, USA
    * Glen Hart, Ordnance Survey, UK
    * Patrick Maué, University of Muenster, Germany

    Guest Editorial Board
    (to be updated)
    * Benjamin Adams, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
    * Ola Ahlqvist, The Ohio State University, USA
    * Sören Auer, University of Leipzig, Germany
    * Luis M. Vilches Blázquez, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain
    * Boyan Brodaric, Geological Survey of Canada, Canada
    * Raúl García Castro, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain
    * Fred Fonseca, The Pennsylvania State University, USA
    * Willem Robert van Hage, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL
    * Prateek Jain, Wright State University, USA
    * Carsten Keßler, University of Muenster, Germany
    * Jens Lehmann, University of Leipzig, Germany
    * Joshua Lieberman, Traverse Technologies, USA
    * Holger Neuhaus, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia
    * Matthew Perry, Oracle, USA
    * Sven Schade, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
    * Simon Scheider, University of Muenster, Germany
    * Rainer Simon, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria
    * Dalia Varanka, U.S. Geological Survey, USA
    * Nancy Wiegand,University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA
    * ...

    Please feel free to contact us for further questions at jano-AT-psu.edu.

    Published special issue papers: In Semantic Web, Volume 3, Number 4 / 2012