The semantic content of terminologies and ontologies is similar, and so are their applicational 
contexts, which may introduce a confusion between these two types of resources.

Usually, a terminology is defined as a set of terms, which represents the system of concepts for 
an area and for an application.  These terms remain linguistic entities and linguistic information
 may be associated with them. Term organization is usually not constrained by any formal logics 
or description, which may lead to problems like cyclicity and redundancy within a terminology.

As for ontologies, they are built upon formal specification and constraints and describe also a 
system of concepts and associated properties for a specific area. They are intended to be used by
computers and automatic applications.

One may ask whether, in a specific situation, a terminology is sufficient, or whether an ontology 
is always required.  In that respect, terminology and ontology are two complementary resources. 
However a weak definition of their similarities and differences may confuse the users.


The objectives of this special issue is to address various issues related to differences and 
similarities between ontologies and terminologies, such as:

- What are the differences and similarities between ontologies and
   terminologies?

- How various (formal, structural and content) differences between
   terminologies and ontologies may impact their use, as well as the
   results provided by automatic systems?

- Are terminologies suitable for populating ontologies and to which
   extent?

- Are terminologies the first step when building ontologies?

- How should the reuse of terminologies be operated?

- What are the various kinds of semantic resources going from
   dictionaries and terminologies to ontologies, through taxonomies and
   classifications?

- How to decide whether a terminology or an ontology should be
   exploited in a given situation?

- How can multilingual terminologies contribute to the localization of
   ontologies?

- Whether the same approaches may be used for the building of
   terminologies and ontologies?

- Whether ontologies can be (re)used for improving the contents of a
   terminology and vice versa?

- What are model representations and algorithms for the best reuse of
   terminologies for ontology building?

- Are automated approaches suitable for this?

This Special Issue of AO addresses these various questions, but is not limited to them.
Authors defending various positions and points of view are encouraged to submit to this special issue.


IMPORTANT DATES
Submissions Deadline              *September 15th 2011* (extended)
Notification to Authors           December 15th 2011
Second Submission Deadline        February 15th 2012
Second Notification               March 15th 2012
Camera-ready Version              April 15th 2012
Special Issue Publication         Summer 2012



SUBMISSION PROCESS

Submissions should respect the AO format
(http://www.iospress.nl/authco/ao_template.zip)
Submission site http://mstracker.com/submit1.php You can find there:
     * the templates and specifications for the submissions
     * the submission form

In the cover letter, please indicate that you submit to the special issue 
ONTOLOGIES AND TERMINOLOGIES: CONTINUUM OR DICHOTOMY.


GUEST EDITORS
Natalia Grabar, CNRS STL UMR 8163, Lille, France Thierry Hamon, LIM&BIO, 
University Paris 13, Bobigny, France Olivier Bodenreider, NLM/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA



SCIENTIFIC COMMITY
Nathalie Aussenac, University of Toulouse, France Paul Buitelaar, National University of Ireland, 
Galway, Ireland Sylvie Després, University Paris 13, Bobigny, France Christiane D. Fellbaum, 
Princeton University, Princeton, USA Marie-Claude l'Homme, OLST, Université de Montreal, 
Canada Véronique Malaisé, Elsevier, Content Enrichment Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 
Alessandro Oltramari, Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Psychology, USA Chantal Reynaud, 
LRI Université Paris-Sud & INRIA Saclay Ile-de-France, France Stefan Schulz, Medical University 
of Graz, Austria Dagobert Sörgel, Library and Information Studies, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, 
USA Rita Temmerman, Centre for Terminology and Communication, Departement of Applied Linguistics, 
Erasmus University College Brussels, Belgium Maria Teresa Pazienza, Dept. of Enterprise 
Engineering/CERTIA, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Italy Hanne E. Thomsen, 
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark Susan Thomas, SAP, AG, Germany Anna Tordai, VU University, 
Amsterdam, the Netherlands Karin Verspoor, University of Colorado School of Medicine, 
USA Kewen Wang, Griffith University, Australia


-- 
Thierry Hamon                      E-mail : thierry.hamon@univ-paris13.fr
Laboratoire d'Informatique Médicale et Bioinformatique - LIM&BIO (EA3969) UFR SMBH Léonard de Vinci et Institut Galilée
Université Paris 13                                Tel: +33 1 49 40 35 53
74, rue Marcel Cachin                              Tel: +33 1 48 38 73 07
93017 Bobigny Cedex France                         Fax: +33 1 48 38 73 55
URL: http://www-limbio.smbh.univ-paris13.fr/membres/hamon