POC Conf. Call 5-4-10

POC meeting, Webex Conference Call; Date: May 4th, 2010 10am (PDT)

Agenda:

Acceptance of the minutes from last weeks meeting? All in favor?

Items carried over from last week's agenda:

1. Wrapping up the phyllome structures that include 'whorls' and 'rosettes':

collective phyllome structure (See SF tracker: collective phyllome structure).

New proposed def'n.:A collective plant structure that consists of two or more phyllomes originating from the same node or from two or more adjacent nodes with compressed internodes.

This def'n avoids the use of the term 'stem' here. 'Whorl' and 'floral whorl' (a term used in GO) are narrow synonyms.

2. fruit (See SF Tracker: fruit)

Current def'n: The seed-bearing structure in angiosperms, formed from the ovary after flowering.

Proposed def'n: A collective plant structure that contains a mature gynoecium, together with any other structures that ripen with it and form a unit with it.

PJ (via SourceForge) offered a proposed def'n using 'post-fertilization'.

proposed change: fruit is_a 'collective plant structure' and part_of infructescence.

(CPS: a proper part of a plant and is composed of two or more organs and any associated portions of plant tissue).

3. Embryo (See SF Tracker: embryo) Def'n: A young sporophyte contained within a seed. [source: APWeb:Glossary, GR:pj]

-has no is_a parent, propose making it is_a whole plant?

-embryo contained_in archegonium could work for all land plants (not charophytes), rather than contained_in seed (doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.03054.x)

New (older) items for discussion:

4. stem (See SF Tracker stem)

Problem: Stem has no is_a parent- should be a collective plant structure?

Stem def'n: The axial system of plants that bears leaves and buds. [source: APWeb:Glossary]

Synonyms: cane, culm, stalk, trunk

OR if we make it a child of plant organ, then penduncle, pedicel and gynophore can be stalks.

5. stalk (See SF Tracker: stalk)

This was added as a new term at the Ithaca meeting on 12/2009, to cover a number of the terms lacking is_a parents.

def'n: An 
elongated, sub-cylindrical to cylindrical structure that supports another 
organ or regional part of an organ.

Proposed def'n: A cardinal organ part that is elongated and
 sub-cylindrical to cylindrical and supports an 
organ or another cardinal organ part.

-made a cardinal organ part (as per its definition) rather than an organ.

Proposed children of stalk: (Test: do all of these fit the definition?)

• filament: The stalk of a stamen.(stamen:organ)

• petiole: The stalk of a leaf. (leaf:organ)

• petiolule: The stalk of a leaflet (leaflet:cardinal organ part)

• funicle: The stalk which attaches the ovule to the
 placenta.(ovule: cardinal organ part)

• gynophore: The stalk at the base of the ovary.

(ovary: cardinal organ part)

• leaf rachis: That part of the main axis of a pinnate or more highly compound leaf, that bears leaflets or divisions of the axis.(leaf:organ) (See SF Tracker: leaf rachis)

• peduncle: The stalk of an inflorescence; that part of
 the inflorescence below the first flower or inflorescence branch and above 
the last foliage leaf/pair of foliage leaves. (See SF Tracker: peduncle)

propose revised def'n: The stalk of an inflorescence or an individual flower (R, E, E 4th edition).

• pedicel: Basal part of the ultimate branch of the inflorescence. [source: APWeb:Glossary]

(See SF Tracker: pedicel)

propose revised def'n: The stalk of an individual flower in an inflorescence that contains more than one flower (LC revised from R,E,E4th edition).

Note: We also have the term 'stem'. We need to decide if 'peduncle' and 'pedicel' fit better as stalk or stem.

6. Upcoming Conferences and Meetings: Updates

• Cell Ontology Workshop on May 18th and 19th, 2010. Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME. Laurel and Ramona will attend.

Scientific agenda will include:

1) Review and discussion of the ongoing work on specific areas of the Cell Ontology

2) Resolution of issues regarding the high level structure of the Cell Ontology

3) Relations to be employed and external ontologies to utilize in construction of logical definitions for cross-product terms

4) Organization of outreach efforts to import cell type terms from other ontologies and resources

5) Discussion about software enhancements to the AmiGO tool to enable and search of GO annotations that involve coannotation to CL terms

6) Applications of the CL (Cell Ontology)

Agreed that there should be some group discussion of plant cells before this meeting. Laurel and Ramona will review the Cell Ontology.

Rex sent in a list of PO plant cell that are not in the Cell.obo file (thanks Rex!). Ramona and I will look at these and we should talk about the cell ontology at next weeks meeting.

* POC meeting/Annotation workshop to be held in Corvallis on June 29th/30th.

Pankaj suggested we plan on meeting for two days. Dennis can make June 30th, but has to be back in NYC early on July 1st, so we will try to meet June 29th and 30th.

Alejandra cannot travel that day -- can attend via conference call.

Ramona will be in Portland June 26-29, will request that her talk be scheduled for the 27th or 28th. Ramona has sent a request to schedule her talk on the 27th or 28th. Barry will be in France this week and can't attend. What about Chris?

Pankaj would like to also include Aaron Liston (OSU), Richard Halsey (OSU) and Quentin Cronk (UBC; http://cronklab.wikidot.com/quentin-cronk).

* Bio-Ontologies 2010: Semantic Applications in Life Sciences. July 9th and 10th, 2010, Boston, Mass. Satellite Interest Group (SIG) meeting preceding the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). Laurel, Ramona may be going.

-Flash updates, up to 1 page: (short talks (5 min) giving the salient new developments on existing public ontologies) -Poster abstracts, up to 1 page (posters will be up for 2 days, with at least 1 poster session) Poster authors can also do a flash update.

Laurel submitted the 1 pager on Friday April 16th to Bio-Ontologies meeting for a poster presentation and possibly a short flash update talk. We will be notified by May 7th if we are doing a flash update. Registration deadline May 28th, $325.

* American Society of Plant Biology (ASPB) July 31-Aug 4th 2010, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Laurel, Pankaj going, PO Poster presentation and Annotation Workshop with Gramene.

Laurel is looking into the possibility of hosting a booth with other database groups. SGN and maizeGDB are interested and she will check with TAIR and Gramene. The estimated costs are $1600 for the plain booth (no carpet, electricity or tables). This could be shared or PJ said POC could host it.

We should prepare a brochure to distribute, similar to the one Gramene has.

Annotation workshop with Gramene is scheduled for Saturday July 31, 8am-12pm. more details TBA

* International Botanical Congress (IBC2011). July 23rd-30th 2011, Melbourne, Australia. Important dates (http://www.ibc2011.com/Dates.htm):

Dennis and Alejandra are already planning to attend IBC2011 and speak in other symposia.

Ramona circulated a proposal that was submitted on Thursday April 29th and contacted the organizers about whether or not it is possible to get a room with internet for outreach activities.

Pankaj will be co-organizer with Ramona. Laurel and Ramona are interested in going and speaking if funds are available.

Ramona has contacted Angelica Cibrian (Harvard) from the Genomics of Seed Plants project and she is interested in being a potential speaker, will contact other possible speakers in Australia if the proposal is accepted.

• Latin American Congress of Botany (http://www.botanica-alb.org/X_Congreso/index.php). La Serena, Chile, October 4-10; MAG: "I am not sure about due dates for this one due to the earthquake".

from 3-23-10: Dennis is attending LACB. We will consider having a presentation at this meeting. Alejandra will not be able to attend.

• Annotation workshops to be held at NYBG in fall 2010. Date TBD. Will invite outside experts, scientists, students and postdocs.

8. Next meeting scheduled for Tuesday May 11th at 10am.