diff --git a/TensorFlow.NET.sln b/TensorFlow.NET.sln
index b96f8203..23c4296c 100644
--- a/TensorFlow.NET.sln
+++ b/TensorFlow.NET.sln
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ Project("{9A19103F-16F7-4668-BE54-9A1E7A4F7556}") = "TensorFlowNET.Examples", "t
 EndProject
 Project("{9A19103F-16F7-4668-BE54-9A1E7A4F7556}") = "TensorFlowNET.Core", "src\TensorFlowNET.Core\TensorFlowNET.Core.csproj", "{FD682AC0-7B2D-45D3-8B0D-C6D678B04144}"
 EndProject
+Project("{9A19103F-16F7-4668-BE54-9A1E7A4F7556}") = "NumSharp.Core", "..\NumSharp\src\NumSharp.Core\NumSharp.Core.csproj", "{265765E1-C746-4241-AF2B-39B8045292D8}"
+EndProject
 Global
 	GlobalSection(SolutionConfigurationPlatforms) = preSolution
 		Debug|Any CPU = Debug|Any CPU
@@ -27,6 +29,10 @@ Global
 		{FD682AC0-7B2D-45D3-8B0D-C6D678B04144}.Debug|Any CPU.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU
 		{FD682AC0-7B2D-45D3-8B0D-C6D678B04144}.Release|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU
 		{FD682AC0-7B2D-45D3-8B0D-C6D678B04144}.Release|Any CPU.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU
+		{265765E1-C746-4241-AF2B-39B8045292D8}.Debug|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU
+		{265765E1-C746-4241-AF2B-39B8045292D8}.Debug|Any CPU.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU
+		{265765E1-C746-4241-AF2B-39B8045292D8}.Release|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU
+		{265765E1-C746-4241-AF2B-39B8045292D8}.Release|Any CPU.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU
 	EndGlobalSection
 	GlobalSection(SolutionProperties) = preSolution
 		HideSolutionNode = FALSE
diff --git a/src/TensorFlowNET.Core/TensorFlowNET.Core.csproj b/src/TensorFlowNET.Core/TensorFlowNET.Core.csproj
index 3aa0192b..2aa6ad17 100644
--- a/src/TensorFlowNET.Core/TensorFlowNET.Core.csproj
+++ b/src/TensorFlowNET.Core/TensorFlowNET.Core.csproj
@@ -62,4 +62,8 @@ Add Word2Vec example.</PackageReleaseNotes>
     <Folder Include="Keras\Initializers\" />
   </ItemGroup>
 
+  <ItemGroup>
+    <ProjectReference Include="..\..\..\NumSharp\src\NumSharp.Core\NumSharp.Core.csproj" />
+  </ItemGroup>
+
 </Project>
diff --git a/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/TextProcess/DataHelpers.cs b/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/TextProcess/DataHelpers.cs
index bb5d5675..4bc1d84d 100644
--- a/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/TextProcess/DataHelpers.cs
+++ b/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/TextProcess/DataHelpers.cs
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ using System.Linq;
 using System.Text;
 using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
 
-namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.CnnTextClassification
+namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples
 {
     public class DataHelpers
     {
@@ -90,5 +90,65 @@ namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.CnnTextClassification
             str = Regex.Replace(str, @"\'s", " \'s");
             return str;
         }
+
+        /// <summary>
+        /// Padding
+        /// </summary>
+        /// <param name="sequences"></param>
+        /// <param name="pad_tok">the char to pad with</param>
+        /// <returns>a list of list where each sublist has same length</returns>
+        public static (int[][], int[]) pad_sequences(int[][] sequences, int pad_tok = 0)
+        {
+            int max_length = sequences.Select(x => x.Length).Max();
+            return _pad_sequences(sequences, pad_tok, max_length);
+        }
+
+        public static (int[][][], int[][]) pad_sequences(int[][][] sequences, int pad_tok = 0)
+        {
+            int max_length_word = sequences.Select(x => x.Select(w => w.Length).Max()).Max();
+            int[][][] sequence_padded;
+            var sequence_length = new int[sequences.Length][];
+            for (int i = 0; i < sequences.Length; i++)
+            {
+                // all words are same length now
+                var (sp, sl) = _pad_sequences(sequences[i], pad_tok, max_length_word);
+                sequence_length[i] = sl;
+            }
+
+            int max_length_sentence = sequences.Select(x => x.Length).Max();
+            (sequence_padded, _) = _pad_sequences(sequences, np.repeat(pad_tok, max_length_word).Data<int>(), max_length_sentence);
+            (sequence_length, _) = _pad_sequences(sequence_length, 0, max_length_sentence);
+
+            return (sequence_padded, sequence_length);
+        }
+
+        private static (int[][], int[]) _pad_sequences(int[][] sequences, int pad_tok, int max_length)
+        {
+            var sequence_length = new int[sequences.Length];
+            for (int i = 0; i < sequences.Length; i++)
+            {
+                sequence_length[i] = sequences[i].Length;
+                Array.Resize(ref sequences[i], max_length);
+            }
+
+            return (sequences, sequence_length);
+        }
+
+        private static (int[][][], int[]) _pad_sequences(int[][][] sequences, int[] pad_tok, int max_length)
+        {
+            var sequence_length = new int[sequences.Length];
+            for (int i = 0; i < sequences.Length; i++)
+            {
+                sequence_length[i] = sequences[i].Length;
+                Array.Resize(ref sequences[i], max_length);
+                for (int j = 0; j < max_length - sequence_length[i]; j++)
+                {
+                    sequences[i][max_length - j - 1] = new int[pad_tok.Length];
+                    Array.Copy(pad_tok, sequences[i][max_length - j - 1], pad_tok.Length);
+                }
+            }
+
+            return (sequences, sequence_length);
+        }
     }
 }
diff --git a/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/TextProcess/NER/LstmCrfNer.cs b/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/TextProcess/NER/LstmCrfNer.cs
index 71e20b65..f34b132b 100644
--- a/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/TextProcess/NER/LstmCrfNer.cs
+++ b/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/TextProcess/NER/LstmCrfNer.cs
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-using System;
+using NumSharp;
+using System;
 using System.Collections.Generic;
 using System.IO;
 using System.Linq;
@@ -7,6 +8,7 @@ using Tensorflow;
 using Tensorflow.Estimator;
 using TensorFlowNET.Examples.Utility;
 using static Tensorflow.Python;
+using static TensorFlowNET.Examples.DataHelpers;
 
 namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Text.NER
 {
@@ -27,10 +29,17 @@ namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Text.NER
 
         HyperParams hp;
         
-        Dictionary<string, int> vocab_tags = new Dictionary<string, int>();
         int nwords, nchars, ntags;
         CoNLLDataset dev, train;
 
+        Tensor word_ids_tensor;
+        Tensor sequence_lengths_tensor;
+        Tensor char_ids_tensor;
+        Tensor word_lengths_tensor;
+        Tensor labels_tensor;
+        Tensor dropout_tensor;
+        Tensor lr_tensor;
+
         public bool Run()
         {
             PrepareData();
@@ -38,6 +47,14 @@ namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Text.NER
 
             tf.train.import_meta_graph("graph/lstm_crf_ner.meta");
 
+            word_ids_tensor = graph.OperationByName("word_ids");
+            sequence_lengths_tensor = graph.OperationByName("sequence_lengths");
+            char_ids_tensor = graph.OperationByName("char_ids");
+            word_lengths_tensor = graph.OperationByName("word_lengths");
+            labels_tensor = graph.OperationByName("labels");
+            dropout_tensor = graph.OperationByName("dropout");
+            lr_tensor = graph.OperationByName("lr");
+
             var init = tf.global_variables_initializer();
 
             with(tf.Session(), sess =>
@@ -47,6 +64,7 @@ namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Text.NER
                 foreach (var epoch in range(hp.epochs))
                 {
                     print($"Epoch {epoch + 1} out of {hp.epochs}");
+                    run_epoch(train, dev, epoch);
                 }
 
             });
@@ -54,6 +72,77 @@ namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Text.NER
             return true;
         }
 
