ontology-metadata.owl
type: Ontology
version IRI: ontology-metadata.owl
default language: en
contributor: Adam Goldstein
contributor: Alan Ruttenberg
contributor: Albert Goldfain
contributor: Barry Smith
contributor: Bjoern Peters
contributor: Carlo Torniai
contributor: Chris Mungall
contributor: Chris Stoeckert
contributor: Christian A. Boelling
contributor: Darren Natale
contributor: David Osumi-Sutherland
contributor: Gwen Frishkoff
contributor: Holger Stenzhorn
contributor: James A. Overton
contributor: James Malone
contributor: Jennifer Fostel
contributor: Jie Zheng
contributor: Jonathan Rees
contributor: Larisa Soldatova
contributor: Lawrence Hunter
contributor: Mathias Brochhausen
contributor: Matt Brush
contributor: Melanie Courtot
contributor: Michel Dumontier
contributor: Paolo Ciccarese
contributor: Pat Hayes
contributor: Philippe Rocca-Serra
contributor: Randy Dipert
contributor: Ron Rudnicki
contributor: Satya Sahoo
contributor: Sivaram Arabandi
contributor: Werner Ceusters
contributor: William Duncan
contributor: William Hogan
contributor: Yongqun (Oliver) He
license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

editor preferred term
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: editor preferred term
has curation status: ready for release
definition: The concise, meaningful, and human-friendly name for a class or property preferred by the ontology developers. (US-English)
term editor: PERSON:Daniel Schober
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi>

example of usage
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: example
has curation status: ready for release
definition: A phrase describing how a term should be used and/or a citation to a work which uses it. May also include other kinds of examples that facilitate immediate understanding, such as widely know prototypes or instances of a class, or cases where a relation is said to hold.
term editor: PERSON:Daniel Schober
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi>

in branch
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: in branch
definition: An annotation property indicating which module the terms belong to. This is currently experimental and not implemented yet.
term editor: GROUP:OBI
definition source: OBI_0000277

has curation status
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: has curation status
term editor: PERSON:Alan Ruttenberg
term editor: PERSON:Bill Bug
term editor: PERSON:Melanie Courtot
definition source: OBI_0000281

definition
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: definition
has curation status: ready for release
definition: The official definition, explaining the meaning of a class or property. Shall be Aristotelian, formalized and normalized. Can be augmented with colloquial definitions.
editor note: 2012-04-05: Barry Smith The official OBI definition, explaining the meaning of a class or property: 'Shall be Aristotelian, formalized and normalized. Can be augmented with colloquial definitions' is terrible. Can you fix to something like: A statement of necessary and sufficient conditions explaining the meaning of an expression referring to a class or property. Alan Ruttenberg Your proposed definition is a reasonable candidate, except that it is very common that necessary and sufficient conditions are not given. Mostly they are necessary, occasionally they are necessary and sufficient or just sufficient. Often they use terms that are not themselves defined and so they effectively can't be evaluated by those criteria. On the specifics of the proposed definition: We don't have definitions of 'meaning' or 'expression' or 'property'. For 'reference' in the intended sense I think we use the term 'denotation'. For 'expression', I think we you mean symbol, or identifier. For 'meaning' it differs for class and property. For class we want documentation that let's the intended reader determine whether an entity is instance of the class, or not. For property we want documentation that let's the intended reader determine, given a pair of potential relata, whether the assertion that the relation holds is true. The 'intended reader' part suggests that we also specify who, we expect, would be able to understand the definition, and also generalizes over human and computer reader to include textual and logical definition. Personally, I am more comfortable weakening definition to documentation, with instructions as to what is desirable. We also have the outstanding issue of how to aim different definitions to different audiences. A clinical audience reading chebi wants a different sort of definition documentation/definition from a chemistry trained audience, and similarly there is a need for a definition that is adequate for an ontologist to work with.
term editor: PERSON:Daniel Schober
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi>

editor note
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: editor note
has curation status: ready for release
definition: An administrative note intended for its editor. It may not be included in the publication version of the ontology, so it should contain nothing necessary for end users to understand the ontology.
term editor: PERSON:Daniel Schober
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obfoundry.org/obo/obi>

term editor
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: term editor
has curation status: ready for release
definition: Name of editor entering the term in the file. The term editor is a point of contact for information regarding the term. The term editor may be, but is not always, the author of the definition, which may have been worked upon by several people
editor note: 20110707, MC: label update to term editor and definition modified accordingly. See https://github.com/information-artifact-ontology/IAO/issues/115.
term editor: PERSON:Daniel Schober
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi>

