Systematic review enabled - still needs validation

BMLibrarian v0.9.6 Release Notes

Release Date: December 2025
Previous Release: v0.9-alpha (November 11, 2025)
Total Commits: 817+ commits since v0.9-alpha

This release includes significant new features, extensive bug fixes, and substantial improvements to stability and reliability for the systematic review workflow.

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Highlights

• Complete Systematic Review Workflow - Full end-to-end systematic literature review automation with checkpoint-based resumability
• Evidence Synthesis Engine - AI-powered citation extraction and narrative synthesis from included papers
• Professional PDF Export - Publication-quality PDF generation from markdown reports
• Unified Evaluations Database - PostgreSQL-backed evaluation tracking with full audit trail
• Model Benchmarking Tool - Compare and evaluate document scoring models
• Citation-Aware Writing Editor - Academic writing plugin with reference management

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New Features

Systematic Review System

The systematic review module has been completely overhauled with production-ready capabilities:

• Checkpoint-Based Resumability - Save and resume reviews at any phase:

  • Search strategy checkpoint
  • Initial results checkpoint
  • Scoring complete checkpoint
  • Quality assessment checkpoint
  • Full progress history displayed when resuming

• Evidence Synthesis - New EvidenceSynthesizer component:

  • Extracts relevant citations from included papers
  • Generates narrative synthesis answering research questions
  • Configurable citation thresholds and limits
  • Real-time progress callbacks

• Improved Search & Scoring:

  • Phased execution mode for better progress tracking
  • Per-document progress updates in UI
  • Default inclusion/exclusion criteria
  • Comprehensive excluded paper tracking with reasons

• Quality Assessment Improvements:

  • Database caching for all quality assessments (PICO, PRISMA, Study Assessment, Paper Weight)
  • Version-tracked cache invalidation
  • Improved study type detection including narrative reviews, scoping reviews, and expert opinions

• Systematic Review GUI (systematic_review_gui.py):

  • Tabbed interface with report preview
  • Real-time progress visualization
  • Checkpoint browser for resume selection
  • Full activity log with markdown formatting

PDF Export System

New professional PDF export using ReportLab:

• Pure Python - No external dependencies (wkhtmltopdf, etc.)
• Cross-Platform - Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Publication Quality - Proper fonts, page numbering, headers/footers
• Full Markdown Support - Headings, lists, tables, code blocks, emphasis
• Configurable - Page size (A4/Letter), fonts, margins, colors

uv run python export_to_pdf.py report.md -o report.pdf --research-report

Model Benchmarking Tool

New CLI and module for evaluating document scoring models:

uv run python model_benchmark_cli.py benchmark "research question" \
    --models gpt-oss:20b medgemma4B_it_q8:latest \
    --authoritative gpt-oss:120B

• Compare scoring consistency across models
• Alignment metrics and statistical analysis
• Database-backed benchmark run history
• Visualization of score distributions

Citation-Aware Writing Editor

New Writing plugin for academic document creation:

• Markdown editor with live preview
• Automatic References section management
• Citation insertion from BMLibrarian database
• Auto-save and document recovery
• PDF export integration

Audit Trail Validation GUI

New interface for human review of automated evaluations:

uv run python audit_validation_gui.py --user reviewer_name

• Review and validate AI-generated assessments
• Incremental mode for unvalidated items only
• Track validation decisions with explanations

Unified Evaluations Module

New database-backed evaluation tracking system:

• PostgreSQL evaluations schema for all assessment types
• Evaluation runs with status tracking (in_progress, completed, failed)
• Processing time and confidence tracking
• Full audit trail with timestamps

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Improvements

Study Type Detection

• Added new study types: narrative_review, scoping_review, expert_opinion
• Improved LLM prompts for accurate study classification
• Better handling of review articles that were previously classified as "unknown"

PRISMA Assessment

• Auto-repair incomplete LLM responses instead of failing
• Fill missing fields with sensible defaults and clear warnings
• Track incomplete responses for quality monitoring
• Include actual invalid values in warning messages for debugging

Database & Caching

• Results cache for all quality assessments (study assessment, PICO, PRISMA, paper weight)
• Version-based cache invalidation
• Fixed N+1 query patterns in paper retrieval
• Immediate evaluation persistence (no batch-only saves)
• DateTimeEncoder for proper JSON serialization

GUI Improvements

• Cross-platform font support (fixes macOS font warnings)
• Default page size changed to A4 (international standard)
• PDF viewer with text selection, search, and fit-width zoom
• Improved progress bars with per-step tracking
• Restored progress display when resuming from checkpoints

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Bug Fixes

Critical Fixes

• Fixed checkpoint resume crashes with proper error handling
• Fixed evaluation data not being saved to database
• Fixed datetime JSON serialization errors in cache manager
• Fixed callback signature mismatch in EvidenceSynthesizer
• Fixed N+1 query pattern causing performance issues

Systematic Review Fixes

• Fixed InclusionDecision construction with required arguments
• Fixed InclusionStatus.PENDING to use UNCERTAIN
• Fixed InitialFilter initialization parameter errors
• Fixed missing research_question in RelevanceScorer
• Fixed UnboundLocalError in phased search mode
• Fixed checkpoint files not being saved during resume
• Fixed missing final_rank in checkpoint resume
• Fixed quality gate statistics showing incorrect counts

Assessment Fixes

• Fixed PaperWeightAssessmentAgent.assess_paper() parameter name
• Fixed PRISMA None results crashing on .to_dict() calls
• Fixed PostgreSQL type casting for evaluation functions
• Fixed study_design field extraction for quality assessment

GUI Fixes

• Fixed QThread crash on application close
• Fixed validation status not updating in list views
• Fixed pipe characters breaking markdown tables
• Fixed report viewer attribute errors after merge

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Breaking Changes

• EvidenceSynthesizer.progress_callback now expects (message, current, total) signature
• InclusionDecision now requires stage parameter (not exclusion_stage)
• Relevance score range changed from (1, 5) to (0, 5) to allow marking irrelevant documents
• Full-text documents must be chunked/embedded before paper weight assessment

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Database Migrations

This release includes new database schemas:

• evaluations schema for evaluation tracking
• results_cache schema for quality assessment caching

Run the migration scripts before using new features:

uv run python -m bmlibrarian.database.migrations

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Documentation Updates

• New user guides for evidence synthesis, PDF export, and model benchmarking
• Updated developer documentation for evaluations module
• Added golden rules compliance documentation
• Improved CLAUDE.md with comprehensive project structure

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Contributors

This release was developed with significant contributions from Claude Code (Anthropic's AI coding assistant), demonstrating effective human-AI collaboration in complex software development.

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Upgrade Instructions

1. Update dependencies:

   uv sync

2. Run database migrations:

   uv run python initial_setup_and_download.py your.env --skip-medrxiv --skip-pubmed

3. Clear any stale caches:

   # In PostgreSQL
   TRUNCATE results_cache.study_assessments CASCADE;

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Known Issues

• Large systematic reviews (>1000 papers) may require increased PostgreSQL connection pool size
• PRISMA assessment may return incomplete results for some document types (auto-repaired with warnings)
• Evidence synthesis requires Ollama models with sufficient context window

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What's Next

• Enhanced multi-model query generation
• Improved inter-rater reliability analysis tools
• Web-based interface option
• Enhanced counterfactual analysis for contradictory evidence detection

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For detailed documentation, see the doc/ directory or visit the project repository.