[Ieee_vis] IEEE BioVis 2012 CFP

[IEEE BioVis 2012 CFP]

*** CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ***

BioVis 2012: IEEE Symposium on Biological Data Visualization

at VisWeek 2012 in Seattle, WA
October 14-15, 2012
 
Website: http://www.biovis.net

Paper Submission Deadline: April 30, 2012
Poster Submission Deadline: June 27, 2012
Contest Submission Deadline: June 27, 2012


*** Contents ***

(1)  Aims and Scope
(2)  Topics
(3)  Symposium Format 
(4)  Submission Types and Criteria
(5)  General Expectations (Ethics Guidelines) 
(6)  Review Process
(7)  Important Dates
(8)  Supplemental Material and Formatting Guidelines
(9)  Publications
(10) Submission
(11) Paper and Poster Awards
(12) Organizing Committee
(13) Steering Committee


*** (1) Aims and Scope ***

The rapidly expanding field of biology creates enormous challenges for
computational visualization techniques for enabling researchers to
gain insight from their large and highly complex data sets.

The goal of the Symposium on Biological Data Visualization (BioVis) is
to establish a premier international and interdisciplinary event for
all aspects of visualization in biology. The Symposium aims at
bringing together researchers from the visualization, bioinformatics,
and biology communities with the purpose of educating, inspiring, and
engaging visualization researchers in problems in biological data
visualization as well as bioinformatics and biology researchers in
state-of-the-art visualization research.

The symposium will serve as a platform for researchers from these
fields to increase the impact of visualization approaches in biology.
The breadth and diversity of biological research topic areas will
enable researchers from all parts of the visualization community to
contribute to this effort and the symposium will provide an excellent
opportunity to initiate interdisciplinary collaborations. Finally, it
will provide an outlet and training ground for young and freshly
minted visualization researchers with a keen interest in problems of
biology and provide a venue for researchers in biology and
bioinformatics to share pressing visualization challenges and
potential solutions in their fields.


*** (2) Topics ***

We are looking for contributions on all aspects of visualization in
biology. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

1.  Genome and sequence data, including genomic variation data
2.  Multivariate omics data (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics,
    etc.)
3.  Phylogenetic data
4.  Biological networks and pathways
5.  Biological Ontologies
6.  Structures (e.g., protein or RNA structures)
7.  Visualization of image data, such as microscopy or radiological
    data
8.  Integration of image and omics data for systems biology
9.  Modeling, simulation, and visualization of biological systems
10. Visualization in neurobiology and developmental biology
11. Systems and software frameworks for biological visualization
12. Integration of visualization in biological workflows or
    collaborative processes
13. Visualization and visual analytics of integrated data sets
14. Usability of visualization by biologists
15. Creation and visualization of biological atlases and metadata
16. Processes for interdisciplinary collaboration between biology and
    visualization.
17. Visualization and visual analysis of eQTL data (see related
    information on the Contest web page on http://www.biovis.net)


*** (3) Symposium Format ***

The symposium will be a two-day single-track event with keynote and
invited talks, papers sessions, contest entries presentation, panels,
and posters/demos. Tutorial sessions, in the form of primers, for 
bioinformatics, biology, and visualization researchers will be
organized.


*** (4) Submission Types and Criteria ***

Given the goal of bringing together members of the both the biology
and visualization communities for discussion, the symposium
solicitation is purposefully broad and open minded to diverse types
and lengths of submissions. Authors are encouraged to self identify
the intent of their submission. Each paper will be handled in the
review process and given appropriate time and venue at the symposium
in accordance with its stated intent and length. Types of submissions
include, but are not limited to:

1. Detailed reports of original research
2. Highlights about relevant previously published work with some
   additional insight
3. Descriptions of work in progress and preliminary results
4. Experience reports
5. Demonstrations of new systems, perhaps including distribution of
   working code
6. Descriptions of analysis challenges of a newly published dataset,
   potentially as a challenge to the visualization community to help
   produce solutions

Authors should indicate the intended publication type of their
submissions, as one of three categories:

1. Papers: Up to 8 page papers describing high quality research that
is not necessarily fully completed but offers some new insight.
Selected papers will have an opportunity for an extended and refined
invited follow-up submission (see Section 9).  Authors will have an
oral presentation in a session with an emphasis on discussion with the
audience.

2. Posters: Submissions consist of an up to 2 page extended abstract
summarizing the authors’ work. Posters are meant to support an
exchange of ideas and can be based on work-in-progress. Authors must
present a corresponding poster during the designated poster session,
and are encouraged to incorporate a demo or video into their
presentation. All authors have the opportunity to give a brief oral
preview during a plenary “fast forward” session. Authors of selected
posters will be invited to provide a longer oral presentation at the
symposium.

3. Contest Entries: Submissions consist of an up to 4 page extended
abstract summarizing the contest entry. Supplementary material is also
welcome in form of Powerpoint slides, software virtual box images
and/or binary distributions, technical reports, and supporting
manuscripts. A subset of selected contestants will have the
opportunity to present their work in a separate session during the
symposium. 

More information about each category of content and the various
submission guidelines can be found on http://www.biovis.net.


*** (5) General Expectations (Ethics Guidelines) ***

At least one author of an accepted submission must attend the
conference to present the work. When submitting your paper you will be
asked to provide a complete list of authors even when submitting an
anonymized version of the manuscript. This is required to avoid
potential conflicts of interest when assigning reviewers. Adding
additional authors AFTER the acceptance of a paper is unacceptable and
will not be permitted.

