Joint span and token framework for few-shot named entity recognition

Few-shot Named Entity Recognition (NER) is a challenging task that involves identifying new entity types using a limited number of labeled instances for training. Currently, the majority of Few-shot NER methods are based on span, which pay more attention to the boundary information of the spans as c...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wenlong Fang, Yongbin Liu, Chunping Ouyang, Lin Ren, Jiale Li, Yaping Wan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. 2023-01-01
Series:AI Open
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666651023000116
_version_ 1827400803136045056
author Wenlong Fang
Yongbin Liu
Chunping Ouyang
Lin Ren
Jiale Li
Yaping Wan
author_facet Wenlong Fang
Yongbin Liu
Chunping Ouyang
Lin Ren
Jiale Li
Yaping Wan
author_sort Wenlong Fang
collection DOAJ
description Few-shot Named Entity Recognition (NER) is a challenging task that involves identifying new entity types using a limited number of labeled instances for training. Currently, the majority of Few-shot NER methods are based on span, which pay more attention to the boundary information of the spans as candidate entities and the entity-level information. However, these methods often overlook token-level semantic information, which can limit their effectiveness. To address this issue, we propose a novel Joint Span and Token (JST) framework that integrates both the boundary information of an entity and the semantic information of each token that comprises an entity. The JST framework employs span features to extract the boundary features of the entity and token features to extract the semantic features of each token. Additionally, to reduce the negative impact of the Other class, we introduce a method to separate named entities from the Other class in semantic space, which helps to improve the distinction between entities and the Other class. In addition, we used GPT to do data augmentation on the support sentences, generating similar sentences to the original ones. These sentences increase the diversity of the sample and the reliability of our model. Our experimental results on the Few-NERD11 https://ningding97.github.io/fewnerd/. and SNIPS22 https://github.com/AtmaHou/FewShotTagging. datasets demonstrate that our model outperforms existing methods in terms of performance.
first_indexed 2024-03-08T20:09:50Z
format Article
id doaj.art-264b7387bf7f47d1b410db0da2bcca23
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 2666-6510
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-08T20:09:50Z
publishDate 2023-01-01
publisher KeAi Communications Co. Ltd.
record_format Article
series AI Open
spelling doaj.art-264b7387bf7f47d1b410db0da2bcca232023-12-23T05:22:53ZengKeAi Communications Co. Ltd.AI Open2666-65102023-01-014111119Joint span and token framework for few-shot named entity recognitionWenlong Fang0Yongbin Liu1Chunping Ouyang2Lin Ren3Jiale Li4Yaping Wan5School of Computer, University of South China, ChinaCorresponding author.; School of Computer, University of South China, ChinaSchool of Computer, University of South China, ChinaSchool of Computer, University of South China, ChinaSchool of Computer, University of South China, ChinaSchool of Computer, University of South China, ChinaFew-shot Named Entity Recognition (NER) is a challenging task that involves identifying new entity types using a limited number of labeled instances for training. Currently, the majority of Few-shot NER methods are based on span, which pay more attention to the boundary information of the spans as candidate entities and the entity-level information. However, these methods often overlook token-level semantic information, which can limit their effectiveness. To address this issue, we propose a novel Joint Span and Token (JST) framework that integrates both the boundary information of an entity and the semantic information of each token that comprises an entity. The JST framework employs span features to extract the boundary features of the entity and token features to extract the semantic features of each token. Additionally, to reduce the negative impact of the Other class, we introduce a method to separate named entities from the Other class in semantic space, which helps to improve the distinction between entities and the Other class. In addition, we used GPT to do data augmentation on the support sentences, generating similar sentences to the original ones. These sentences increase the diversity of the sample and the reliability of our model. Our experimental results on the Few-NERD11 https://ningding97.github.io/fewnerd/. and SNIPS22 https://github.com/AtmaHou/FewShotTagging. datasets demonstrate that our model outperforms existing methods in terms of performance.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666651023000116Few-shot learningNamed entity recognitionMeta learningNatural language processing
spellingShingle Wenlong Fang
Yongbin Liu
Chunping Ouyang
Lin Ren
Jiale Li
Yaping Wan
Joint span and token framework for few-shot named entity recognition
AI Open
Few-shot learning
Named entity recognition
Meta learning
Natural language processing
title Joint span and token framework for few-shot named entity recognition
title_full Joint span and token framework for few-shot named entity recognition
title_fullStr Joint span and token framework for few-shot named entity recognition
title_full_unstemmed Joint span and token framework for few-shot named entity recognition
title_short Joint span and token framework for few-shot named entity recognition
title_sort joint span and token framework for few shot named entity recognition
topic Few-shot learning
Named entity recognition
Meta learning
Natural language processing
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666651023000116
work_keys_str_mv AT wenlongfang jointspanandtokenframeworkforfewshotnamedentityrecognition
AT yongbinliu jointspanandtokenframeworkforfewshotnamedentityrecognition
AT chunpingouyang jointspanandtokenframeworkforfewshotnamedentityrecognition
AT linren jointspanandtokenframeworkforfewshotnamedentityrecognition
AT jialeli jointspanandtokenframeworkforfewshotnamedentityrecognition
AT yapingwan jointspanandtokenframeworkforfewshotnamedentityrecognition