alternative term
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: alternative term
has curation status: pending final vetting
definition: An alternative name for a class or property which means the same thing as the preferred name (semantically equivalent)
term editor: PERSON:Daniel Schober
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi>

definition source
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: definition source
has curation status: ready for release
definition: formal citation, e.g. identifier in external database to indicate / attribute source(s) for the definition. Free text indicate / attribute source(s) for the definition. EXAMPLE: Author Name, URI, MeSH Term C04, PUBMED ID, Wiki uri on 31.01.2007
term editor: PERSON:Daniel Schober
definition source: Discussion on obo-discuss mailing-list, see http://bit.ly/hgm99w
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi>

has obsolescence reason
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: has obsolescence reason
definition: Relates an annotation property to an obsolescence reason. The values of obsolescence reasons come from a list of predefined terms, instances of the class obsolescence reason specification.
term editor: PERSON:Alan Ruttenberg
term editor: PERSON:Melanie Courtot

curator note
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: curator note
has curation status: ready for release
definition: An administrative note of use for a curator but of no use for a user
term editor: PERSON:Alan Ruttenberg

term tracker item
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: term tracker item
example of usage: the URI for an OBI Terms ticket at sourceforge, such as https://sourceforge.net/p/obi/obi-terms/772/
has curation status: pending final vetting
definition: An IRI or similar locator for a request or discussion of an ontology term.
term editor: Person: Jie Zheng, Chris Stoeckert, Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: Person: Jie Zheng, Chris Stoeckert, Alan Ruttenberg
comment: The 'tracker item' can associate a tracker with a specific ontology term.

ontology term requester
type: AnnotationProperty
has curation status: pending final vetting
definition: The name of the person, project, or organization that motivated inclusion of an ontology term by requesting its addition.
term editor: Person: Jie Zheng, Chris Stoeckert, Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: Person: Jie Zheng, Chris Stoeckert, Alan Ruttenberg
comment: The 'term requester' can credit the person, organization or project who request the ontology term.

is denotator type
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: is denotator type
definition: relates an class defined in an ontology, to the type of it's denotator
editor note: In OWL 2 add AnnotationPropertyRange('is denotator type' 'denotator type')
term editor: Alan Ruttenberg

imported from
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: imported from
has curation status: pending final vetting
definition: For external terms/classes, the ontology from which the term was imported
term editor: PERSON:Alan Ruttenberg
term editor: PERSON:Melanie Courtot
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi>

expand expression to
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: expand expression to
example of usage: ObjectProperty: RO_0002104 Label: has plasma membrane part Annotations: IAO_0000424 "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000051 some (http://purl.org/obo/owl/GO#GO_0005886 and http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000051 some ?Y)"
definition: A macro expansion tag applied to an object property (or possibly a data property) which can be used by a macro-expansion engine to generate more complex expressions from simpler ones
term editor: Chris Mungall

expand assertion to
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: expand assertion to
example of usage: ObjectProperty: RO??? Label: spatially disjoint from Annotations: expand_assertion_to "DisjointClasses: (http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000051 some ?X) (http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000051 some ?Y)"
definition: A macro expansion tag applied to an annotation property which can be expanded into a more detailed axiom.
term editor: Chris Mungall

first order logic expression
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: first order logic expression
term editor: PERSON:Alan Ruttenberg

antisymmetric property
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: antisymmetric property
example of usage: part_of antisymmetric property xsd:true
definition: use boolean value xsd:true to indicate that the property is an antisymmetric property
term editor: Alan Ruttenberg

OBO foundry unique label
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: OBO foundry unique label
has curation status: pending final vetting
definition: An alternative name for a class or property which is unique across the OBO Foundry.
editor note: The intended usage of that property is as follow: OBO foundry unique labels are automatically generated based on regular expressions provided by each ontology, so that SO could specify unique label = 'sequence ' + [label], etc. , MA could specify 'mouse + [label]' etc. Upon importing terms, ontology developers can choose to use the 'OBO foundry unique label' for an imported term or not. The same applies to tools .
term editor: PERSON:Alan Ruttenberg
term editor: PERSON:Bjoern Peters
term editor: PERSON:Chris Mungall
term editor: PERSON:Melanie Courtot
definition source: GROUP:OBO Foundry <http://obofoundry.org/>

has ID digit count
type: AnnotationProperty
example of usage: Ontology: <http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ro/idrange/> Annotations: 'has ID prefix': "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/RO_" 'has ID digit count' : 7, rdfs:label "RO id policy" 'has ID policy for': "RO"
definition: Relates an ontology used to record id policy to the number of digits in the URI. The URI is: the 'has ID prefix" annotation property value concatenated with an integer in the id range (left padded with "0"s to make this many digits)
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg

