Corba and XML: Towards a bioinformatics integrated network environment

[Paolo Romano]

Dear bionetters,

I'm glad to announce the following workshop:

        NETTAB - NETWORK TOOLS AND APPLICATIONS IN BIOLOGY

                         CORBA and XML:
      Towards a bioinformatics integrated network environment

           First Announce and Call for contributions

                      May 17th-18th, 2001
         Advanced Biotechnology Center, Genova, Italy

             http://www.cba.unige.it/Events/NETTAB/

SCOPE

Internet has become the natural environment for the distribution of
bioinformatics information and services. Researchers get access to
various remote and/or local services and softwares by switching among
them to retrieve the information they need and submit intermediate
results. Data is manually analysed and transfered via FTP, HTTP, or
by "cut and paste". In the near future, this integration activity will
be carried out by purpose softwares that will be able to "understand"
the data they are managing, and to search, select and locate remote
sites that can process the information and to finally submit it to them,
until the desided elaboration has been completely fullfilled.

This will be possible by defining and adopting new communication
standards purposely designed for the bioinformatics needs.
CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) by OMG (Object
Management Group) and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) by W3C (WWW
Consortium) are the emerging frames within which a new bioinformatics
integrated network environment will most probably be built.

This workshop will try to introduce these evolving standardization
activities and outline, through the final round table, the most probable
scenarios of coming years.


TOPICS

* Emerging network standards and their application in the integration
  of distributed environments. Related facilities and services.
  Role of ontologies in biology standardization.
* New standards, servers, clients and applications in the field of
  molecular biology and biotechnology, with emphasis on bioinformatics.
* Use of programming languages for the exploitation of the integration
  of distributed databases and software: Perl, Java, Python, PHP, other
  "open source" languages. Libraries for bioinformatics applications.
* Integrated systems and software, SRS implementations.


INVITED SPEAKERS

A preliminar list includes:

Alvis Brazma, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK
Terence Critchlow, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
Thure Etzold, Lion Biosciences Ltd, United Kingdom
Carole Goble, University Manchester, UK
Ralf Hofestaedt, University of Magdeburg, DE
Philip Ljinzaad, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK
Luciano Milanesi, Advanced Biomedical Technology Institute CNR, IT
Matthew Pocock, The Sanger Centre, UK
Paolo Romano, National Cancer Research Institute, IT
Steffen Schulze-Kremer, RZPD, DE
Martin Senger, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK
Luca Toldo, Merck KGgA, DE


WEB SITE AND ANNOUNCE MAILING LIST

All information related to the workshop are now available at
the workshop web site: http://www.cba.unige.it/Events/NETTAB/ .

A low traffic announce mailing list has also been established.
You are all invited to subscribe by filling in the form at the
Web site: http://www.cba.unige.it/Events/NETTAB/rform.html .
You will be kept informed about all workshop's news and deadlines.


CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

A call for contributions will soon be open.
All related information will be available at the workshop web
site: http://www.cba.unige.it/Events/NETTAB/ .

All workshop's topics will be addressed (see above for a list).
For submitting a contribution, an extended abstract (max 2 A4 pages,
PDF format) will have to be submitted via a Submission Form of the
Workshop site.

The deadline for submitting a contribution will be March 1st, 2001.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent within April 1st, 2001.

Accepted communications and posters will have to submit a short paper
(3 to 5 A4 pages) for the Conference Proceedings within May 1st, 2001.

* Communications and posters

A limited number of oral communications will be selected and admitted
to the Oral Communications Session on Friday 18th. Posters will be
displayed in the foyer of the Advanced Biotechnology Center.
The poster session will be in the afternoon of the 17th .

* Demo of clients/servers applications

A demo session will be held on the 18th. A computer room will be
available for demonstrating bioinformatics related network applications
based on CORBA and XML clients and servers. Researchers wishing to
demonstrate their softwares are invited to submit a poster as well.

* Communications (companies' session)

A session will be devoted to the presentation of softwares developed
by companies. Interested companies should get in touch with the Workshop
Secretariat (see below).


REGISTRATION FEE

A small registration fee is required. A reduced rate is foreseen for
academic participants and for early registrations.

Before May 1st, 2001:
      Academic: 150 Euro
      Non-academic: 300 Euro

After May 1st, 2001:
      Academic: 200 Euro
      Non-academic: 400 Euro

Fees include coffee breaks, lunches, social dinner, abstracts' book.


CONTACTS

NETTAB Workshop,
Servizio Biotecnologie,
Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro,
c/o Centro Biotecnologie Avanzate,
Largo Rosanna Benzi 10,
I-16132 Genova, Italy

Fax: +39-010-5737295
Email: nettab at ist.unige.it
Web site: http://www.cba.unige.it/Events/NETTAB/

-- 
Paolo Romano (paolo at ist.unige.it)
Biotechnology Department,
National Cancer Research Institute IST,
c/o Advanced Biotechnology Centre
Largo Rosanna Benzi, 10, I-16132, Genova, Italy
Tel: +39-010-5737-288 - Fax: +39-010-5737-295