VLDB 2026 Research / reviewers in the wild / expert
Xueling Zhu
dblp:159/3440
· DBLP profile ↗
10ranked-venue papers
1as first author
10since 2021 · last 2026
0000-0001-9616-8219ORCID · corroborated
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 6 · 1 first-author · 6 since 2021Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 5 · 5 since 2021Databases, data management, data science and information retrieval · 2 · 1 first-author · 2 since 2021
Expertise — from the expertise taxonomy: the topics of the expert's papers under the CCF categories. A weight counts papers with recency: 1 for a paper about the topic, 0.3 when the topic is its context, halved every five years.
| Artificial intelligence
6 papers |
Representation and self-supervised learning · 36% Graph learning · 35% Probabilistic and Bayesian machine learning · 16% | |
| Databases, data mining, and information retrieval
4 papers |
Data mining · 100% |
Topics — the 20 heaviest of 21, each with the papers that count most for it
| Topic | Weight | Papers | Last | Evidence papers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Data mining
clustering |
3.0 | 3 | 2026 | Toward Scalable Multi-View Clustering Without Predefined Clusters via Inter-Anchor Graph Learning · IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng. 2026 Parameter-Free Clustering via Self-Supervised Consensus Maximization · AAAI 2026 Enhancing Kernel Power $K$-means: Scalable and Robust Clustering with Random Fourier Features and Possibilistic Method · AAAI 2026 |
Machine learning › Graph learning
dynamic graph learning |
1.0 | 1 | 2026 | Dictionary Multi-Modal Temporal Graph Learning · IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 2026 |
Machine learning › Graph learning
graph neural network |
1.0 | 1 | 2026 | Dictionary Multi-Modal Temporal Graph Learning · IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 2026 |
Machine learning › Representation and self-supervised learning › representation learning › unsupervised representation learning › clustering-based representation learning
self-supervised clustering |
1.0 | 1 | 2026 | Parameter-Free Clustering via Self-Supervised Consensus Maximization · AAAI 2026 |
Data mining › clustering › kernel clustering
kernel k-means |
1.0 | 1 | 2026 | Enhancing Kernel Power $K$-means: Scalable and Robust Clustering with Random Fourier Features and Possibilistic Method · AAAI 2026 |
Data mining › clustering
large-scale clustering |
1.0 | 1 | 2026 | Toward Scalable Multi-View Clustering Without Predefined Clusters via Inter-Anchor Graph Learning · IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng. 2026 |
Data mining › clustering
multi-view clustering |
1.0 | 1 | 2026 | Toward Scalable Multi-View Clustering Without Predefined Clusters via Inter-Anchor Graph Learning · IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng. 2026 |
Data mining › clustering › nonparametric clustering
parameter-free clustering |
1.0 | 1 | 2026 | Parameter-Free Clustering via Self-Supervised Consensus Maximization · AAAI 2026 |
Machine learning › Representation and self-supervised learning › representation learning › dimensionality reduction
feature selection |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Linear Complexity Multi-View Unsupervised Feature Selection via Anchor-Based Feature Relationship Construction · IEEE Trans. Image Process. 2025 |
Machine learning › Representation and self-supervised learning › contrastive learning
graph contrastive learning |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Disentangling Invariant Subgraph via Variance Contrastive Estimation under Distribution Shifts · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Probabilistic and Bayesian machine learning › structured models
graphical models |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Generalized Probabilistic Graphical Modeling for Multi-View Bipartite Graph Clustering · IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 2025 |
Machine learning › Graph learning
graph out-of-distribution generalization |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Disentangling Invariant Subgraph via Variance Contrastive Estimation under Distribution Shifts · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Graph learning › graph structure learning
invariant subgraph learning |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Disentangling Invariant Subgraph via Variance Contrastive Estimation under Distribution Shifts · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Probabilistic and Bayesian machine learning › statistical inference › parameter estimation
maximum likelihood estimation |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Generalized Probabilistic Graphical Modeling for Multi-View Bipartite Graph Clustering · IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 2025 |
Machine learning › Representation and self-supervised learning › representation learning › dimensionality reduction › feature selection
multi-view feature selection |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Linear Complexity Multi-View Unsupervised Feature Selection via Anchor-Based Feature Relationship Construction · IEEE Trans. Image Process. 2025 |
Machine learning › Generative modeling › diffusion model
text-to-image generation |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | $C^{2}D$C2D: Context-Aware Concept Decomposition for Personalized Text-to-Image Synthesis · IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 2025 |
