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Proceedings! ! The! IWOOD! 2014*! workshop! was! the! second! workshop! on! definitions! in! ontologies! in! as! many! years.! The! first! workshop! (DO! 2013)! was! held! last! year! in! Montreal! in! conjunction! with! ICBO! 2013.! The! focus! of! this! second! workshop! was! on! definition! practices! in! either! human!or!machineSassisted!ontology!development. ! Explicit! definitions! of! terms! in! ontologies! serve! a! number! of! purposes.! Logical! definitions! allow! reasoners! to! create! inferred! hierarchies,! lessening! the! burden! of! asserting! and! checking! the! validity! of! subsumptions.! Natural! language! definitions! help! to! ameliorate! the! pervasive! problem! of! low! interSannotator! agreement.! In! specialized! domains,! experts! will! know! their! own! field! well,! but! may! only! have! limited! knowledge! of! adjacent! disciplines.! Good! definitions! make! it! possible! for! nonSexperts! to! understand! unfamiliar! terms! and! thereby!make!it!possible!for!more!confident!reuse!of!terms!by!external!ontologies,!which!in! turn!facilitates!data!integration.! ! The! goal! of! this! workshop! was! to! bring! together! researchers! and! developers! in! the! biomedical!domain!to!discuss!difficulties!that!arise!in!definition!construction!with!a!view!to! sharing! strategies.! Even! within! the! narrow! domain! of! definition! construction,! crossS fertilization! of! ideas! from! related! disciplines! should! yield! benefits! in! quality! and! help! reinforce!common!approaches!and!identify!novel!ones. ! The! communications! published! in! these! proceedings! address! the! theoretical,! methodological,! and! pragmatic! criteria! one! should! consider! before! engaging! in! the! activity! of! defining! terms! in! ontologies.! The! main! goals! of! the! first! article! are! to! shed! light! on! the! nature! of! logical! and! textual! definitions,! to! explore! the! relationship! that! exists! between! them,! and! to! make! recommendations! for! an! improvement! between! the! two.! The! second! paper!addresses!issues!related!to!the!general!activity!of!defining!terms!as!illustrated!by!the! definition!of!'sign'!and!'symptom':!asking!preliminary!questions;!looking!up!and!comparing! existing! definitions;! considering! one’s! ontological! framework! (BFO,! other…);! taking! or! not! into!account!actual!usages!of!the!terms;!discussing!the!relevance!of!alternative!definitions;! etc.!The!last!communication!describes!how!definitions!can!be!used!to!assess!the!coherence! and! overall! quality! of! an! ontology! according! to! some! prerequisites,! and! proposes! a! systematic!methodology!for!revising!and!updating!existing!definitions!to!conform!to!the!set! quality!criteria. ! Selja!Seppälä,!Yonatan!Schreiber!and!Alan!Ruttenberg Textual,and,logical,definitions,in,ontologies ! Alexander!P.!Cox,!Patrick!Ray,!Mark!Jensen!and!Alexander!D.!Diehl Defining,'sign',and,'symptom' ! Werner!Ceusters An,alternative,terminology,for,pain,assessment ! 1! We!changed!the!acronym!of!the!workshop!from!DO!2014!to!IWOOD!2014!to!avoid!any!confusion!with!the!Disease!Ontology!acronym,! also!DO.! O r g a n i z i n g 5 C o m m i t t e e Selja!Seppälä!(University!at!Buffalo,!USA) Patrick!Ray!(University!at!Buffalo,!USA) Alan!Ruttenberg!(University!at!Buffalo,!USA) 5 P r o g r a m 5 C o m m i t t e e Nathalie!AussenacSGilles!(National!Center!for!Scientific!Research!(CNRS),!France) Mélanie!Courtot!(MBB!Department!Simon!Fraser!University!and!BC!Public!Health! Microbiology!&!Reference!Laboratory,!Canada) Natalia!Grabar!(Université!de!Lille!3,!France) Janna!Hastings!(European!Bioinformatics!Institute,!Cambridge,!UK) James!Malone!(European!Bioinformatics!Institute,!Cambridge,!UK) Alexis!Nasr!(Aix!Marseille!Université,!France) Richard!Power!(The!Open!University,!UK) Allan!Third!(The!Open!University,!UK)