has ID range allocated to
type: AnnotationProperty
example of usage: Datatype: idrange:1 Annotations: 'has ID range allocated to': "Chris Mungall" EquivalentTo: xsd:integer[> 2151 , <= 2300]
definition: Relates a datatype that encodes a range of integers to the name of the person or organization who can use those ids constructed in that range to define new terms
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg

has ID policy for
type: AnnotationProperty
example of usage: Ontology: <http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ro/idrange/> Annotations: 'has ID prefix': "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/RO_" 'has ID digit count' : 7, rdfs:label "RO id policy" 'has ID policy for': "RO"
definition: Relating an ontology used to record id policy to the ontology namespace whose policy it manages
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg

has ID prefix
type: AnnotationProperty
example of usage: Ontology: <http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ro/idrange/> Annotations: 'has ID prefix': "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/RO_" 'has ID digit count' : 7, rdfs:label "RO id policy" 'has ID policy for': "RO"
definition: Relates an ontology used to record id policy to a prefix concatenated with an integer in the id range (left padded with "0"s to make this many digits) to construct an ID for a term being created.
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg

elucidation
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: elucidation
term editor: person:Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: Person:Barry Smith
elucidation: Primitive terms in a highest-level ontology such as BFO are terms which are so basic to our understanding of reality that there is no way of defining them in a non-circular fashion. For these, therefore, we can provide only elucidations, supplemented by examples and by axioms

has associated axiom(nl)
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: has associated axiom(nl)
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: Person:Alan Ruttenberg
elucidation: An axiom associated with a term expressed using natural language

has associated axiom(fol)
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: has associated axiom(fol)
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: Person:Alan Ruttenberg
elucidation: An axiom expressed in first order logic using CLIF syntax

is allocated id range
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: is allocated id range
definition: Add as annotation triples in the granting ontology
definition: Relates an ontology IRI to an (inclusive) range of IRIs in an OBO name space. The range is give as, e.g. "IAO_0020000-IAO_0020999"
term editor: PERSON:Alan Ruttenberg

may be identical to
type: AnnotationProperty
definition: A annotation relationship between two terms in an ontology that may refer to the same (natural) type but where more evidence is required before terms are merged.
term editor: David Osumi-Sutherland
term tracker item: #40
ontology term requester: VFB
creation date: 2018-09-21T16:43:39Z
comment: Edges asserting this should be annotated with to record evidence supporting the assertion and its provenance.

scheduled for obsoletion on or after
type: AnnotationProperty
definition: Used when the class or object is scheduled for obsoletion/deprecation on or after a particular date.
term editor: Chris Mungall, Jie Zheng
term tracker item: https://github.com/geneontology/go-ontology/issues/15532
term tracker item: https://github.com/information-artifact-ontology/ontology-metadata/issues/32
ontology term requester: GO ontology
range: dateTime

has axiom label
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: has axiom id
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: Person:Alan Ruttenberg
elucidation: A URI that is intended to be unique label for an axiom used for tracking change to the ontology. For an axiom expressed in different languages, each expression is given the same URI

term replaced by
type: AnnotationProperty
editor preferred term: term replaced by
has curation status: pending final vetting
definition: Add as annotation triples in the granting ontology
definition: Use on obsolete terms, relating the term to another term that can be used as a substitute
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: Person:Alan Ruttenberg

data item
type: Class
subclass of: information content entity

information content entity
type: Class
subclass of: BFO_0000031

curation status specification
type: Class
equivalent class: Class
  one of: example to be eventually removed
  one of: metadata complete
  one of: organizational term
  one of: ready for release
  one of: metadata incomplete
  one of: uncurated
  one of: pending final vetting
  one of: to be replaced with external ontology term
  one of: requires discussion
subclass of: data about an ontology part
editor preferred term: curation status specification
has curation status: pending final vetting
definition: The curation status of the term. The allowed values come from an enumerated list of predefined terms. See the specification of these instances for more detailed definitions of each enumerated value.
editor note: Better to represent curation as a process with parts and then relate labels to that process (in IAO meeting)
term editor: PERSON:Bill Bug
definition source: GROUP:OBI:<http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/obi>
definition source: OBI_0000266

data about an ontology part
type: Class
subclass of: data item
definition: data about an ontology part is a data item about a part of an ontology, for example a term
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg

