ACEDB 1995 Conference and Workshop

[john mccarthy]

ACEDB 1995 CONFERENCE & WORKSHOP

The 1995 ACEDB Conference and Workshop will be held May 14-27, 1995, at the 
Isis Oasis, a small retreat center in Geyserville, about 80 miles north of 
SanFrancisco in Sonoma County, California.  We will have exclusive use of the 
entire retreat center, including the theater (for workstations and primary 
sessions), dining room, lodge, and other residential facilities.

The main goal of the three day ACEDB Conference (May 14-17) is information 
exchange. It will feature tutorials (May 15), oral presentations, posters, on-
line demonstrations, and discussions.  

The further goals of the ten day ACEDB Workshop following the conference 
(May 18-27) are code development and consolidation, database building, 
documentation writing, special interest group discussions, and long range 
planning.  

Since its introduction in 1991 for the C. elegans research community, ACEDB 
has been adopted by a number of diverse organizations and individuals to 
maintain and distribute data on over forty different genomes, including 
human, bovine, Drosophila, yeast, mycobacteria, Arabidopsis, grains, trees, 
and fungi.  ACEDB has become one of the most successful examples of 
collaborative software for genome research.  Annual meetings have been a 
key ingredient in building and maintaining this growing international 
community of ACEDB users, curators, and developers.  


PARTICIPANTS & SELECTION PROCEDURES

Everyone who wants to attend the Conference or Workshop should submit a a 
pre-registration form (included at the end of this announcement) and a brief 
(one page) description of how they would like to participate.  We may need to 
limit the number of participants from each organization, particularly for the 
Workshop.  Contributions may include presentations (oral, poster, or computer 
demos), giving tutorials, developing new databases, upgrading existing 
databases, programming, writing documentation, or simply discussing your 
own work as it relates to ACEDB.  The program committee will select 35 
workshop participants plus an additional 30 or 40 conference participants on 
the basis of these descriptions, trying to balance different types of 
contributions and representation from different organizations.  


IMPORTANT DATES
 
February  1 Pre-registration & final version of participation descriptions due

March 1     Participants notified about which parts they will be able to attend,
              how much financial support they can expect, and room forms

April 1     Final WWW versions of abstracts due for posters, presentations, etc.
            Short descriptive self-introductions due for all participants
            Final registration, housing and room requests due


COSTS AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Like previous ACEDB workshops, we have selected a site that will keep our costs 
low, and we are trying to secure computer equipment from vendors that we 
can use for the conference and workshop without charge.  Local genome 
research organizations (including Stanford, LBL, UCB, and USFS) are 
contributing staff time and equipment as well as helping with local 
arrangements.  

We hope to secure funding from the Department of Energy's Human Genome 
Program, the National Center for Human Genome Research at NIH, the National 
Science Foundation, and the Department of Agriculture's Plant Genome 
Program to support some of our basic costs plus support for some people who 
might  not otherwise be able to participate -- especially graduate students and 
post-docs.  Otto Ritter also hopes to secure European Community funding for 
some European participant scholarships.

If we can secure funding to underwrite our infrastructure costs, the basic 
costs for participants may be as low as $30 per day for meals and $25 to $50 
per day for triple, double, or single rooms. 



ACEDB CONFERENCE, May 14-16
---------------------------
Our agenda is still evolving.  We welcome your suggestions.  The current 
version is as follows:

Sun 14, 4-9pm  Arrival, Reception

Mon 15 TUTORIALS (potential topics)

GENERAL
         Introduction to ACEDB
         Query Tools and Language
         Map Displays
         Sequence Displays & Analysis

CURATORS
         Database Definition (models)
         Data Loading & Maintenance (.ace files & tools)
         Customizing User Help
         Lab Notebook Databases

PROGRAMMERS
         Connections to External Software
         Client-server Front Ends
         Graphics Library
         Query and Database Subroutines


ACEDB 95 CONFERENCE, Tues-Wed, May 16-17
------------------------------------------------

These two days will be primarily devoted to formal presentations, a poster 
session, and special interest groups.  Topics may include the following:

