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Semantic technologies in healthcare and life sciences 2012

This thematic series focuses on the application of web based technologies for knowledge representation and data integration in life sciences, that seek to facilitate biomedical research and healthcare practice. The series originates in research presented at two conferences, SWAT4LS (Semantic Web Application and Tools for Life Sciences) which is held annually in Europe, and CSHALS(Conference on Semantics in Healthcare and Life Sciences), which is held annually in the United States. These two venues foster critical discussions on the limits, challenges, and opportunities in the adoption of semantic web technologies in healthcare and life sciences. The emergence of the Web as the primary communication medium; the ever increasing amount of biomedical information and the convergence of disciplines in the biomedical spectrum are all phenomena that point at the Web as a promising technology platform to increase the efficiency of biomedical research and healthcare delivery. At the same time, they make evident the need for semantic approaches in order to integrate information that arises from different processes and disciplines in a meaningful way. At this convergence of Web and semantic solutions we are witnessing a front of innovation where various approaches, including Semantic Web and Linked Data solutions, are proposed. The objective of this thematic series, and of the events that underpin it, is to explore this front of innovation, both in the critical assessment of current technologies and in novel proposals. The series is open for any submission that fits into these objectives. The 2012 SWAT4LS and CSHALS papers can be found at: http://www.jbiomedsem.com/series/SWAT4LSCSHALS.

Prof. Jonas Almeida, Dr Albert Burger, Prof Joanne Luciano, Dr Andrea Splendiani

  1. Out-of-date or incomplete drug product labeling information may increase the risk of otherwise preventable adverse drug events. In recognition of these concerns, the United States Federal Drug Administration (...

    Authors: Richard D Boyce, John R Horn, Oktie Hassanzadeh, Anita De Waard, Jodi Schneider, Joanne S Luciano, Majid Rastegar-Mojarad and Maria Liakata
    Citation: Journal of Biomedical Semantics 2013 4:5
  2. Biomedical ontologies are key elements for building up the Life Sciences Semantic Web. Reusing and building biomedical ontologies requires flexible and versatile tools to manipulate them efficiently, in partic...

    Authors: Mikel Egaña Aranguren, Jesualdo Tomás Fernández-Breis, Chris Mungall, Erick Antezana, Alejandro Rodríguez González and Mark D Wilkinson
    Citation: Journal of Biomedical Semantics 2013 4:2
  3. As the “omics” revolution unfolds, the growth in data quantity and diversity is bringing about the need for pioneering bioinformatics software, capable of significantly improving the research workflow. To cope...

    Authors: Pedro Lopes and José Luís Oliveira
    Citation: Journal of Biomedical Semantics 2012 3:11
  4. The ability to conduct genome-wide association studies (GWAS) has enabled new exploration of how genetic variations contribute to health and disease etiology. However, historically GWAS have been limited by in...

    Authors: Jyotishman Pathak, Richard C Kiefer, Suzette J Bielinski and Christopher G Chute
    Citation: Journal of Biomedical Semantics 2012 3:10
  5. The amount of data generated from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) has grown rapidly, but considerations for GWAS phenotype data reuse and interchange have not kept pace. This impacts on the work of GWAS...

    Authors: Tim Beck, Robert C Free, Gudmundur A Thorisson and Anthony J Brookes
    Citation: Journal of Biomedical Semantics 2012 3:9
  6. In this paper we demonstrate the usage of RIO; a framework for detecting syntactic regularities using cluster analysis of the entities in the signature of an ontology. Quality assurance in ontologies is vital ...

    Authors: Eleni Mikroyannidi, Robert Stevens, Luigi Iannone and Alan Rector
    Citation: Journal of Biomedical Semantics 2012 3:8