obsolescence reason specification
type: Class
equivalent class: Class
  one of: failed exploratory term
  one of: placeholder removed
  one of: terms merged
  one of: term imported
  one of: term split
subclass of: data about an ontology part
editor preferred term: obsolescence reason specification
has curation status: pending final vetting
definition: The reason for which a term has been deprecated. The allowed values come from an enumerated list of predefined terms. See the specification of these instances for more detailed definitions of each enumerated value.
editor note: The creation of this class has been inspired in part by Werner Ceusters' paper, Applying evolutionary terminology auditing to the Gene Ontology.
term editor: PERSON: Alan Ruttenberg
term editor: PERSON: Melanie Courtot

denotator type
type: Class
equivalent class: Class
  one of: universal
  one of: defined class
  one of: named class expression
subclass of: data about an ontology part
example of usage: The Basic Formal Ontology ontology makes a distinction between Universals and defined classes, where the formal are "natural kinds" and the latter arbitrary collections of entities.
definition: A denotator type indicates how a term should be interpreted from an ontological perspective.
term editor: Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: Barry Smith, Werner Ceusters

ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: data about an ontology part
editor note: I have placed this under 'data about an ontology part', but this can be discussed. I think this is OK if 'part' is interpreted reflexively, as an ontology module is the whole ontology rather than part of it.
alternative term: ontology file
curator note: This class and it's subclasses are applied to OWL ontologies. Using an rdf:type triple will result in problems with OWL-DL. I propose that dcterms:type is instead used to connect an ontology URI with a class from this hierarchy. The class hierarchy is not disjoint, so multiple assertions can be made about a single ontology.
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:55:03Z

base ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module
definition: An ontology module that comprises only of asserted axioms local to the ontology, excludes import directives, and excludes axioms or declarations from external ontologies.
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:55:30Z

editors ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module
definition: An ontology module that is intended to be directly edited, typically managed in source control, and typically not intended for direct consumption by end-users.
alternative term: source ontology module
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:55:47Z

main release ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module
definition: An ontology module that is intended to be the primary release product and the one consumed by the majority of tools.
editor note: TODO: Add logical axioms that state that a main release ontology module is derived from (directly or indirectly) an editors module
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:56:13Z

bridge ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module
definition: An ontology module that consists entirely of axioms that connect or bridge two distinct ontology modules. For example, the Uberon-to-ZFA bridge module.
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:56:23Z

import ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: subset ontology module
definition: A subset ontology module that is intended to be imported from another ontology.
editor note: TODO: add axioms that indicate this is the output of a module extraction process.
alternative term: import file
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:56:47Z

subset ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module
definition: An ontology module that is extracted from a main ontology module and includes only a subset of entities or axioms.
alternative term: ontology slim
alternative term: subset ontology
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:58:11Z

curation subset ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: subset ontology module
definition: A subset ontology that is intended as a whitelist for curators using the ontology. Such a subset will exclude classes that curators should not use for curation.
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:58:38Z

analysis subset ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: subset ontology module
definition: An ontology module that is intended for usage in analysis or discovery applications.
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:58:49Z

single layer subset ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: subset ontology module
definition: A subset ontology that is largely comprised of a single layer or strata in an ontology class hierarchy. The purpose is typically for rolling up for visualization. The classes in the layer need not be disjoint.
alternative term: ribbon subset
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:59:19Z

exclusion subset ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: subset ontology module
definition: A subset of an ontology that is intended to be excluded for some purpose. For example, a blacklist of classes.
alternative term: antislim
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T20:59:57Z

external import ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: import ontology module
definition: An imported ontology module that is derived from an external ontology. Derivation methods include the OWLAPI SLME approach.
alternative term: external import
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T21:00:14Z

species subset ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: subset ontology module
definition: A subset ontology that is crafted to either include or exclude a taxonomic grouping of species.
alternative term: taxon subset
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T21:14:16Z

reasoned ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module
definition: An ontology module that contains axioms generated by a reasoner. The generated axioms are typically direct SubClassOf axioms, but other possibilities are available.
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T21:20:33Z

generated ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module
definition: An ontology module that is automatically generated, for example via a SPARQL query or via template and a CSV.
editor note: TODO: Add axioms (using PROV-O?) that indicate this is the output-of some reasoning process
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T21:21:12Z

template generated ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: generated ontology module
definition: An ontology module that is automatically generated from a template specification and fillers for slots in that template.
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T21:21:21Z

taxonomic bridge ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: bridge ontology module
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-20T21:28:15Z

ontology module subsetted by expressivity
type: Class
subclass of: subset ontology module
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-22T04:15:54Z

