Papers by Ke Lin
Give Me More Feedback II: Annotating Thesis Strength and Related Attributes in Student Essays (P19-1)
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| Challenge: | Existing work on automated essay scoring has focused on holistic scoring, but there is limited annotated corpus of essays with thesis strength scores. |
| Approach: | They propose a scoring rubric for persuasive essay quality and annotate corpus of essays with thesis strength scores. |
| Outcome: | The proposed scoring rubric could provide feedback to students on why essay gets thesis strength score . the rubric can be used to score persuasive essay quality, thesis strength, and organization . |
Learning or Self-aligning? Rethinking Instruction Fine-tuning (2024.acl-long)
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| Challenge: | Instruction fine-tuning (IFT) is a crucial phase in building large language models (LLMs). |
| Approach: | They propose a knowledge intervention framework to decouple the potential underlying factors of IFT and enable individual analysis of different factors. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework decouples the potential underlying factors of IFT, enabling individual analysis of different factors. |
CodeArena: Evaluating and Aligning CodeLLMs on Human Preference (2025.emnlp-main)
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Jian Yang, Jiaxi Yang, Wei Zhang, Jin Ke, Yibo Miao, Lei Zhang, Liqun Yang, Zeyu Cui, Yichang Zhang, Zhoujun Li, Binyuan Hui, Junyang Lin
| Challenge: | Code large language models (codeLLMs) focus on synthesizing the correct code snippet, ignoring the alignment with human preferences. |
| Approach: | They propose a benchmark code-based on 40 categories and 44 programming languages to emulate real-world coding tasks. |
| Outcome: | The proposed benchmarks show that open-source code LLMs perform better than open-sourced ones. |
FPE2M2: Approaching Lossless and Efficient Quantization with Native Floating Point (2025.findings-acl)
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Ke Yi, Jianwei Zhang, Zhiying Xu, Xinlong Yang, Yang Zhou, Minmin Sun, Zengke Liu, Tong Zhang, Junyang Lin, Jingren Zhou
| Challenge: | Auto-regressive decoding is a memory-bound job, meaning decoding performance is limited by the bandwidth rather than the computational capabilities of the GPU. |
| Approach: | They propose a framework that supports lossless weight-only quantization inference and validate it on Qwen and LLaMA Models. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework achieves the highest efficiency with lossless accuracy on Qwen and LLaMA Models across various modalities. |
SciAssess: Benchmarking LLM Proficiency in Scientific Literature Analysis (2025.findings-naacl)
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Hengxing Cai, Xiaochen Cai, Junhan Chang, Sihang Li, Lin Yao, Wang Changxin, Zhifeng Gao, Hongshuai Wang, Li Yongge, Mujie Lin, Shuwen Yang, Jiankun Wang, Mingjun Xu, Jin Huang, Xi Fang, Jiaxi Zhuang, Yuqi Yin, Yaqi Li, Changhong Chen, Zheng Cheng, Zifeng Zhao, Linfeng Zhang, Guolin Ke
| Challenge: | Existing benchmarks fail to adequately evaluate the proficiency of Large Language Models (LLMs) Existing standards do not cover the skills needed to evaluate LLMs in scientific literature analysis. |
| Approach: | They propose a benchmark to evaluate the proficiency of large language models in scientific literature analysis. |
| Outcome: | SciAssess evaluates 11 LLMs on multiple tasks across scientific fields. |
Semi-Supervised Learning for Video Captioning (2020.findings-emnlp)
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| Challenge: | Existing video captioning algorithms are heavily dependent on supervised training data. |
| Approach: | They propose to train the video captioning model on labeled and unlabeled data jointly in a semi-supervised learning manner. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model outperforms state-of-the-art semi-supervised learning approaches on VATEX, MSR-VTT and MSVD datasets. |
CTRLEval: An Unsupervised Reference-Free Metric for Evaluating Controlled Text Generation (2022.acl-long)
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| Challenge: | Existing reference-free metrics have obvious limitations for evaluating controlled text generation models. |
| Approach: | They propose an unsupervised reference-free metric which evaluates controlled text generation from different aspects by formulating each aspect into multiple text infilling tasks. |