Data mining › clustering
graph clustering |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Generalized Probabilistic Graphical Modeling for Multi-View Bipartite Graph Clustering · IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 2025 |
Machine learning › Representation and self-supervised learning › representation learning
embedding learning |
0.3 | 1 | 2025 | $C^{2}D$C2D: Context-Aware Concept Decomposition for Personalized Text-to-Image Synthesis · IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 2025 |
Machine learning › Trustworthy machine learning
robustness |
0.3 | 1 | 2025 | Disentangling Invariant Subgraph via Variance Contrastive Estimation under Distribution Shifts · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Trustworthy machine learning › robustness › spurious correlation
spurious correlation mitigation |
0.3 | 1 | 2025 | Disentangling Invariant Subgraph via Variance Contrastive Estimation under Distribution Shifts · ICML 2025 |
Methods — techniques the papers use, named apart from their topics
self-supervised representation learning · 2.0nearest neighbor consensus · 2.0hierarchical agglomerative clustering · 2.0statistical significance analysis · 1.7random fourier features · 1.0multiple kernel learning · 1.0multimodal fusion · 1.0k-means · 1.0excess risk bounds · 1.0embedding tuning · 1.0anchor graph learning · 1.0subspace learning · 0.9inverse propensity score reweighting · 0.9contrastive learning · 0.9bipartite graph · 0.9
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Enhancing Kernel Power $K$-means: Scalable and Robust Clustering with Random Fourier Features and Possibilistic MethodabstractKernel power k-means (KPKM) leverages a family of means to mitigate local minima issues in kernel k-means. However, KPKM faces two key limitations: (1) the computational burden of the full kernel matrix restricts its use on extensive data, and (2) the lack of authentic centroid-sample assignment learning reduces its noise robustness. To overcome these challenges, we propose RFF-KPKM, introducing the first approximation theory for applying random Fourier features (RFF) to KPKM. RFF-KPKM employs RFF to generate efficient, low dimensional feature maps, bypassing the need for the whole kernel matrix. Crucially, we are the first to establish strong theoretical guarantees for this combination: (1) an excess risk bound of O( k^3/n), (2) strong consistency with membership values, and (3) a (1 + ε) relative error bound achievable using the RFF of dimension poly(ε^{−1} logk). Furthermore, to improve robustness and the ability to learn multiple kernels, we propose IP-RFF-MKPKM, an improved possibilistic RFF-based multiple kernel power k-means. IP-RFF-MKPKM ensures the scalability of MKPKM via RFF and refines cluster assignments by combining the merits of the possibilistic and fuzzy membership. Experiments on large-scale datasets demonstrate the superior efficiency and clustering accuracy of the proposed methods compared to the state-of-the-art alternatives. Weixuan Liang, Xueling Zhu, Xinwang Liu 0002 |
AAAI | 6 |
| 2026 | Parameter-Free Clustering via Self-Supervised Consensus MaximizationabstractClustering is a fundamental task in unsupervised learning, but most existing methods heavily rely on hyperparameters such as the number of clusters or other sensitive settings, limiting their applicability in real-world scenarios. To address this long-standing challenge, we propose a novel and fully parameter-free clustering framework via Self-supervised Consensus Maximization, named SCMax. Our framework performs hierarchical agglomerative clustering and cluster evaluation in a single, integrated process. At each step of agglomeration, it creates a new, structure-aware data representation through a self-supervised learning task guided by the current clustering structure. We then introduce a nearest neighbor consensus score, which measures the agreement between the nearest neighbor-based merge decisions suggested by the original representation and the self-supervised one. The moment at which consensus maximization occurs can serve as a criterion for determining the optimal number of clusters. Extensive experiments on multiple datasets demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms existing clustering approaches designed for scenarios with an unknown number of clusters. Suyuan Liu, Siwei Wang 0001, Shengju Yu, Xueling Zhu, Miaomiao Li 0001, Xinwang Liu 0002 |
AAAI | 5 |
| 2026 | Dictionary Multi-Modal Temporal Graph LearningabstractTemporal graph learning focuses on graph deep learning in real-world dynamic scenarios, which uses interaction sequence instead of adjacency matrix to observe the graph dynamic changes more microscopically from the perspective of time evolution. However, current temporal graph methods only focus on extra dynamic information, ignoring the large amount of multi-modal information contained in the real world. These information can reflect the rich changes in the real world from different perspectives. Ignoring them means that temporal graph learning still lacks the ability to restore and mine more complex real-world data. We argue that the main challenges causing the above phenomenon in temporal graph learning are the lack of multi-modal architecture and public multi-modal datasets. To solve the above challenges, we propose ModalTGL, which enhances the computational efficiency of the model in complex dynamic scenarios by introducing the dictionary graph network, and achieves multi-modal fusion by embedding tuning. In addition, we also discuss the effects of different time encoding functions on dynamic information preservation. At the data level, we build several multi-modal temporal graph datasets from different areas, and compare with multiple SOTA methods on these datasets. The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the ModalTGL method, achieving the performance improvement of up to 18.48%. Meng Liu 0014, Ke Liang 0006, Miaomiao Li 0001, Xueling Zhu, Xinwang Liu 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. | 4 |
