NLPSequence LabelingTransformersRLBiomedical NLP

Biomedical negation detection with Transformers, CRF, and PPO

Fine-tuned BERT-family models for negation cue and scope detection, then expanded the work with CRF, hierarchical, and PPO-based sequence-labeling approaches.

2024-07-011 min read

Overview

Detect negation cues and their scope in biomedical text with models that can handle imbalanced labels and structured output behavior.

System design

  • Fine-tuned BERT, BioBERT, and ClinicalBERT with BIO-style token labeling
  • Added CRF and hierarchical classification variants to model label dependencies
  • Trained PPO-based sequence-labeling policies using rewards derived from human-annotated spans
  • Evaluated cue and scope quality with token-level and span-level consistency checks

Results

  • Established strong supervised baselines for negation cue and scope detection
  • Improved minority-label behavior with reinforcement-style training over the supervised baseline
  • Created a reusable experimental setup for later biomedical QA and evidence-quality work