Call for Papers, Tutorials, Workshops, Sponsors and Product Demos

Conference on Computational Biology and Genome Informatics (CBGI-02)

http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cbgi/cbgi.html

March 8-11, 2002
Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center
Durham, North Carolina, USA

Held in Conjunction with the Sixth International Joint Conference on Information Sciences (JCIS-02)

Program Chair: Vasant Honavar, , Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory, Department of Computer Science and Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Graduate Program, Iowa State University


Honorary Chairs: Terry Magnuson, University of North Carolina; James Siedow, Duke University; and Bruce Weir, North Carolina State University


Index


Introduction

Development of high throughput data acquisition technologies in biological sciences, together with advances in digital storage, computing, and communications technologies have begun to transform biology in general, and molecular biology in particular, from a data poor science to a data rich science. Examples of biological data sets include DNA and protein sequence data, macromolecular structure and function data, and gene expression data.

A major goal of computational molecular biology is to develop information processing or algorithmic accounts of biological questions such as: How is information encoded, stored, decoded, and used in biological systems? What sequence regularities (if any) are predictive of protein function? How can we precisely characterize the syntax (grammar) and semantics (meaning) of macromolecular sequences? How do hundreds of genes interact over time to orchestrate specific biological processes of interest (neural development, disease, aging)? Research in computational biology requires the development of sophisticated databases, knowledge bases, ontologies, algorithms and software tools for data storage and retrieval, data integration, information extraction, exploratory data analysis and discovery (through data mining and data visualization), experiment design, using heterogeneous biological data sources. Design and development of such tools is a major goal of bioinformatics or genome informatics.

Against this background, the Fourth Conference on Computational Biology and Genome Informatics CBGI-02) seeks to bring together researchers working on all aspects of computational biology and bioinformatics to exchange recent research results in this area. The conference also aims to foster a community of researchers interested in this area. CBGI-02 grew out of the Atlantic Symposium on Computational Biology and Genome Information Systems and Technology, which was last held in North Carolina in March 01. In response to the growing interest and participation of researchers from around the world in the previous symposia, CBGI-02 marks a transition of the Atlantic Symposium into a major international conference.

CBGI will be held in conjunction with the 6th Joint Conference on Information Sciences (JCIS). JCIS includes 10 related conferences and workshops, and CBGI participants paying full JCIS conference registration fees may attend any of the sessions held during the 7-day meeting. (Note: The deadline for early registration has been extended to Dec 31. This is to accomodate the delay in notification resulting from the extended deadline for paper submission.)


Conference Format

The Fourth Conference on Computational Biology and Genome Informatics (CBGI-02) will include:

All accepted papers and extended abstracts of posters will be included in the conefernce proceedings to be published by the Association for Intelligent Machinery.


Topics of Interest

The conference seeks to provide a forum for presentation and discussion of original research on all aspects of computational biology and genome informatics including, but not limited to:

Biological Databases
Biological Data Integration
Biological Data Mining
Biological Data Visualization
Biological Information Extraction
Biological Information Retrieval
Biological Knowledge Bases
Biological Knowledge Representation and Infererence
Bioontologies
Computational Drug Discovery
Functional Genomics
Gene Expression Databases
Gene Expression Analysis
Gene Identification
Genetic Network Modelling and Inference
Gene Regulation
Generative Models of Molecular Sequences
Grammatical Analysis of Molecular Sequences
Information Theoretic Analysis of Molecular Sequences
Metabolic Pathway Inference
Molecular Dynamics and Simulation
Molecular Evolution
Molecular Sequence Alignment
Molecular Sequence Assembly
Molecular Sequence Classification
Molecular Sequence Databases
Molecular Sequence Pattern and Motifs
Molecular Structure Databases
Molecular Structural Motifs
Macromolecular Structure Prediction
Phylogeny Construction
Proteomics
Protein Folding
Protein Fold Recognition
Protein Function Prediction
Protein Structure Matching and Alignment
Protein Structure Prediction
Protein-Protein Interactions
RNA Structure Prediction
Software Environments for Bioinformatics
Software Tools for Computational Biology
Statistical Analysis of Molecular Sequences


Program Committee

Program Chair: Vasant Honavar Iowa State University, USA.

