Are disorders part_of or contained_in a patient (or either)?

Disorders, by the current ogms definition, are "causally relatively isolated combination of physical components..." but 'physical components' does not make clear whether they stand in the part_of or contained_in OBO relation to a patient. Clearly, a fractured arm is part_of a patient, but we would also like to say an infection (from IDO) is a disorder (more specifically, an infectious disorder), and an infection is an infectious organism population contained_in a host. Should we allow disorders to be either part_of or contained_in a patient? NB: See Schulz et al on parthood vs containment in http://ontology.buffalo.edu/bio/Part&Location.pdf

Werner Ceusters: 
This question keeps me awake since 1995. I do argue very strongly indeed
that no single relation will fit all instances of disorder. I also believe
that the current description of what a disorder is needs to be refined to
answer that question. I do not consider a fractured arm to be a disorder,
although there is indeed a disorder "in" that arm.
Most likely, disorder will end to be an ad hoc class, not a universal. I
believe we should start by being explicit about what sort of generic entity
each of the terms in OGM stand for: universal or defined class (more
importantly whether an ad hoc class is involved). Only for universals, I
believe, one relation that fits all can be found.

Original comment by albertgo...@gmail.com on 20 Aug 2009 at 7:26

nvaldivi / ogms

Are disorders part_of or contained_in a patient (or either)? #15