Life Sciences calls for papers / publications

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Semantic Web Journal: Big Data and the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web journal calls for innovative and high-quality papers describing the role of Semantic Web technologies, Linked Data, and ontologies for the Big Data age. Papers should clearly relate to one or more of the Big Data V's Volume, Variety, and Velocity, as well as demonstrate the added value of semantics. Besides theoretical contributions on reasoning over massive amounts of heterogeneous data and challenges for knowledge representation and interlinkage, we especially also invite reports from domain scientists detailing the use of ontologies and Semantic Web technologies in bioinformatics, geographic information science, life sciences, cultural heritage research, the digital humanities, and other research areas.

We welcome all paper categories, i.e., full research papers, application reports, systems and tools, ontology papers, surveys, as well as dataset reports as long as they clearly relate to challenges and opportunities arising from processing Big Data - see our listing of paper types in the author guidelines http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/authors

Topics include but are not limited to

Semantic search and information seeking
Exploratory interfaces for massive amounts of annotated data
Intelligent information interchange
Semantic interoperability and heterogeneity
Inductive and abductive approaches to ontology learning
Handling uncertainty, vagueness, and inconsistencies
Knowledge discovery from linked data
Collaborative Ontology engineering
Microtheories and knowledge patterns
Ontology modularization
Ontology evolution
Ontology alignment, matching, and translation
Analogy and similarity reasoning and retrieval
Sensor semantics and smart dust
Stream reasoning
Distributed reasoning
Semantics-based data aggregation and generalization
Semantically enabled statistics
Massive data integration for the digital earth
Linked science
The User as knowledge engineer
Semantics and decision support systems
Semantics-driven integrity constraint checking
Mining the Social and Mobile Web
Ontology-driven data visualization
Trust and privacy issues in publishing and reasoning about Big Data
Dialog and question answering systems based on Linked Data and ontologies

Important Dates
Manuscript submission due: 30th of June 2012
First notification: 7th of September 2012
Issue publication: Spring 2013

Submissions
The special issue on Big Data and the Semantic Web calls for original high-quality research on any of the above mentioned topics. Authors are requested to follow the author guidelines, submit online as detailed in the author guidelines, and include the name of the call within the submission letter. All manuscripts will be reviewed based on the SWJ open and transparent review policy and will be made available during online the review process.

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of CBE—Life Sciences Education: Education at the Intersection of Physics and Biology

Recent reports have called for curricular changes that integrate physical sciences in the education of life science and premedical students. The National Research Council report, BIO2010, emphasizes quantitative and computational training for future biologists. Vision and Change, led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Foundation, states that biologists must develop sufficient expertise in physics to address complex issues in the life sciences. Scientific Foundations of Future Physicians, prepared by a joint committee of the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, clearly articulates that prospective medical students will be required to apply major principles of physics to explain biological processes and disease pathologies, as well as the physical mechanisms of major technologies used in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. Multi- and interdisciplinary approaches are increasingly prevalent in science, with physicists modeling biological systems and biologists drawing more heavily on physics to understand fundamental processes within living organisms. Further, discipline-based education research provides a fertile ground for multidisciplinary research efforts.

The biology and physics communities have a unique opportunity to collaborate in responding to these calls for reform. To this end, CBE—Life Sciences Education (CBE-LSE; http://www.lifescied.org/) will publish a special issue in 2013 on the integration of physics and biology education. Topics that fit this issue include:

• Research on how students learn physics in biology classes and biology in physics classes,
• Evaluation of curricular or programmatic innovations that are evidence-driven and contribute to the national discussion about learning at the intersection of physics and biology,
• Examples of how physics education research is informing or can inform biology education research, and vice versa,
• Examples of curriculum shown to be effective in helping biology students to master physics concepts, and physics students to master biology concepts,
• Models and impacts of education programming and policy, such as graduate programs or undergraduate biophysics majors, that are informed by research on physics and biology teaching and learning, and
• Study of faculty professional development that promotes integration of physics and biology education.

Manuscripts are welcomed that detail qualitative, quantitative, and theoretical discipline-based education research, as well as the integration of physics and biology education in both formal and informal contexts.

Authors are strongly encouraged to submit a brief abstract (250 words or less) to the guest editors for this special issue, Eric Brewe (eric.brewe@fiu.edu) and Todd Cooke (tjcooke@umd.edu), by June 1, 2012.

Abstracts will be reviewed by the editors in consultation with Erin Dolan, editor-in-chief of CBE-LSE (eldolan@uga.edu), to determine fit with the theme and to ensure that a range of topics and perspectives are represented in the issue. Manuscripts submitted by September 1, 2012, will be guaranteed full consideration.

Manuscripts that are favorably reviewed but beyond the scope of this theme may be published in a different issue of the journal. If you have questions about this issue, please contact the guest editors or editor-in-chief.

About CBE – Life Sciences Education: CBE-LSE is an online journal published by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) with partial support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute under the Creative Commons 3.0 agreement. CBE-LSE publishes peer-reviewed articles written by and for professionals engaged in biology teaching in all environments. The journal’s authors and readers include faculty at research universities who teach but do not view teaching as their primary mission, as well as those in primarily undergraduate institutions, museums and outreach programs, junior and community colleges, and K–12 schools, for whom teaching is a major focus.

Call for Papers: Journal of Functional Foods in Health and Disease

Editors-in-Chief:

Danik M. Martirosyan, PhD, UT Southwestern Medical Center, USA, Undurti N. Das, MD, UND Life Sciences, USA

The Journal of Functional Foods in Health and Disease (FFHD) is a peer-reviewed open access journal that covers various aspects of functional foods and chronic diseases such as cardiovascular, obesity, diabetes, cancer and/or scientific policies related to functional foods. The journal is designed to keep members of the Functional Food Center / Functional Food Creation International Institute and the public up to date on the latest advances in functional foods for the prevention and management of chronic diseases. The journal will strive to develop concepts that help to understand the mechanisms of disease and creation of specific functional and medicinal foods in the prevention and management of various diseases

This is an existing serial which has been published under the title Functional Foods in Health and Disease (FFHD) since December 3, 2010.