Publicity Chairs: Stephen A. Krawetz, Wayne State University; and Oliver Eulenstein, Iowa State University

Tutorials Chair: Alberto Segre, University of Iowa

Plenary Sessions Chairs: Drena Dobbs, Iowa State University; and Cathy Wu, Georgetown University

Workshops Chair: Xiaoqiu Huang, Iowa State University

Poster Session Chair: Rajesh Parekh, Blue Martini

Industrial Liaison: Lisa Lorenzen, Iowa State University

Program Committee:

Richa Agrawala, National Institutes of Health, USA
Srinivas Aluru, Iowa State University, USA
Rachelle Bienstock, NIH, NIEHS, USA
Burns C. Blaxall, Incellico, USA
Alvis Brazma, European Molecular Biology Institute, UK
Volker Brendel, Iowa State University, USA
Tom Casavant, University of Iowa, USA
David K.Y. Chiu, University of Guelph, Canada
Mark Craven, University of Wisconsin, USA
Hui-Hsien Chou, Iowa State University, USA
Mark Danielsen, Georgetown University School of Medicine, USA
Drena Dobbs, Iowa State University, USA
Oliver Eulenstein, Iowa State University, USA
Rohan Fernando, Iowa State University, USA
Vasant Honavar, Iowa State University, USA
Xiaoqiu Huang, Iowa State University, USA
Cheng-Yan Kao, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Stephen Krawetz, Wayne State University, USA
Thomas H. LaBean, Duke University, USA
Kim Laurio, University of Skövde, Sweden
Jae K. Lee, University of Virginia, USA
Simon Lin, Duke University, USA
Michael Lutz, Glaxo Smith Kline, USA
Winnell H. Newman, North Carolina State University, USA
Bjorn Olsson, University of Skövde, Sweden
David Page, University of Wisconsin, USA
Rajesh Parekh, Blue Martini, USA
Naren Ramakrishnan, Virgina Polytechnic and State University, USA
Alejandro Schaeffer, NCBI, National Library of Medicine, NIH, USA
Stephen Scott, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Alberto Segre, University of Iowa, USA
Jude Shavlik, University of Wisconsin, USA
Robert Stevens, University of Manchester, UK
Jian Su, Kent Ridge Digital Labs, Singapore
Gautam B. Singh, Oakland University, USA
Ralph Silibaldi, Operon Technologies, USA
Bruno Sobral, Virginia Polytechnic and State University, USA
Steve Thompson, Florida State University, USA
Dake Wang, Lumicyte, USA
Xiong Wang, California State University, USA
Jason Wang, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
Cathy Wu, Georgetown University, USA

Local Arrangements Committee

Anna Menzies, JCIS Manager, Association for Intelligent Machinery
Paul P. Wang, Duke University, USA
Howard Clark, Duke University, USA


Plenary Talks

The conference will include several plenary talks by leading bioinformaticists and computational biologists.

Submission of Papers and Extended Abstracts

Postscript or PDF versions of papers (no more than 6 pages long including figures, tables, and references), and extended abstracts (1 page long) prepared according to the formatting guidelines outlined below should be submitted electronically as per the instructions posted on the conference web site, www.cs.iastate.edu/~cbgi/cbgi.html. At this time, we are unable to process submissions that are not in the form of Postscript or PDF files.

At least one of the authors of each accepted paper is expected to attend the conference and present the paper. A fee of $180 must be submitted on or before December 31, 01 to guarantee publication of an accepted paper or abstract in the Proceedings. The publication fee is deductible from either the full or pre-conference discounted registration fee. See Web site (www.cs.iastate.edu/~cbgi/cbgi.html) for payment information.

Each paper will be rigorously refereed by at least 2 reviewers for technical soundness, originality, and clarity of presentation.

Author Instructions

Papers submitted for publication in the CBGI Proceedings shall not exceed 6 pages with figures and tables included. Extended abstracts should not exceed 1 page in length. There are additional charges for papers that exceed the prescribed length. Please see the Web site for fee information. Papers should be formatted for an 8 1/2 x 11 size page as per the formatting guidelines posted on the conference web page at: http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cbgi/cbgi.html.

The authors are strongly encouraged to use the LaTeX style files or the MS WORD templates provided on the conference web page for formatting their papers and extended abstracts. Authors using other word processing packages should conform to the following guidelines: The margins should be set as follows: Top- .75 inch, Right- 1 inch, Bottom- 1 inch, Left- 1 inch. Papers should be laid out in two columns using a 10-point serif font, preferably Times Roman, and 12 point leading. The total text block should be 6.5 inches wide with .25 inch between columns and 9.25 inches high. Text should be single-spaced and justified.

The title should be centered and set in upper and lower case letters in 16 point Times Roman bold font. Your name should be centered and set in 11 point Times Roman (or other serif typeface) bold font (upper and lower case) and should start .375 inches below the baseline of the article title. Your affiliation should also be centered and set in 10 point font and should follow immediately below your name. The paper should begin .375 inch below the final line of your affiliation. Subheads should be in 12 point Times Roman bold, flush left, and should be preceded by one line of spacing beginning with the second subhead. The main text should use 10 point Times Roman font.