+        private void run_epoch(CoNLLDataset train, CoNLLDataset dev, int epoch)
+        {
+            int i = 0;
+            // iterate over dataset
+            var batches = minibatches(train, hp.batch_size);
+            foreach (var(words, labels) in batches)
+            {
+                get_feed_dict(words, labels, hp.lr, hp.dropout);
+            }
+        }
+
+        private IEnumerable<((int[][], int[])[], int[][])> minibatches(CoNLLDataset data, int minibatch_size)
+        {
+            var x_batch = new List<(int[][], int[])>();
+            var y_batch = new List<int[]>();
+            foreach(var (x, y) in data.GetItems())
+            {
+                if (len(y_batch) == minibatch_size)
+                {
+                    yield return (x_batch.ToArray(), y_batch.ToArray());
+                    x_batch.Clear();
+                    y_batch.Clear();
+                }
+
+                var x3 = (x.Select(x1 => x1.Item1).ToArray(), x.Select(x2 => x2.Item2).ToArray());
+                x_batch.Add(x3);
+                y_batch.Add(y);
+            }
+
+            if (len(y_batch) > 0)
+                yield return (x_batch.ToArray(), y_batch.ToArray());
+        }
+
+        /// <summary>
+        /// Given some data, pad it and build a feed dictionary
+        /// </summary>
+        /// <param name="words">
+        /// list of sentences. A sentence is a list of ids of a list of
+        /// words. A word is a list of ids
+        /// </param>
+        /// <param name="labels">list of ids</param>
+        /// <param name="lr">learning rate</param>
+        /// <param name="dropout">keep prob</param>
+        private FeedItem[] get_feed_dict((int[][], int[])[] words, int[][] labels, float lr = 0f, float dropout = 0f)
+        {
+            int[] sequence_lengths;
+            int[][] word_lengths;
+            int[][] word_ids;
+            int[][][] char_ids;
+
+            if (true) // use_chars
+            {
+                (char_ids, word_ids) = (words.Select(x => x.Item1).ToArray(), words.Select(x => x.Item2).ToArray());
+                (word_ids, sequence_lengths) = pad_sequences(word_ids, pad_tok: 0);
+                (char_ids, word_lengths) = pad_sequences(char_ids, pad_tok: 0);
+            }
+
+            // build feed dictionary
+            var feeds = new List<FeedItem>();
+            feeds.Add(new FeedItem(word_ids_tensor, np.array(word_ids)));
+            feeds.Add(new FeedItem(sequence_lengths_tensor, np.array(sequence_lengths)));
+            
+            if(true) // use_chars
+            {
+                feeds.Add(new FeedItem(char_ids_tensor, np.array(char_ids)));
+                feeds.Add(new FeedItem(word_lengths_tensor, np.array(word_lengths)));
+            }
+
+            throw new NotImplementedException("get_feed_dict");
+        }
+
         public void PrepareData()
         {
             hp = new HyperParams("LstmCrfNer")
diff --git a/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/Utility/CoNLLDataset.cs b/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/Utility/CoNLLDataset.cs
index 8fc7b25a..9b50bfd6 100644
--- a/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/Utility/CoNLLDataset.cs
+++ b/test/TensorFlowNET.Examples/Utility/CoNLLDataset.cs
@@ -8,13 +8,14 @@ using Tensorflow.Estimator;
 
 namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Utility
 {
-    public class CoNLLDataset : IEnumerable
+    public class CoNLLDataset
     {
         static Dictionary<string, int> vocab_chars;
         static Dictionary<string, int> vocab_words;
+        static Dictionary<string, int> vocab_tags;
 
-        List<Tuple<int[], int>> _elements;
         HyperParams _hp;
+        string _path;
 
         public CoNLLDataset(string path, HyperParams hp)
         {
@@ -24,22 +25,10 @@ namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Utility
             if (vocab_words == null)
                 vocab_words = load_vocab(hp.filepath_words);
 
-            var lines = File.ReadAllLines(path);
+            if (vocab_tags == null)
+                vocab_tags = load_vocab(hp.filepath_tags);
 
-            foreach (var l in lines)
-            {
-                string line = l.Trim();
-                if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(line) || line.StartsWith("-DOCSTART-"))
-                {
-
-                }
-                else
-                {
-                    var ls = line.Split(' ');
-                    // process word
-                    var word = processing_word(ls[0]);
-                }
-            }
+            _path = path;
         }
 
         private (int[], int) processing_word(string word)
@@ -58,6 +47,20 @@ namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Utility
             return (char_ids, id);
         }
 
+        private int processing_tag(string word)
+        {
+            // 1. preprocess word
+            if (false) // lowercase
+                word = word.ToLower();
+            if (false) // isdigit
+                word = "$NUM$";
+
+            // 2. get id of word
+            int id = vocab_tags.GetValueOrDefault(word, -1);
+
+            return id;
+        }
+
         private Dictionary<string, int> load_vocab(string filename)
         {
             var dict = new Dictionary<string, int>();
@@ -68,9 +71,38 @@ namespace TensorFlowNET.Examples.Utility
             return dict;
         }
 
-        public IEnumerator GetEnumerator()
+        public IEnumerable<((int[], int)[], int[])> GetItems()
         {
-            return _elements.GetEnumerator();
+            var lines = File.ReadAllLines(_path);
+
+            int niter = 0;
+            var words = new List<(int[], int)>();
+            var tags = new List<int>();
+
+            foreach (var l in lines)
+            {
+                string line = l.Trim();
+                if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(line) || line.StartsWith("-DOCSTART-"))
+                {
+                    if (words.Count > 0)
+                    {
+                        niter++;
+                        yield return (words.ToArray(), tags.ToArray());
+                        words.Clear();
+                        tags.Clear();
+                    }
+                }
+                else
+                {
+                    var ls = line.Split(' ');
+                    // process word
+                    var word = processing_word(ls[0]);
+                    var tag = processing_tag(ls[1]);
+
+                    words.Add(word);
+                    tags.Add(tag);
+                }
+            }
         }
     }
 }