How to merge classes

You will now begin to merge SAIC-Products and Cyc-Products by using the tools that Chimaera provides.

In Name Resolution mode, your display should be showing Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction and Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction-in-Cyc-Products-10. We are going to merge Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction and Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction-in-Cyc-Products. Select "Merge classes" from the "Class" menu.

The display now shows the merged class Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction and the superclasses connecting it to the root of the KB. Notice that Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction is no longer a root of the KB as it was in the previous view. However, the merged class Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction is placed at every other place in the ontology where either Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction or Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction-in-Cyc-Products previously existed.

Now, let's see how Chimaera dealt with the subclasses of the merged classes. The red triangle icon next to "Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction" indicates that Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction has subclasses that are currently not displayed. Click the red triangle as shown below.

The subclasses of Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction are now displayed. Notice that the subclasses of the merged Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction originally came from both SAIC-Products and Cyc-Products. Chimaera simply takes the direct subclasses of both Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction and Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction-in-Cyc-Products and adds them as direct subclasses of the merged Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction.

At this point, as you look at the view of the merged class and its subclasses, you may be thinking that it is a good idea to merge the two Biological-Weapons, the two Chemical-Weapons, and the two Nuclear-Weapons. You're right! But you are going to complete that task in another section of this tutorial.

You are done with the merging of Weapon-of-Mass-Destruction. Click the trash icon to persistently delete this agenda item in Name Resolution mode.

In the next section, you will learn how to make one class the subclass of another class.