[ontolog-forum] NCBO Webinar: Hilmar Lapp, Nov. 17 at 10:00am PT

[Trish Whetzel <plwhetzel@xxxxxxxxx>]

The next NCBO Webinar will be presented by Dr. Hilmar Lapp, Assistant Director for Informatics at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) on "Bringing reason to phenotype diversity, character change, and common descent" at 10:00am PST, Wednesday, November 17. Below is information on how to join the online meeting via WebEx and accompanying teleconference. For the full schedule of the NCBO Webinar presentations see: http://www.bioontology.org/webinar-series.


ABSTRACT:
For more than a century, systematic biologists have meticulously documented the stunning biodiversity of phenotypes across the tree of life in the comparative systematics literature. This vast store of often complex character and character state descriptions informs our understanding of the evolutionary transitions that gave rise to the present diversity of life on earth. Yet, as free text in natural language, these descriptive data are not amenable to even simple computational processing, such as comparison of organisms by phenotype similarity, much less large-scale data integration and knowledge mining. I will present the approach that we have adopted within the Phenoscape project (http://phenoscape.org) to expose these data to machine reasoning.  Phenoscape uses the Entity-Quality (EQ) model to transform characters and character states into formal phenotype assertions.  Data transformed in this way from the systematics literature are integrated with mutant phenotype data from model organisms in a large knowledge base (http://kb.phenoscape.org), in order to generate hypotheses about the genetic causes of evolutionary character transitions. I will discuss both successes and challenges in blending formal knowledge representation methods with descriptive biology and hypotheses of descent.  An important remaining challenge is a logic framework for reasoning over homology, i.e. descent from a common ancestor, which is required for many forms of evolutionary inference.


SPEAKER BIO:
Hilmar Lapp is the Assistant Director for Informatics at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). His research interests are in reusable and interoperable software and data, large-scale data integration, and building sustainable cyberinfrastructure. A biologist by training, he has also been programming for more than two decades, ranging from commercial applications to real-time data acquisition to bioinformatics data integration and standards. In his role at NESCent, he is involved in many of the Center’s cyberinfrastructure initiatives, and serves as senior personnel in the NSF-funded Phenoscape project (http://phenoscape.org), as well as the Dryad digital repository for data supporting scientific publications (http://datadryad.org). Before joining NESCent in 2006, he worked for almost 10 years in functional genome informatics in the biopharmaceutical sector. At the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) in San Diego, CA, he built SymAtlas, one of the first decidedly gene-centric database integrating genome annotation databases with gene function data.


WEBEX DETAILS:
Topic: NCBO Webinar Series
Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Time: 10:00 am, Pacific Standard Time (San Francisco, GMT-08:00)
Meeting Number: 929 613 752
Meeting Password: ncbomeeting


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To join the online meeting (Now from the Apple iPhone (R) and other smartphones!)
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1. Go to https://stanford.webex.com/stanford/j.php?ED=108527772&UID=0&PW=NMWFkZTFlMzVl&RT=MiM0
2. If requested, enter your name and email address.
3. If a password is required, enter the meeting password: ncbomeeting
4. Click "Join".
5. Follow the instructions that appear on your screen.

To view in other time zones or languages, please click the link:
https://stanford.webex.com/stanford/j.php?ED=108527772&UID=0&PW=NMWFkZTFlMzVl&ORT=MiM0

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To join the audio conference only
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Call-in toll number (US/Canada): 1-650-429-3300
Global call-in numbers: https://stanford.webex.com/stanford/globalcallin.php?serviceType=MC&ED=108527772&tollFree=0

Access code:929 613 752

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For assistance
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1. Go to https://stanford.webex.com/stanford/mc
2. On the left navigation bar, click "Support".

You can contact me at:
whetzel@xxxxxxxxxxxx


To update this meeting to your calendar program (for example Microsoft Outlook), click this link:
https://stanford.webex.com/stanford/j.php?ED=108527772&UID=0&ICS=UMI&LD=1&RD=2&ST=1&SHA2=xNb8XZd6k7YhDMxTSZUEzeYlqD3FNMzKi14nnCJUm/o=&RT=MiM0


WebEx will automatically setup Meeting Manager for Windows the first time you join a meeting. To save time, you can setup prior to the meeting by clicking this link:
https://stanford.webex.com/stanford/meetingcenter/mcsetup.php


The playback of UCF (Universal Communications Format) rich media files requires appropriate players. To view this type of rich media files in the meeting, please check whether you have the players installed on your computer by going tohttps://stanford.webex.com/stanford/systemdiagnosis.php

http://www.webex.com

CCP:+16504293300x929613752#

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This WebEx service includes a feature that allows audio and any documents and other materials exchanged or viewed during the session to be recorded. By joining this session, you automatically consent to such recordings. If you do not consent to the recording, discuss your concerns with the meeting host prior to the start of the recording or do not join the session. Please note that any such recordings may be subject to discovery in the event of litigation.

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