The Semantic Web has been a very important development in how knowledge is disseminated and manipulated on the Web, but it has been of particular importance to the flow of scientific knowledge, and will continue to shape how data is stored and accessed in a broad range of disciplines, including life sciences, earth science, materials science, and the social sciences. Many books and papers have been published on the semantic web (particularly by Springer), but nothing to date has specifically illustrated how applications can be used to acquire, integrate, and deliver knowledge in so many scientific disciplines as this proposed volume.

After first presenting papers on the foundations of semantic e-science, including papers on scientific knowledge acquisition, data integration, and workflow, this volume looks at the state of the art in each of the above-mentioned disciplines, presenting research on semantic web applications in the life, earth, materials, and social sciences. Drawing papers from three semantic web workshops, as well as papers from several invited contributors, this volume illustrates how far semantic web applications have come in helping to manage scientific information flow.