| 2026 | Toward Scalable Multi-View Clustering Without Predefined Clusters via Inter-Anchor Graph LearningabstractMulti-view clustering aims to leverage complementary information from multiple data sources to improve clustering quality. Traditional graph-based Non-k multi-view clustering methods enable automatic cluster number determination but suffer from severe scalability issues due to their reliance on constructing large sample-level affinity graphs with quadratic complexity. To address this limitation, we propose a novel scalable Non-k Multi-View Clustering framework via Inter-Anchor Graph learning (MVC-IAG). Our method first extracts a small set of representative anchors via k-means on concatenated multi-view features, then learns a unified inter-anchor graph by integrating multi-view structural information and feature similarity priors. Our framework performs Non-k cluster discovery directly on this compact, learned inter-anchor graph, thereby enabling automatic cluster number determination, and subsequently propagates the results to all samples. Extensive experiments on multiple large scale datasets demonstrate that MVC-IAG significantly reduces computational cost while achieving competitive or superior clustering performance compared to state-of-the-art Non-k multi view clustering approaches. Suyuan Liu, Siwei Wang 0001, Miaomiao Li 0001, Xueling Zhu, Xinwang Liu 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng. | 5 |
| 2025 | Disentangling Invariant Subgraph via Variance Contrastive Estimation under Distribution ShiftsabstractGraph neural networks (GNNs) have achieved remarkable success, yet most are developed under the in-distribution assumption and fail to generalize to out-of-distribution (OOD) environments. To tackle this problem, some graph invariant learning methods aim to learn invariant subgraph against distribution shifts, which heavily rely on predefined or automatically generated environment labels. However, directly annotating or estimating such environment labels from biased graph data is typically impractical or inaccurate for real-world graphs. Consequently, GNNs may become biased toward variant patterns, resulting in poor OOD generalization. In this paper, we propose to learn disentangled invariant subgraph via self-supervised contrastive variant subgraph estimation for achieving satisfactory OOD generalization. Specifically, we first propose a GNN-based invariant subgraph generator to disentangle the invariant and variant subgraphs. Then, we estimate the degree of the spurious correlations by conducting self-supervised contrastive learning on variant subgraphs. Thanks to the accurate identification and estimation of the variant subgraphs, we can capture invariant subgraphs effectively and further eliminate spurious correlations by inverse propensity score reweighting. We provide theoretical analyses to show that our model can disentangle the ground-truth invariant and variant subgraphs for OOD generalization. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superiority of our model over state-of-the-art baselines. Haoyang Li 0001, Xin Wang 0019, Xueling Zhu, Weigao Wen, Wenwu Zhu 0001 |
ICML | 3 |
| 2025 | Generalized Probabilistic Graphical Modeling for Multi-View Bipartite Graph ClusteringabstractMulti-view bipartite graph clustering (MVBGC) is an active pipeline in unsupervised learning to tackle the limited scalability issue of traditional graph clustering. Despite improved performance, numerous variants still fall under conventional modeling that plugs additional modules, which however induces increasingly intricate models and fails to reveal the inherent variable relationship. We make the first attempt to introduce probabilistic graphical models for modeling the multi-view bipartite graph clustering task, reformulating it as a maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) problem. Such a setting uncovers the underlying probabilistic correlations among the commonality, view-specific variables, and noisy components. By pruning redundancy and disturbance collectively referred to as noise, we prove that minimizing the total noise is an approximation of the lower bound of MLE for multi-view data observations. We further generalize the MLE setting with clustering-suited constraints, deriving a Generalized Probabilistic Graphical Modeling framework (GProM), achieving an interpretable, concise, and flexible MVBGC framework. Extensive experiments verify the effectiveness of our framework. Furthermore, statistical significance analysis reveals the effectiveness of different distribution assumptions, providing valuable insights for model design. Liang Li 0041, Yuangang Pan, Yinghua Yao, Junpu Zhang, Moyun Liu, Xueling Zhu, Xinwang Liu 0002, Kenli Li 0001, Ivor W. Tsang, Keqin Li 0001 |
IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. | 6 |
| 2025 | Linear Complexity Multi-View Unsupervised Feature Selection via Anchor-Based Feature Relationship ConstructionabstractIn recent years, multi-view unsupervised feature selection has gained significant interest for its ability to efficiently handle multi-view datasets while offering better interpretability. Existing multi-view unsupervised feature selection methods construct graphs based on the relationship between samples. In fact, in feature selection, it is more important to focus on the relationships between features. However, constructing a complete graph to capture the relationship between features would incur a space and time complexity of $O(d^{2})$ or even higher. Therefore, we introduce an anchor-based strategy and build a feature bipartite graph to reduce complexity. In addition, since existing methods cannot directly extract feature importance from a feature bipartite graph, we design an effective and low-complexity method to directly obtain feature scores from a feature bipartite graph. Compared with the feature importance extraction method based on the complete graph, our proposed method reduces the time complexity from $O(d^{3})$ to $O(d)$ . To the best of our knowledge, our proposed method is the first multi-view unsupervised feature selection algorithm that achieves $O(nd)$ space and time complexity without data segmentation. Specifically, this method adaptively learns feature-level anchor graph structures through self-expressive multi-view subspace learning, which can effectively capture the structural information between features and anchors. Meanwhile, the proposed method projects low-dimensional anchors to common dimensions and aligns them with consensus anchors to capture the consistency and complementary information between different views. The superiority of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by comparing it with seven state-of-the-art algorithms on five public image and two biological information multi-view datasets. The code of the proposed method is publicly available at https://github.com/getupLiu/AFRC. Suyuan Liu, Jianhua Dai 0003, Xueling Zhu, Xinwang Liu 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Image Process. | 4 |
| 2025 | $C^{2}D$C2D: Context-Aware Concept Decomposition for Personalized Text-to-Image SynthesisabstractConcept decomposition is a technique for personalized text-to-image synthesis which learns textual embeddings of subconcepts from images that depicting an original concept. The learned subconcepts can then be composed to create new images. However, existing methods fail to address the issue of contextual conflicts when subconcepts from different sources are combined because contextual information remains encapsulated within the subconcept embeddings. To tackle this problem, we propose a Context-aware Concept Decomposition ($C^{2}D$C2D) framework. Specifically, we introduce a Similarity-Guided Divergent Embedding (SGDE) method to obtain subconcept embeddings. Then, we eliminate the latent contextual dependence between the subconcept embeddings and reconstruct the contextual information using an independent contextual embedding. This independent context can be combined with various subconcepts, enabling more controllable text-to-image synthesis based on subconcept recombination. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms existing approaches in both image quality and contextual consistency. Jiang Xin, Xiaonan Fang 0001, Xueling Zhu, Ju Ren 0001, Yaoxue Zhang |
IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. | 3 |
| 2025 | Privacy-aware Real-Time Target Person Matting in Multi-Person Scenes Using Dual Encoder-Decoder Networks
Jiang Xin, Xiaonan Fang 0001, Xueling Zhu, Ruyi Dai, Ju Ren 0001, Wenzhen Yue, Yaoxue Zhang |
Vis. Comput. | 3 |
| 2022 | Efficient boolean SSE: A novel encrypted database (EDB) for biometric authenticationabstractBiometric authentication is up-and-coming to replace the traditional identity authentication method (e.g., passwords, PIN, identification cards) for its convenience and intelligence. With more and more users using this method, the database becomes more extensive, and the functions are seriously challenged. Data outsourcing has advantages in terms of convenience and cost savings, so it has attracted much research effort. However, due to the biometric's immutability of the whole life, it is extremely sensitive, and disclosing it to a third party is undesirable. In this paper, we address the issue of securely outsourcing biometric database. We propose a novel boolean searchable symmetric encryption (SSE) to construct a secure interactive protocol when outsourcing. A new encrypted database construction method was proposed, using the more efficient boolean vectors. Based on this, We suggest three kinds of expressive SSE, supporting disjunctive query, boolean query, and lightweight settings. We prove the schemes' correctness and security theoretically. Our constructions use simple cryptographic tools, such as symmetric cryptography and pseudo-random functions. They are straightforward to understand and easy to implement. The experiments show that all our schemes are practical and more efficient than the existing methods. Xueling Zhu, Shaojing Fu, Huaping Hu, Qing Wu 0004, Bo Liu 0014 |
Int. J. Intell. Syst. | 1 |