The proceedings will be printed in black and white so please do not include color drawings or photographs. Please keep in mind that poor quality graphics will not reproduce well.

Paper and Abstract Submission Deadlines

The relevant schedule for paper submissions is as follows:

The relevant schedule for extended abstract submissions is as follows:

Submission of Proposals for Tutorials

The conference will include a small number of short (2-4 hour) tutorials on selected topics in Computational Biology and Genome Informatics. Some examples of possible tutorial topics are: Data Mining tools for Computational Molecular Biology; Gene Expression Analysis; Statistical Tools for Bioinformatics; Bioontologies. Those interested in presenting a tutorial should submit a proposal (in plain text format) to alberto-segre@uiowa.edu

The proposal should include:

The relevant schedule for tutorials is as follows:

Tutorial presenters are responsible for putting together tutorial notes for distribution to tutorial attendees.

Submission of Workshop Proposals

The conference will include a small number of 1/2 day or 1 day workshops to facilitate informal discussion of work in progress, approaches to open research problems and future directions, and to foster interdisciplinary collaboration. Workshops should allow ample time for exchange of ideas in an informal setting. Examples of potential workshop topics are: Bioontologies; Protein Structure Prediction; Research Challenges in Biological Databases; Gene Expression Analysis.

Those interested in organizing a workshop should submit a proposal (in plain text format) to xqhuang@cs.iastate.edu

The proposal should include:

The relevant schedule for workshop proposals is as follows:

The organizers of each workshop are responsible for preparing and disseminating a call for workshop participation (which might include a call for papers), selection of participants, setting up workshop web page, and notifying the Program Chair and CBGI staff (menzies_ap@compuserve.com) of the address of the workshop web page (so that it can be linked to the conference web page) Workshop papers will not be included in the conference proceedings. However, the workshop organizers are encouraged to post workshop notes (e.g., titles and abstracts of workshop talks and summaries or reports generated by the workshop participants) on the workshop webpage.

Bioinformatics Job Fair

Registered conference attendees seeking positions in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and related areas can participate in the CBGI-02 job fair at no additional cost. They can submit PDF versions of their brief (1 page) resumes (in PDF format) by electronic mail to Lisa Lorenzen (industrial liaisons) llorenze@iastate.edu by February 1, 02. The resumes will be made available to organizations, companies, or recruiting agencies participating in the job fair.

Organizations (companies, recruiting agencies, universities, etc.) interested in recruiting in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and related areas can display announcements of available positions (jobs, fellowships, graduate assistantships, etc.) and obtain a booklet including the resumes of candidates by participating in the CBGI jobs fair. Organizations that cosponsor CBGI-02 (see below) can participate in the job fair at no additional cost. Other organizations interested in participating in the job fair can do so by sending a job fair participation fee of US $1000 before February 1, 02 to CBGI-02, C/O Lisa Lorenzen, Industrial Liaison, 1210 Molecular Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011.

Organizations participating in the job fair should provide 1-2 page descriptions of available positions or graduate training opportunities in bioinformatics, computational biology, or related areas by electronic mail (as PDF or WORD documents) to llorenze@iastate.edu by February 1, 02 or bring them to the conference for posting on the Jobs bulletin board at CBGI-02. Each organization participating in the job fair will be provided with a table and a chair at the conference venue where the recruiter can meet with candidates in an informal setting.

Sponsoring the Conference

The broad interest in CBGI-02 by the corporate and academic research community makes this meeting an excellent opportunity for your company to showcase its activities in bioinformatics and to support the CBGI-02 conference. Several levels of sponsorship are available:

Platinum Sponsor: Donation of US $10,000 or above. Platinum sponsorship benefits include:

Gold Sponsor: Donation of US$ 6,000 or above. Gold sponsorship benefits include:

Silver Sponsor : Donation of US$ 3000 or above, including:

List of events/things to sponsor Depending on the level of your sponsorship, you can choose between the following:

Software or Product Demonstrations or Displays

A limited number of spots for software or product displays and demonstrations will be available on the industry night.. Companies interested in participating in the industry night should contact Lisa Lorenzen (llorenze@iastate.edu).

Additional Information

Additional information about the conference can be found on the conference web page at http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~cbgi/cbgi.html. Information about other conferences and symposia that will be colocated with CBGI-02 can be found at: www.ee.duke.edu/JCIS.


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Additions, changes, or updates to this page should be sent to:

Dr. Vasant Honavar
Professor
Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory
Department of Computer Science and
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Graduate Program
Iowa State University
Atanasoff Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1040 USA
phone: +1-515-294-4377, fax: +1-515-294-0258