Map Display tools
Sequence Display and analysis
Laboratory Information Management 
Community archival databases
Data distribution and exchange 
Database interoperability
ACEDB and the World Wide Web
Sharable Software Components
Connecting ACEDB to other software
Non-biological ACEDB databases
New Features and Future Plans


ACEDB WORKSHOP, May 18-27
--------------------------
Like last year's successful workshop, each day will be organized around a 
particular topic, with plenary presentations in the morning and working 
groups in the afternoon or evening.  Some days will have afternoons off with 
evening sessions, while others will have afternoon rather than evening 
sessions. We will continue to meet on Saturday, May 20, but take off Sunday, 
May 21 for rest and recreation. We will conclude with a wrap-up session 
Saturday morning, May 27.

Possible daily workshop themes include the following:

Thu: Models & Data Definition
Fri: Data Import & Export (.ace files, TACE, etc.)
Sat: Query Language and Tools (including Table-Maker)
Sun: Off
Mon: Map Displays
Tue: Sequence Displays
Wed: Communicating with External Software
Thu: Client-Server Architecture
Fri: Project Coordination
Sat: Assessment, Open Questions, Future Plans


POTENTIAL SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

Client-Server Archtecture(s)
Map Displays
Sequence Tools
Lab Databases
Archival Databases
Query Language and Tools
Documentation


1995 CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP COMMITTEES

The local organizing committee includes the following individuals:
John McCarthy (LBL)
Frank Eeckman (LBL, author of MacACE)
Suzanna Lewis (U.C. Berkeley, author of flydb)
Mike Cherry ((Saccharomyces Genome Database, Stanford))
Brad Sherman (U.S. Forest Service Tree Genome Database Project, Albany)

The Program Committee currently includes the above, plus the following:
Richard Durbin (Sanger Centre, ACEDB author)
Jean Thierry-Mieg (CNRS, Montpellier, ACEDB author)
Sam Cartinhour (USDA National Agricultural Library)
Jaime Prilusky (Weizmann Institute)
Otto Ritter (DKFZ, Heidelberg. IGD project)


INTERNET AND WORLD WIDE WEB OUTREACH

Prior to the Conference and Workshop, we plan to use WWW documents to 
publicize our plans, share statements of interest from individual participants, 
distribute various materials, and solicit input for the final agenda.  During 
and after the Workshop, we plan to use WWW to summarize presentations and 
discussions, provide access to demonstrations, and share written results.  A 
growing number of conferences are finding this to be a very effective 
mechanism.  

Our web home page is currently http://genome.lbl.gov/ace95.html.


INFORMATION

We are distributing this announcement to individuals who have already 
expressed an interest in the workshop and the ACEDB newsgroup 
(acedb at net.bio.net) [and conferences].  We will also send shorter 
announcements to the DoE Human Genome Newsletter and CABios.  Suggestions 
for other places to announce the conference and workshop would be welcome.

For further information, send email to ace95 at genome.lbl.gov



PRE-REGISTRATION

In order to give our program committee a rough idea of how many people may 
wish to attend the tutorials, conference, and workshop, please fill out 
information following colons (:) and other items below, and return by 
February 1 to  ace95 at genome.lbl.gov.

====================== cut here =======================================

ACEDB 95 Conference and Workshop -- Pre-registration Form

Name: 

Organization:

Email Address (if not return address):

Put "X" in brackets [ ]  for each part in which you wish to participate:
 
[  ] Reception and tutorial sessions (May 14-15)
[  ] Two day ACEDB 95 Conference (May 16-17)
[  ] Ten day ACEDB 95 Workshop (May 18-27)
[  ] Not sure whether I can participate
[  ] Cannot participate, but please keep me on the ACE95 mailing list

Please use the space below to describe what contributions you would like to 
make to one or more parts of this year's ACEDB 95 Conference and Workshop. 

We would like someone from each participating organization to prepare one 
poster that summarizes its work.  We also want to post abstracts and and as 
many posters as possible on the World Wide Web prior to the conference.
 
You may resubmit this section any time prior to February 1, but please return 
the above information as soon as possible.