Ziyuan Gao

dblp:04/10938 · DBLP profile ↗
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35ranked-venue papers
24as first author
13since 2021 · last 2026
—ORCID · conflict

Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several

Theory of computation · 18 · 11 first-author · 7 since 2021Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 13 · 10 first-author · 2 since 2021Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 4 · 4 first-author · 4 since 2021Systems, architecture and hardware · 1 · 1 since 2021Software engineering, systems software and programming languages · 1 · 1 since 2021
YearPublicationVenuePosition
2026 DeCoRL: Decoupling Reasoning Chains via Parallel Sub-Step Generation and Cascaded Reinforcement for Interpretable and Scalable RLHF
abstract
Existing reinforcement learning methods for Chain-of-Thought reasoning suffer from two critical limitations. First, they operate as monolithic black boxes that provide undifferentiated reward signals, obscuring individual step contributions and hindering error diagnosis. Second, sequential decoding has O(n) time complexity. This makes real-time deployment impractical for complex reasoning tasks. We present DeCoRL (Decoupled Reasoning Chains via Coordinated Reinforcement Learning), a novel framework that transforms reasoning from sequential processing into collaborative modular orchestration. DeCoRL trains lightweight specialized models to generate reasoning sub-steps concurrently, eliminating sequential bottlenecks through parallel processing. To enable precise error attribution, the framework designs modular reward functions that score each sub-step independently. Cascaded DRPO optimization then coordinates these rewards while preserving inter-step dependencies. Comprehensive evaluation demonstrates state-of-the-art results across RM-Bench, RMB, and RewardBench, outperforming existing methods including large-scale models. DeCoRL delivers 3.8 times faster inference while maintaining superior solution quality and offers a 22.7% improvement in interpretability through explicit reward attribution. These advancements, combined with a 72.4% reduction in energy consumption and a 68% increase in throughput, make real-time deployment of complex reasoning systems a reality.
Ziyuan Gao, Di Liang, Xianjie Wu, Philippe Morel, Minlong Peng
AAAI1
2026 Democratizing and Accelerating Hardware Verification with Software-Native Optimization
Yunlong Xie, Zhicheng Yao, Fangyuan Song, Junyue Wang, Haojin Tang, Yinan Xu 0001, Ziyuan Gao, Duan Yu, Jiayi Rao, Junyu Yue, Yunqi Lu, Zechen Yang, Xu An, Qi Ge, Jiuyue Ma, Jian-Yi Meng, Kan Shi, Dan Tang 0002, Sa Wang, Yungang Bao
ISCA10
2026 Prompt-Aware Adaptive Elastic Weight Consolidation for Continual Learning in Medical Vision-Language Models
Ziyuan Gao, Philippe Morel
MMM (1)1
2026 AGENet: Adaptive Edge-aware Geodesic Distance Learning for Few-Shot Medical Image Segmentation
abstract
Medical image segmentation requires large annotated datasets, creating a significant bottleneck for clinical applications. While few-shot segmentation methods can learn from minimal examples, existing approaches demonstrate suboptimal performance in precise boundary delineation for medical images, particularly when anatomically similar regions appear without sufficient spatial context. We propose AGENet (Adaptive Geodesic Edge-aware Network), a novel framework that incorporates spatial relationships through edge-aware geodesic distance learning. Our key insight is that medical structures follow predictable geometric patterns that can guide prototype extraction even with limited training data. Unlike methods relying on complex architectural components or heavy neural networks, our approach leverages computationally lightweight geometric modeling. The framework combines three main components: (1) An edge-aware geodesic distance learning module that respects anatomical boundaries through iterative Fast Marching refinement, (2) adaptive prototype extraction that captures both global structure and local boundary details via spatially-weighted aggregation, and (3) adaptive parameter learning that automatically adjusts to different organ characteristics. Extensive experiments across diverse medical imaging datasets demonstrate improvements over state-of-the-art methods. Notably, our method reduces boundary errors compared to existing approaches while maintaining computational efficiency, making it highly suitable for clinical applications requiring precise segmentation with limited annotated data.
