The 8th Biomedical Linked Annotation Hackathon (BLAH8) 15 - 19 January, 2024 Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan https://blah8.linkedannotation.org/

Submission due of project proposals : 20 Oct., 2023

INTRODUCTION

BLAH (Biomedical Linked Annotation Hackathon) represents a series of annual hackathon events, specifically designed to foster open collaboration. The goal is to achieve a breakthrough in the sharing and linking of various resources for biomedical literature annotation and mining. By enhancing the interoperability of these resources, the initiative aims to substantially increase both the productivity and the impact within the community.

Within the scope of BLAH, the term "resources" encompasses a wide range of elements including corpora, annotation datasets, databases, language models, software tools, web services, terminologies, ontologies, graphical representations, movies, and more. The aspiration of BLAH is to create connections between all these resources, allowing them to interoperate seamlessly. We believe this integration will foster a more cohesive and effective environment for all stakeholders.

Unfortunately, the pandemic led to a temporary halt in the organization of BLAH events. However, with the world gradually reopening, BLAH is excited to announce its return with the 8th edition (BLAH8). In recognition of the era of Large Language Models (LLMs), BLAH8 will center around a special theme: "Biomedical Annotations in the Age of LLMs." This theme represents a contemporary focus for the community and signals a commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements in the biomedical field. Through BLAH8, we aspire to explore the potential synergy between LLMs and literature annotations, diving deep into various facets of biomedical applications.

CALL FOR PROJECT PROPOSALS

We invite submission of project proposals from those who are interested in contributing biomedical literature annotation with their literature annotation resources, and expertise, particularly this year with a connection to LLMs. We invite projects which can be accomplished during the hackathon. The type of contribution may include, but not restricted to

- Integration of annotation resources - Evaluation of annotation resources - Application of annotation resources - ...

Submission due of project proposals is 20 Oct., 2023

TRAVEL SUPPORT

Those who submit project proposals are eligible to apply for travel support. See the homepage for detailed information.

PUBLICATION

Immediately after BLAH8, participants will be invited to submit papers, e. g., report of the hackathon outputs, to either of the two venues:

- Genomics & Informatics : an open access journal, which is indexed by PubMed. All the papers of the journal will be immediately included in the PMC open access subset.

- BioHackrxiv : a preprint server, which is powered by OSF preprints and indexed by EuropeanPMC.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

- Jin-Dong Kim (DBCLS, ROIS-DS) - Fabio Rinaldi (IDSIA) - Lars Juhl Jensen (Univ. Copenhagen) - Zhiyong Lu (NCBI, NLM)