obo basic subset ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module subsetted by expressivity
definition: A subset ontology that is designed for basic applications to continue to make certain simplifying assumptions; many of these simplifying assumptions were based on the initial version of the Gene Ontology, and have become enshrined in many popular and useful tools such as term enrichment tools. Examples of such assumptions include: traversing the ontology graph ignoring relationship types using a naive algorithm will not lead to cycles (i.e. the ontology is a DAG); every referenced term is declared in the ontology (i.e. there are no dangling clauses). An ontology is OBO Basic if and only if it has the following characteristics: DAG Unidirectional No Dangling Clauses Fully Asserted Fully Labeled No equivalence axioms Singly labeled edges No qualifier lists No disjointness axioms No owl-axioms header No imports
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-22T04:16:10Z

ontology module subsetted by OWL profile
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module subsetted by expressivity
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-22T04:16:28Z

EL++ ontology module
type: Class
subclass of: ontology module subsetted by OWL profile
created by: cjm
creation date: 2018-05-22T04:16:48Z

example to be eventually removed
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification

failed exploratory term
type: NamedIndividual
type: obsolescence reason specification
definition: The term was used in an attempt to structure part of the ontology but in retrospect failed to do a good job
term editor: Person:Alan Ruttenberg

metadata complete
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification
definition: Class has all its metadata, but is either not guaranteed to be in its final location in the asserted IS_A hierarchy or refers to another class that is not complete.

organizational term
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification
definition: term created to ease viewing/sort terms for development purpose, and will not be included in a release

ready for release
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification
definition: Class has undergone final review, is ready for use, and will be included in the next release. Any class lacking "ready_for_release" should be considered likely to change place in hierarchy, have its definition refined, or be obsoleted in the next release. Those classes deemed "ready_for_release" will also derived from a chain of ancestor classes that are also "ready_for_release."

metadata incomplete
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification
definition: Class is being worked on; however, the metadata (including definition) are not complete or sufficiently clear to the branch editors.

uncurated
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification
definition: Nothing done yet beyond assigning a unique class ID and proposing a preferred term.

pending final vetting
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification
definition: All definitions, placement in the asserted IS_A hierarchy and required minimal metadata are complete. The class is awaiting a final review by someone other than the term editor.

core
type: NamedIndividual
type: Subset
definition: Core is an instance of a grouping of terms from an ontology or ontologies. It is used by the ontology to identify main classes.
term editor: PERSON: Alan Ruttenberg
term editor: PERSON: Melanie Courtot

placeholder removed
type: NamedIndividual
type: obsolescence reason specification

terms merged
type: NamedIndividual
type: obsolescence reason specification
editor note: An editor note should explain what were the merged terms and the reason for the merge.

term imported
type: NamedIndividual
type: obsolescence reason specification
editor note: This is to be used when the original term has been replaced by a term imported from an other ontology. An editor note should indicate what is the URI of the new term to use.

term split
type: NamedIndividual
type: obsolescence reason specification
editor note: This is to be used when a term has been split in two or more new terms. An editor note should indicate the reason for the split and indicate the URIs of the new terms created.

universal
type: NamedIndividual
type: denotator type
editor note: Hard to give a definition for. Intuitively a "natural kind" rather than a collection of any old things, which a class is able to be, formally. At the meta level, universals are defined as positives, are disjoint with their siblings, have single asserted parents.
term editor: Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: A Formal Theory of Substances, Qualities, and Universals, http://ontology.buffalo.edu/bfo/SQU.pdf

defined class
type: NamedIndividual
type: denotator type
definition: A defined class is a class that is defined by a set of logically necessary and sufficient conditions but is not a universal
editor note: "definitions", in some readings, always are given by necessary and sufficient conditions. So one must be careful (and this is difficult sometimes) to distinguish between defined classes and universal.
term editor: Alan Ruttenberg

named class expression
type: NamedIndividual
type: denotator type
definition: A named class expression is a logical expression that is given a name. The name can be used in place of the expression.
editor note: named class expressions are used in order to have more concise logical definition but their extensions may not be interesting classes on their own. In languages such as OWL, with no provisions for macros, these show up as actuall classes. Tools may with to not show them as such, and to replace uses of the macros with their expansions
term editor: Alan Ruttenberg

to be replaced with external ontology term
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification
definition: Terms with this status should eventually replaced with a term from another ontology.
term editor: Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: group:OBI

requires discussion
type: NamedIndividual
type: curation status specification
definition: A term that is metadata complete, has been reviewed, and problems have been identified that require discussion before release. Such a term requires editor note(s) to identify the outstanding issues.
term editor: Alan Ruttenberg
definition source: group:OBI