Ziyuan Gao
WACV1
2026 MedPEFT-CL: Dual-Phase Parameter-Efficient Continual Learning with Medical Semantic Adapter and Bidirectional Memory Consolidation
abstract
Medical vision-language segmentation models suffer from catastrophic forgetting when adapting to new anatomical structures, requiring complete retraining that limits their clinical deployment. Although continual learning approaches have been studied for various applications, targeted research on continual learning approaches specifically designed for medical vision-language tasks remains underexplored. We propose MedPEFT-CL, a parameter-efficient continual learning framework that addresses both efficient learning of new tasks and preservation of previous knowledge through a dual-phase architecture based on CLIPSeg. Our dual-phase architecture features an adaptive learning phase that employs semantic similarity-based adapter allocation and parameter-efficient fine-tuning for medical tasks through prompt similarity analysis, and a knowledge consolidation phase employing bi-directional Fisher-memory coordination. This creates a reinforcing cycle: consolidation directs replay priorities while new tasks provide challenging samples that improve retention strategies. Our key contributions are: (1) a semantic-driven adapter allocation mechanism that enables efficient learning of new medical tasks, (2) a bi-modal LoRA adaptation that significantly reduces trainable parameters while maintaining cross-modal learning, and (3) bidirectional Fisher-memory coordination that prevents catastrophic forgetting from previous medical tasks. Extensive experiments across diverse medical datasets demonstrate superior forgetting mitigation and performance retention with minimal parameter overhead, making the framework effective for continual learning in medical vision-language scenarios.
Ziyuan Gao, Philippe Morel
WACV1
2026 Quasi-isometric reductions between infinite strings
Karen Frilya Celine, Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Ryan Lou, Frank Stephan 0001
J. Comput. Syst. Sci.2
2025 StructCoh: Structured Contrastive Learning for Context-Aware Text Semantic Matching
Ziyuan Gao
PRICAI (4)2
2024 Quasi-Isometric Reductions Between Infinite Strings
abstract
This paper studies the recursion-theoretic aspects of large-scale geometries of infinite strings, a subject initiated by Khoussainov and Takisaka (2017). We investigate several notions of quasi-isometric reductions between recursive infinite strings and prove various results on the equivalence classes of such reductions. The main result is the construction of two infinite recursive strings $α$ and $β$ such that $α$ is strictly quasi-isometrically reducible to $β$, but the reduction cannot be made recursive. This answers an open problem posed by Khoussainov and Takisaka.
Karen Frilya Celine, Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Ryan Lou, Frank Stephan 0001
MFCS2
2023 Learnability and positive equivalence relations
David R. Bélanger, Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Wei Li 0050, Frank Stephan 0001
Inf. Comput.2
2022 Alternating Automatic Register Machines
Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Zeyong Li, Ammar Fathin Sabili, Frank Stephan 0001
ICTAC1
2022 A computation model with automatic functions and relations as primitive operations
Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Zeyong Li, Ammar Fathin Sabili, Frank Stephan 0001
Theor. Comput. Sci.1
2021 Learnability and Positive Equivalence Relations
David R. Bélanger, Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Wei Li 0050, Frank Stephan 0001
LATA2
2021 Bi-immunity over different size alphabets
Cristian S. Calude, Karen Frilya Celine, Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Ludwig Staiger, Frank Stephan 0001
Theor. Comput. Sci.3
2020 Ordered Semiautomatic Rings with Applications to Geometry
Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Philipp Schlicht, Frank Stephan 0001, Jacob Tarr
LATA1
2020 Finitely distinguishable erasing pattern languages
Fahimeh Bayeh, Ziyuan Gao, Sandra Zilles
Theor. Comput. Sci.2
2019 The Teaching Complexity of Erasing Pattern Languages with Bounded Variable Frequency
Ziyuan Gao
DLT1
2019 Random Subgroups of Rationals
abstract
This paper introduces and studies a notion of \emph{algorithmic randomness} for subgroups of rationals. Given a randomly generated additive subgroup $(G,+)$ of rationals, two main questions are addressed: first, what are the model-theoretic and recursion-theoretic properties of $(G,+)$; second, what learnability properties can one extract from $G$ and its subclass of finitely generated subgroups? For the first question, it is shown that the theory of $(G,+)$ coincides with that of the additive group of integers and is therefore decidable; furthermore, while the word problem for $G$ with respect to any generating sequence for $G$ is not even semi-decidable, one can build a generating sequence $β$ such that the word problem for $G$ with respect to $β$ is co-recursively enumerable (assuming that the set of generators of $G$ is limit-recursive). In regard to the second question, it is proven that there is a generating sequence $β$ for $G$ such that every non-trivial finitely generated subgroup of $G$ is recursively enumerable and the class of all such subgroups of $G$ is behaviourally correctly learnable, that is, every non-trivial finitely generated subgroup can be semantically identified in the limit (again assuming that the set of generators of $G$ is limit-recursive). On the other hand, the class of non-trivial finitely generated subgroups of $G$ cannot be syntactically identified in the limit with respect to any generating sequence for $G$. The present work thus contributes to a recent line of research studying algorithmically random infinite structures and uncovers an interesting connection between the arithmetical complexity of the set of generators of a randomly generated subgroup of rationals and the learnability of its finitely generated subgroups.
Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Bakhadyr Khoussainov, Wei Li 0050, Alexander G. Melnikov, Karen Seidel 0001, Frank Stephan 0001
MFCS1
2018 On the Help of Bounded Shot Verifiers, Comparators and Standardisers for Learnability in Inductive Inference
abstract
The present paper deals with the inductive inference of recursively enumerable languages from positive data (also called text). It introduces the learning models of \emph{verifiability} and \emph{comparability}. The input to a verifier is an index $e$ and a text of the target language $L$, and the learner has to \emph{verify} whether or not the index $e$ input is correct for the target language $L$. A comparator receives two indices of languages from the target class $\cL$ as input and has to decide in the limit whether or not these indices generate the same language. Furthermore, \emph{standardisability} is studied, where a \emph{standardiser} receives an index $j$ of some target language $L$ from the class $\cL$, and for every $L∈\cL$ there must be an index $e$ such that $e$ generates $L$ and the standardiser has to map every index $j$ for $L$ to $e$. Additionally, the common learning models of \emph{explanatory learning}, \emph{conservative explanatory learning}, and \emph{behaviourally correct learning} are considered. For almost all learning models mentioned above it is also appropriate to consider the number of times a learner changes its mind. In particular, if no mind change occurs then we obtain the \emph{finite} variant of the models considered. Occasionally, also learning with the help of an oracle is taken into consideration. The main goal of this paper is to figure out to what extent verifiability, comparability, and standardisability are helpful for the inductive inference of classes of recursively enumerable languages. Here we also distinguish between \emph{indexed families}, \emph{one-one enumerable classes}, and \emph{recursively enumerable classes}. Our results are manyfold, and an almost complete picture is obtained. In particular, for indexed families and recursively enumerable classes finite comparability, finite standardisability, and finite verifiability always imply finite learnability. If at least one mind change is allowed, then there are differences, i.e., for indexed families, comparability or verifiability imply conservative explanatory learning, but standardisability does not; still explanatory learning can be achieved.
Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Frank Stephan 0001, Thomas Zeugmann
ALT1
2018 On the teaching complexity of linear sets
Ziyuan Gao, Hans Simon 0001, Sandra Zilles
Theor. Comput. Sci.1
2017 Erasing Pattern Languages Distinguishable by a Finite Number of Strings
abstract
Pattern languages have been an object of study in various subfields of computer science for decades. This paper introduces and studies a decision problem on patterns called the finite distinguishability problem: given a pattern $\pi$, are there finite sets $T^+$ and $T^-$ of strings such that the only pattern language containing all strings in $T^+$ and none of the strings in $T^-$ is the language generated by $\pi$? This problem is related to the complexity of teacher-directed learning, as studied in computational learning theory, as well as to the long-standing open question whether the equivalence of two patterns is decidable. We show that finite distinguishability is decidable if the underlying alphabet is of size other than $2$ or $3$, and provide a number of related results, such as (i) partial solutions for alphabet sizes $2$ and $3$, and (ii) decidability proofs for variants of the problem for special subclasses of patterns, namely, regular, 1-variable, and non-cross patterns. For the same subclasses, we further determine the values of two complexity parameters in teacher-directed learning, namely the teaching dimension and the recursive teaching dimension.