All submissions will be treated as confidential communications during
the review process, so submission does not constitute public
disclosure of any ideas therein. Submissions should contain no
information or materials that will be proprietary or confidential at
the time of publication (at the conference), and should cite no
publications that are proprietary or confidential at the time of
publication. 

Authors of poster entries will also abide by similar guidelines. Any
use of copyrighted material and devices of proprietary nature will be
the responsibility of the presenters.

Contestants will also use the contest data in the spirit of academic
collaboration and inquiry. The use of patented and proprietary
solutions and software will be permitted for demonstrating the results
in a forum at the Symposium. However, it is encouraged that the final
submission include open-source code distribution and anonymized data
to foster academic collaborations.

Our symposium will adhere to the VGTC ethics guidelines for reviewers
that can be found at
http://vgtc.org/wpmu/techcom/conferences/ethics-guidelines. 


*** (6) Review Process ***

Reviewers from both visualization and bioinformatics communities will
be involved in the review process. Paper and poster submissions will
be evaluated by external reviewers organized by the Papers and Posters
Chairs, respectively. Papers will be reviewed for novelty and
contribution, while posters will be considered for their quality and
value to the symposium audience. Contest entries will be judged for
their contribution to the state-of-the-art in visualization, and in
their ability to provide biological insights. The review committee for
the contest entries will draw upon the existing BioVis reviewers while
recruiting others from various pertinent research communities in
biology and bioinformatics.


*** (7) Important Dates ***

Paper submission: Monday, April 30, 2012 
Notification of acceptance of papers: Thursday, June 7, 2012

Contest Entry and Poster submission: Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Notification of acceptance of posters, contest entries: Friday, July 27, 2012

Camera ready copy: Saturday, August 25, 2012 
Extended Journal Format Submission: TBD

All deadlines are at 5:00pm Pacific Time (PDT). 


*** (8) Supplemental Material and Formatting Guidelines ***

Paper and poster submissions can include full-color figures
throughout. We encourage the use of digital video to enhance the
submission, particularly if part or all of the work addresses
interactive techniques. Submission of working code and other
supplemental material in order to increase the reproducibility of the
work is also encouraged. The material for the contest entries should
include all of the aforementioned content. It will be however,
advantageous to include all material which will convince the reviewers
of the specificity and topicality of the offered solutions.
Open-source software should be included for all contest entries. If
open-source solutions cannot be included, the contestants should
provide sufficient rationale while providing an appropriate collection
of binaries and executables.

The review process for the paper track will be optionally double-blind
for those who want to submit their work anonymously. When submitting
for double-blind reviewing you are asked NOT to include any
identifying information in the submission. Otherwise, the review
process will be single-blind, i.e. the reviewers know the identity of
the authors, but the authors do not know the identity of the
reviewers. 

Links to details and guidelines for preparing a proper submission and
supplementary data can be found on http://www.biovis.net. Authors must
follow the style guidelines specified therein. 


*** (9) Publications ***

The symposium proceedings will consist of all accepted papers and will
appear in the IEEE Digital Library. Accepted poster and contest
submissions will be included in the electronic conference proceedings
and made available on the symposium website.

To increase the visibility of visualization within the bioinformatics
and biology communities, a selection of the best accepted papers and
contest entries will be invited to be published in expanded form in an
open-access, peer-reviewed bioinformatics journal such as BMC
Bioinformatics.


*** (10) Submission ***

Details on how to submit papers, posters and contest entries are
provided on http://www.biovis.net.


*** (11) Paper, Contest, and Poster Awards ***

Best paper and poster prizes will be awarded. Submissions that
resulted from a successful collaboration between researchers from both
the visualization and biology communities will be especially regarded.
Reviewers will be queried on the review form with a question "Should
we consider this paper/poster for the best paper/poster award?
(yes/no/maybe)". 
Contest entries will be rewarded for creating either the best
visualization among the competing entries, or for gleaning the most
biological insights. Another prize will be awarded for best overall
entry.

*** (12) Organizing Committee ***

General Chairs
- Jessie Kennedy, Edinburgh Napier University, UK
- Raghu Machiraju, The Ohio State University, USA
- Nils Gehlenborg, Harvard Medical School, USA

Paper Chairs
- Jos Roerdink, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
- Matt Hibbs, The Jackson Laboratory, USA

Poster Chairs
- Cydney Nielsen, British Columbia Cancer Agency Genome Sciences Centre, Canada
- Robert Kincaid, Agilent Laboratories, USA

Publication Chairs
- Miriah Meyer, University of Utah, USA
- Jan Aerts, Leuven University, Belgium

Primer Chairs
- Carsten Goerg, University of Colorado, USA
- Kay Nieselt, University of Tübingen, Germany

Challenges Chairs
- Sean O'Donoghue, Garvan Institute/CSIRO, Australia
- Bernhard Preim, University of Magdeburg, Germany

Contest Chairs
- William Ray, The Ohio State University, USA
- Christopher Bartlett, The Ohio State University, USA
- Raghu Machiraju, The Ohio State University, USA

Industry and Fundraising Chairs
- Kun Huang, The Ohio State University, USA
- G. Elisabeta Marai, University of Pittsburg, USA

Website and Publicity Chairs
- Alexander Lex, Graz University of Technology, Austria
- Marc Streit, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria


*** (13) Steering Committee ***

- Larry Hunter, University of Colorado, USA
- Torsten Moeller, Simon Fraser University, Canada
- Tamara Munzner, University of British Columbia, Canada
- Amitabh Varshney, University of Maryland, USA