Author: Matthew Horridge
The University Of Manchester
Bio-Health Informatics Group
Date: 23-Jul-2007
This composite change will convert a defined class to a primitive class by replacing equivalent classes
axioms where the class in question is a class in the equivalent classes axioms to a set of subclass axioms
whose superclasses are the set of classes which were originally equivalent to the class in question.
More formally, for a given class A, a set of ontologies S, and a target ontology T, this composite change
will remove all equivalent axioms from each ontology O in S where the equivalent class axiom contains A
as a 'top level' class (e.g. EquivalentClasses(A, C, D)). For each class, D, that was made equivalent to A via
an equivalent classes axiom, a subclass axiom SubClassOf(A, D) will be added to the target ontology T.
This change supports a common pattern of working, where a class is converted from a
defined class to a primitive class.