The appendix contains an extended version of 2.3.1 Stated and Inferred Concept Definitions supported by more detailed examples.

Stated View of Concept Definitions

SNOMED CT concepts are defined by assertions made by SNOMED CT authors. The concept definitions asserted by SNOMED CT authors are known as the stated view.

The stated view is a representation of concept definitions consisting only of assertions made or revised by SNOMED CT authors.

Description Logic Classification

A description logic classifier can apply logical rules to the stated view to create inferences. The end result of this process is an inferred view of concept definitions.

Inferred Views of Concept Definitions

The inferred view is a representation of concept definitions that is logically derived by applying a description logic classifier to the stated view.

Illustration of the Effect of Classification

 shows the stated view of the definitions of  710785000 | Laparoscopic repair of hernia| . Compare this with the inferred view of the same concept in  and you can see that the single supertype concept  71388002 | Procedure|  been replaced by four supertype concepts in the inferred view.

The classifier has compared the definition of  710785000 | Laparoscopic repair of hernia|  with the concept definitions shown in  and determined that  710785000 | Laparoscopic repair of hernia|  is a subtype of all these concepts.

In fact, the classifier will also have found several other supertypes but the inferred view distributed in the relationship file only includes proximal supertypes (parents). Other supertype ancestors are excluded from the file because they are redundant¹ .