Concept contraction in the description logic EL

In this paper we study the problem of concept contraction for the description logic EL. Concept contraction is concerned with the following question: Given two concepts C and D (with the interesting case being that D subsumes C) how can we find a generalisation of C that is not subsumed by D but is otherwise as similar as possible to C? We take an AGM-style approach and model this problem using the notion of a concept contraction operator. We consider constructive definitions as well as sets of postulates for concept contraction, and link the two by means of representation theorems.