https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2542567
This repository contains NegEx-MES, a system for negation detection in Spanish clinical texts based on Wendy Chapman's NegEx algorithm. It allows determining if a certain term (i.e. a word or group of words) is negated or not, and, if so, the negation word(s). Thus, for an input text that contains a line, in the following format, for each term for which you want to know if it is negated or not:
identifier TAB term TAB "sentence".
It provides the following output:
identifier TAB term TAB "sentence" TAB modification TAB type_modification
Example:
1 TAB cáncer TAB "El paciente no presenta cáncer ni anemia"
1 TAB cáncer TAB "El paciente no presenta cáncer ni anemia" TAB Negated TAB negPhrases
This example indicates that the term 'cáncer' appears negated in this sentence and that the negation adverb no belongs to type 'negPhrases'.
The modification field can take only two values: Negated and Affirmed. When the modification field is Affirmed, the value of type_modification is always NONE. When the modification field is Negated, the type_modification field can take the following four values, ordered from highest to lowest degree of negation, which allow to detect not only negation, but also uncertainty.
-
negPhrases: for words --adverbs (e.g. no (no), tampoco (neither)), negative predicates (e.g. declina (declines), ausencia de (absence of), rechazado (rejected)) and prepositions (e.g. sin (without))-- that deny the term in question and are equivalent to the logical connective of the negation in the propositional logic. -
postNegPhrases: for words that also indicate denial, but include some doubt, so they are a little less strict than the previous ones; e.g. debe descartarse para/debe ser descartado para (it should be discarded for), improbable (unlikely), etc. -
pseNegPhrases: for words very similar to the previous ones, but they include the doubt directly between their
possibilities; e.g. no estoy seguro si (I am not sure if), dudo (I doubt), tengo dudas (I have doubts), etc. -
conjunctions: for adversative conjunctions: pero (but), sin embargo, aunque, (however), etc. That is, they contradict, partially or totally, the term. Therefore, they allow to determine the degree of uncertainty that a term has with respect to the phrase in which it appears.
Distinguishing these different degrees of negation can be very useful, for example, to assign a specific weight to the terms according to the negation words that co-occur with them. For example, a weight of 0.25 could be assigned to the terms co-ocurring with (1), 0.50 to those co-ocurring with (2), 0.75 to those co-ocurring with (3), and 0.85 to those co-ocurring with (4).
The directory structure corresponds to package nomenclature called smn. Therefore, all packages are within that structure:
smn/config_files/eng/with_lemma/ Includes the 4 files with the modifiers explained above, in English and lemmatized. smn/config_files/eng/without_lemma/ Includes the 4 files with the modifiers explained above, in English and without lemma. smn/config_files/spa/with_lemma/ Includes the 4 files with the modifiers explained above, in Spanish and lemmatized. smn/config_files/spa/without_lemma/ Includes the 4 files with the modifiers explained above, in Spanish and without lemma. smn/in/ Includes the input file in.txt smn/main/ Includes the main class Main.java and the execution JAR file smn.jar. smn/misc/ Includes the modification algorithm. smn/out/ Includes the output file callKit.result. smn/util/ includes utility java classes.
To install and compile NegEx-MES you can consult the file [Intallation.md.] (https://github.com/PlanTL/NegEx-MES/blob/master/Installation.md). In this section we will assume that it has been installed and compiled correctly and we only show some execution examples.
java smn.main.Main [options]
Options:
-help Show the line to execute *Spanish Medical Negation* and the options. -displayon Show the messages at the standard output. Default TRUE (show). -language SPANISH (default) or ENGLISH. -answerOptionYes If a pre-UMLS phrase is used as a post-UMLS phrase, for example, pain and fever denied, it will print the negation scope of, in this case, 0 - 2, for an option of yes (TRUE) or print -2 for an option of no (FALSE). Default TRUE. -isOuputFileGenerated If TRUE, it generates an output file; if FALSE, it generates a List class. Default TRUE. -lemmaConfigFiles Configuration files with lemma (TRUE) or without lemma (FALSE). Default TRUE (with lemma). -routeConfigFiles Config files folder name. Default: in ../config_files/ -routeInTextFile Name of the input text file. Default: in ../in/in.txt -routeOutTextFile Name of the output text file. Default: in ../out/callKit.result
Let's assume an input file in.txt in the directory in that includes the following line:
1 cáncer "El paciente no presenta cáncer ni anemia"
If we execute all the options that NegEx-MES provides, as in (in Linux, for Windows it is the same but changing "/" to "\"):
java smn.main.Main -displayon true -language SPANISH -answerOptionYes true -isOuputFileGenerated true -lemmaConfigFiles false -routeConfigFiles ../config_files/ -routeInTextFile ../in/in.txt -routeOutTextFile ../out/out.txt
This generates an output file in the directory out with the following line:
1 cáncer "El paciente no presenta cáncer ni anemia" Negated negPhrases
The smn.jar file allows to execute NegEx-MES directly from a terminal such as cmd, terminator, etc.
To do this, write the following command line from mn/main/smn.jar, the directory where smn.jar is located:
java -jar smn.jar [options]
Where options are those shown in the 'Usage' section.
If you use the following command:
java -jar smn.jar
NegEx-MES will take the default options, and being in the directory structure 'by default':
- It will be executed in the
in.txt fileinsmn/in/in.txt. - It will be executed with the configuration files in
smn/config_files/ - It will generate an output file called
callKit.resultinsmn/out/callKit.result
If you change smn.jar to another directory, you must specify these routes in the options, so that it works correctly.
For example, if you move smn.jar you the parent directory of smn, you must execute it with the following command:
java -jar smn.jar -routeConfigFiles ./smn/config_files/ -routeInTextFile ./smn/in/in.txt -routeOutTextFile ./out.txt
This will generate an output file named out.txt.
Finally, the input file smn/in/in.txt includes an example with 7 cases, in Spanish, and the output file
smn/out/callKit.result the output that NegEx-MES generates for that input text. To reproduce the results obtained
from smn/main/, execute the following command :
java -jar smn.jar -lemmaConfigFiles false
Jesús Santamaría (jsantamaria@cnio.es)
MIT License
Copyright (c) 2018 Secretaría de Estado para el Avance Digital (SEAD)
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
