%META:TOPICINFO{author="GarryJolleyRogers" date="1259118870" format="1.1" version="1.17"}%
%META:TOPICPARENT{name="WebHome"}%
<h2>Biological Descriptions and Identification Interest Group</h2>

Session II and III (Identification keys, software, platforms, and future directions)

ABSTRACT: The workshop will start with brief presentations and project updates from various projects or organisations involved in the creation and management biological descriptions. The main part will be devoted to general discussions about future directions, where synergies between projects could be found, and what the future direction of the SDD group in general are.

The session is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 10., 14-1730 in "Joffre C+D" with a break (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2009/program/working-schedule/). See also http://www.tdwg.org/conference2009/program/working-sessions/ 

----

*SESSION 1* (labeled as SDD/SPM II)

   1. Zhimin Wang (University of Massachussetts/Boston, USA, talk presented by Bob Morris): Generating polytomous trees from character matrices using generalized Information Gain. (5 Minutes)
   1. Vincent Smith & Kehan Harman (NHM London, UK): Scratchpad news: A first version of a web-based matrix editor (5 Minutes)
   1. Philippe Birnbaum (Cirad, France): Pl@ntNote, a flexible software for the management and share of data on plants (5 Minutes)
   1. Ben Richardson (Western Australia): Java, SDD and possible revitalization of DELTA
   1. Mircea Giurgiu & Andrei Homodi (UT Cluj Napoli, Romania): IBIS-ID, an Adobe FLEX based identification tool for SDD-encoded multi-access keys. (5 Minutes)

*SESSION 2* (labeled as SPM III)

   1. Hong Cui, James Macklin, Chunshui Yu, Partha Pratim Sanyal (presenting author): Fine-Grained Semantic Markup of Descriptive Data for Knowledge Applications in Biodiversity Domains (15 minutes)
   1. Pierre Grard et al. (Cirad, France): The graphic approach of the plant identification (5 Minutes)
   1. Ramesh, B.R., N. Ayyappan, D. Balasubramanian and P. Grard (IFP, India et al.): Biodiversity Informatics and co-Operation in Taxonomy for Interactive shared Knowledge base (BIOTIK) - (10 Minutes)
   1. Gregor Hagedorn and Stephan Opitz (JKI Berlin, Germany): The jKey wiki key player and builder (5 Minutes)
   1. Regine Vignes-Lebbe et al.  (UPMC Paris, France): Updates to status of xper2 (5 Minutes)
   1. Chris Freeland et al. (mobot, USA): eFlora and related activities (5 Minutes)


*General discussion:*

1. Algorithms to create aggregated descriptions (specimen to taxon, species to genus).

2. Proposals for new projects and collaborations - if possible please notify ideas in advance. Currently only one point:
   * Finalizing a standard vocabulary for organism interactions (parasitism, pollinators, etc.), finalizing and extending the specimen-based [[http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonOccurrenceInteraction][TaxonOccurrenceInteraction vocabulary]] proposed by Kevin Richards

3. Action about patenting of prior art in identification tools?

4. Forming a new collaboration platform, for standards, software and datasets?