request to change definitions

[alex-dececchi]

would like to replace wikipedia based definitions for vertebrate limb skeleton terms. The first set has the following requested changes

"Condyle" change def'n to "an articular prominence of a bone-use cheifly of such as occur in pairsresembling a pair of knuckles" Merriam Websters Medical desk dictionary 1997

"coracoid process of scapula" change def'n to "A process of the scapula in most mammals reprsenting the remnant of the coracoid bone of lower vertebrates thas has become fused with the scapula." Merriam Websters Medical desk dictionary 1997

add definition to "cortex of humerus": "the outer or sperficial part of the humerus" add definition to "cortex of manus bone": " the outer or sperficial part of the manual bones"

[RDruzinsky]

I agree, Alex. However, it is a huge task, as I have found in working on the ontology of the oral/pharyngeal muscles.

There is a term "cortex" in Uberon: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/UBERON_0001851 which is generic, referring to the outer part. It also mentions "cortical," so the defs for specific bones could refer to cortex and say "the cortical part of the bone."

[cmungall]

Differences

I didn't follow the above exactly. Let me know if this is OK

• The text for condyle above seems scrambled. I went to M-W and modified the definition, check and see it's OK.
• I changed "part of manual bones" to "part of a manual bone". The latter formally corresponds to the equivalence axiom.

Additional comments

A few comments on how to make this task more efficient:

• Why change one dictionary style definition for another? I don't really see why the M-W definition of condyle is better than the WP one. Both are rather vague. If we're going to make the effort to change a dictionary-style def then it should be to something more formal, accompanied by examples. Is there a reason not to use the TAO def? It seems non-teleost specific.
• In many cases, I recommend fixing at source - wikipedia. This will be more efficient overall, and your efforts will be seen by a wider audience (and possibly correct by them, a good thing). Unfortunately, as yet, Uberon does not have as many eyes on it as Wikipedia, and is not updated as frequently.
• Feel free to suggest patterns of changes rather than individual ones. E.g. 'compact bone' and part_of some X ==> "The outer or superficial part of a (bone of a) X". Remember, logical definitions are there to help us automate QC, classification and metadata generation.
• I am not a big fan of the super-generic "cortex" grouping class. Note that this is tagged as upper_level so interfaces such as bgee will already hide this in certain circumastances. It was included as it was used in a number of other ontologies, possibly in slightly different ways. There is a case for obsoleting this, and possibly defining a newer more precise term

[RDruzinsky]

If you don't like "cortex" then you probably shouldn't like "condyle." However, we should ask a developmental biologist about these because I think that a case could be made for some common developmental origins of condylar bone in different limb bones and also cortical bone in different limb bones.