We are delighted to announce the call for participation in VIZBI 2011, the 2nd workshop on ‘Visualizing Biological Data’, to be held at the Broad Institute, Cambridge-MA (USA), March 16-18, 2011. VIZBI 2011 brings together scientists actively using or developing computational visualization to study a diverse range of biological data. As shown on the attached poster, they have assembled a list of high-profile speakers who will each review the state-of-the-art and challenges with visualization in their field. VIZBI 2011 also features an ‘art & science’ evening (Thursday) during which they will be joined by medical illustrators, graphic designers, and artists interested in biological visualization. On Saturday, March 19, immediately after the workshop, participants can choose from a range of tutorials and take part in a hands-on ‘bring-your-own-data’ session.

The objective of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners that are developing and applying the state-of-the-art in visual analytics; to provide a forum for presentation and discussion of the newest both mature and greenhouse ideas, research and developments in visual analytics and supporting disciplines, and to identify the short- and long-term research directions in the field and preferences of the potential end users.

We solicit papers that will introduce new research results, present forward-looking positional statements, or define relevant research challenges.

GeoViz calls for theoretical, experimental and applied papers that explore the links between geovisualization, spatial analysis and modeling. We encourage live demos and the discussion of ground-breaking work in its early stages. All together we will give time and space for a real workshop character.

On May 10, 11 on Guimaraes Portugal a workshop, GeoVA(t), was held in conjunction with the AGILE International Conference on Geographic Information Sciences.

This workshop had 35 submissions evaluated by five workshop chairs. On the basis of the evaluation (two reviews per submission) 25 papers were accepted for presentation at the workshop. Among them, 16 were invited to be extended for the second round of reviewing for special issues of Int Journal GIScience and Journal of Location based Services.