BioInfoStructure Session:
"Collaborating to build a bioinformation and biocomputation infrastructure in the Pacific Rim and beyond"
A Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing PSB'98 Session
Hawaii, 5-9 January 1998, Ritz Carlton, Kapalua on Maui
Co-Chairs: Tim Littlejohn. Head Australian National Genomic Information Service (ANGIS) Australian Genomic Information Centre The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW. URL: http://www.angis.su.oz.au Email: tim@angis.su.oz.au Homepage: http://morgan.angis.su.oz.au/People/tim.html
Hideaki Sugawara, Center for Information Biology, National Institute
of Genetics, Mishima, Japan Email: hsugawar@cib.nig.ac.jp URL: http://www.cib.nig.ac.jp
We invite participation in the 1998 Pacific Symposium in Biocomputing (PSB '98) Bioinfostructure Session. This session will focus on how we can collaborate and cooperate to create a shared biological information infrastructure across the Pacific Rim nations and beyond, that will guarantee a quality of service to the users of our biocomputing and bioinformatics resources. Of particular emphasis in this session is how to transfer the technology to research organisations in developing nations which find difficulty in accessing biocomputing and bioinformatics services.
We particularly want to encourage the submission of manuscripts (for full session oral presentation 20 mins) and poster abstracts (selected abstracts proposed to be given a short 5 - 10 minute platform during discussion) covering various aspects of providing the bioocomputing and bionformatics resources to biological researchers.
Included are aspects of the organisation and maintenance of the service, the resources available, the delivery mechanism, the user support and problem response, new tools, software and services, the network environment, security, the user interface, software support and user training, software applications development.
As biocomputing tools and bioinformatics resources become essential to all aspects of biological research, it is critical for regional, national and organisational bioinformatics centers and computing resources a. to find a platform for discussing the promotion, development and evolution of their bioinformatics research programs and their software applications development and b. to initiate collaborations and exchange information and ideas on how to improve their bioinformatics facilities and biocomputation services.
It is therefore most fitting to for PSB, which is emerging to become the region's most progressive symposium, to be that idea platform and vehicle to promote such an association and forum of bioinformatics centers which is tentatively proposed to be known as the Asia Pacific Biocomputing and Bioinformatics Network. This new session track will allow us to share more about our centers and their regional mission/mandates and allow a fruitful interchange of ideas and information. Simply put, representatives from these smaller centers can meet and benefit from those of larger and more established centers, learn from each other and possibly avoid "reinventing the wheel" in providng their services to their target audience.
Submissions:
We encourage you to submit full technical papers to be included in a standard refereeing process. Submitted papers will be peer reviewed by at least three independent referees. Those papers that are accepted will be published in an archival proceedings. The papers are restricted to 12 pages; PSB format templates will be provided. We envision that such papers could range from philosophical discussions on providing and maintaining bioinformatics services, biosoftware development, to the nuts-and-bolts of forming regional cooperation groups.
The PSB general organizing committee has adopted the following manuscript policy:
"To be eligible for review and publication in the PSB Proceedings, each full paper must be accompanied by a cover letter stating that the manuscript contains original unpublished results not currently under consideration elsewhere and that all co-authors concur with its content."
As mentioned above, we will select three manuscript from our session's accepted papers for oral presentation of approximately 20 minutes each, with 5 minutes for question and answer.
Authors who do not wish to submit a peer-reviewed paper are encouraged to submit a poster abstract. These abstracts will not be published in the proceedings. However, they will be distributed to all attendees as a separate volume. Furthermore, all abstract authors will have the opportunity to display their posters and/or deliver live computer software demonstrations. We also envision that many of the discussion forum panelists will be from this group as well as from those whom have submitted papers.
If you have been involved in providing biocomputing services and developing biocomputing software, please indicate in your submission whether you would be interested in serving on this discussion panel.
Even if you do not want to submit anything officially to the session, we hope that you will be able to attend and participate in the conference. This is important because we will be inviting representatives from each region and country to help form the core founding members of the Asia Pacific Biocomputing and Bioinformatics Network. Please share your ideas with us. We need your involvement to make it a success.
Where to Submit:
All full papers must be submitted to the central PSB address given below so that we can track the manuscripts. Physical submittors should send five copies of their paper to:
PSB-98
c/o Section on Medical Informatics
Stanford University Medical Schoool, MSOB X215
Stanford, CA 94305-5479
USA
Alternatively electronic submission of papers is welcome. Format requirements for electronic submission will be available on the web page (http://psb.stanford.edu) or from Russ Altman (altman@smi.stanford.edu). Electronic papers will be submitted directly to Dr Altman.
All one page abstracts to be submitted electronically to the conference chairs at tinwee@bic.nus.sg by July 14, 1997. Please send them in plain ASCII text or as a Microsoft Word file. If this is impossible, please contact Dr Tan Tin Wee (Tel: +65-772-6490; Fax: +65-872-6205).
General Conference Description:
PSB '98 will be held January 5-9, 1998, and will be the 5th consecutive annual meeting devoted to the broad domain of computational biology, with an emphasis in the data-rich area of molecular biology. PSB '97 attracted hundreds of participants from throughout the world. PSB is one of the oldest, continuously held meetings devoted to the biology/computer science interface and is distinguished from other conferences in this domain by its emphasis on tool development and its inclusion of an education component. Please refer to the PSB World Wide Web pages (http://psb.stanford.edu/) for an announcement of the upcoming meeting, and the last meeting's announcement, attendee listing, and delivered papers (many available in PostScript format for downloading).
Key dates:
July 14,1997 -- Manuscripts and poster abstracts due (extensions allowed
by arrangement)
August 18,1997 -- Review process must be finished
August 22,1997 -- Final paper decisions announced
September 15,1997 -- Final, camera ready copy, due
October 1,1997 -- Poster abstracts due (after this date, posters will be accepted
on a space available basis; space will be limited especially for interactive/computational
posters after this date)