Fahimeh Bayeh, Ziyuan Gao, Sandra Zilles
ALT2
2017 Preference-based Teaching of Unions of Geometric Objects
abstract
This paper studies exact learning of unions of non-discretized geometric concepts in the model of preference-based teaching. In particular, it focuses on upper and lower bounds of the corresponding sample complexity parameter, the preference-based teaching dimension (PBTD), when learning disjoint unions of a bounded number of geometric concepts of various types -- for instance balls, axis-aligned cubes, or axis-aligned boxes -- in arbitrary dimensions. It is shown that the PBTD of disjoint unions of some such types of concepts grows linearly with the number of concepts in the union, independent of the dimensionality. Teaching the union of potentially overlapping objects turns out to be more involved and is hence considered here only for unions of up to two objects.
Ziyuan Gao, David G. Kirkpatrick, Christoph Ries, Hans Simon 0001, Sandra Zilles
ALT1
2017 The Cop Number of the One-Cop-Moves Game on Planar Graphs
Ziyuan Gao, Boting Yang
COCOA (2)1
2017 Distinguishing pattern languages with membership examples
Ziyuan Gao, Zeinab Mazadi, Regan Meloche, Hans Simon 0001, Sandra Zilles
Inf. Comput.1
2017 Preference-based Teaching
abstract
We introduce a new model of teaching named preference-based teaching and a corresponding complexity parameter---the preference-based teaching dimension (PBTD)---representing the worst-case number of examples needed to teach any concept in a given concept class. Although the PBTD coincides with the well- known recursive teaching dimension (RTD) on finite classes, it is radically different on infinite ones: the RTD becomes infinite already for trivial infinite classes (such as half- intervals) whereas the PBTD evaluates to reasonably small values for a wide collection of infinite classes including classes consisting of so-called closed sets w.r.t. a given closure operator, including various classes related to linear sets over $\mathbb{N}_0$ (whose RTD had been studied quite recently) and including the class of Euclidean half-spaces. On top of presenting these concrete results, we provide the reader with a theoretical framework (of a combinatorial flavor) which helps to derive bounds on the PBTD.
Ziyuan Gao, Christoph Ries, Hans Simon 0001, Sandra Zilles
J. Mach. Learn. Res.1
2016 Classifying the Arithmetical Complexity of Teaching Models
Achilles Beros, Ziyuan Gao, Sandra Zilles
ALT2
2016 Preference-based Teaching
abstract
We introduce a new model of teaching named “preference-based teaching” and a corresponding complexity parameter—the preference-based teaching dimension (PBTD)—representing the worst-case number of examples needed to teach any concept in a given concept class. Although the PBTD coincides with the well-known recursive teaching dimension (RTD) on finite classes, it is radically different on infinite ones: the RTD becomes infinite already for trivial infinite classes (such as half-intervals) whereas the PBTD evaluates to reasonably small values for a wide collection of infinite classes including classes consisting of so-called closed sets w.r.t. a given closure operator, including various classes related to linear sets over \mathbbN_0 (whose RTD had been studied quite recently) and including the class of Euclidean half-spaces (and some other geometric classes). On top of presenting these concrete results, we provide the reader with a theoretical framework (of a combinatorial flavor) which helps to derive bounds on the PBTD.
Ziyuan Gao, Christoph Ries, Hans Simon 0001, Sandra Zilles
COLT1
2016 Partial learning of recursively enumerable languages
Ziyuan Gao, Frank Stephan 0001, Sandra Zilles
Theor. Comput. Sci.1
2015 Combining Models of Approximation with Partial Learning
Ziyuan Gao, Frank Stephan 0001, Sandra Zilles
ALT1
2015 On the Teaching Complexity of Linear Sets
Ziyuan Gao, Hans Simon 0001, Sandra Zilles
ALT1
2014 Distinguishing Pattern Languages with Membership Examples
Zeinab Mazadi, Ziyuan Gao, Sandra Zilles
LATA2
2014 Confident and consistent partial learning of recursive functions
Ziyuan Gao, Frank Stephan 0001
Theor. Comput. Sci.1
2013 Partial Learning of Recursively Enumerable Languages
Ziyuan Gao, Frank Stephan 0001, Sandra Zilles
ALT1
2013 On Conservative Learning of Recursively Enumerable Languages
Ziyuan Gao, Sanjay Jain 0001, Frank Stephan 0001
CiE1
2012 Confident and Consistent Partial Learning of Recursive Functions
Ziyuan Gao, Frank Stephan 0001
ALT1
2012 Learnability of Co-r.e. Classes
Ziyuan Gao, Frank Stephan 0001
LATA1