| Outcome: | The proposed metric has higher correlations with human judgments while obtaining better generalization of evaluating generated texts from different models and with different qualities. |
Continual Training of Language Models for Few-Shot Learning (2022.emnlp-main)
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| Challenge: | Recent work on applying large language models (LMs) achieves impressive performance in many NLP applications. |
| Approach: | They propose to continuously post-train an LM with unlabeled domains to expand its knowledge without forgetting previous skills. |
| Outcome: | The proposed system improves few-shot end-task learning in these domains. |
Tree of Agents: Improving Long-Context Capabilities of Large Language Models through Multi-Perspective Reasoning (2025.findings-emnlp)
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| Challenge: | Large language models face persistent challenges when handling long-context tasks . existing methods that reduce input have the risk of discarding key information . |
| Approach: | To address this issue, we propose a multi-agent reasoning framework called Tree of Agents . the framework segments input into chunks processed by independent agents . |
| Outcome: | The proposed model outperforms baseline models on long-context tasks. |
Zero-shot Generative Linguistic Steganography (2024.naacl-long)
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| Challenge: | Generative linguistic steganography attempts to hide secret messages into covertext . previous studies focused on the statistical differences between the covertext and stegotext - however, ill-formed stegotas can readily be identified by humans . |
| Approach: | They propose a zero-shot approach based on in-context learning for linguistic steganography to achieve better perceptual and statistical imperceptibility. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method produces 1.926 more innocent and intelligible stegotext than any other method. |
Lost in Overlap: Exploring Logit-based Watermark Collision in LLMs (2025.findings-naacl)
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| Challenge: | Existing watermarking methods embed imperceptible identifiers into text to address copyright concerns. |
| Approach: | They propose a new philosophy for watermark attacks that addresses watermark collision . they demonstrate that collision poses a threat to all logit-based watermark algorithms . |
| Outcome: | The proposed method improves watermark collision performance on top of other methods. |
Beyond Templates: Dynamic Adaptation of Reasoning Demonstrations via Feasibility-Aware Exploration (2026.findings-acl)
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| Challenge: | Existing reasoning datasets that are designed for powerful LLMs often lead to degraded performance when directly applied to weaker models. |
| Approach: | They propose a data adaptation framework that bridges the capability gap between expert reasoning trajectories and diverse SLMs by employing a selective imitation strategy guided by step-wise adaptability estimation via solution simulation. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework improves generalization and data efficiency over static fine-tuning and can be applied to large models with limited model capacity. |
MASPO: Unifying Gradient Utilization, Probability Mass, and Signal Reliability for Robust and Sample-Efficient LLM Reasoning (2026.acl-long)
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Xiaoliang Fu, Jiaye Lin, Yangyi Fang, Binbin Zheng, Chaowen Hu, Zekai Shao, Cong Qin, Lu Pan, Ke Zeng, Xunliang Cai
| Challenge: | Existing RLVR algorithms rely on rigid, uniform, and symmetric trust region mechanisms . current algorithms lack robustness, asymmetric signal reliability and inefficient gradient utilization . |
| Approach: | They propose a framework to harmonize three dimensions of RLVR algorithms, a paper argues . a binary cutoff is used to discard valuable reinforcement signals, they argue . |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework outperforms baselines in evaluating a robust RLVR solution. |
From log 𝜋 to 𝜋: Taming Divergence in Soft Clipping via Bilateral Decoupled Decay of Probability Gradient Weight (2026.acl-long)
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Xiaoliang Fu, Jiaye Lin, Yangyi Fang, Chaowen Hu, Cong Qin, Zekai Shao, Binbin Zheng, Lu Pan, Ke Zeng
| Challenge: | Standard algorithms for Large Language Models (LLMs) enforce stability via "hard clipping" but relying on log-probability gradient yields divergent weights as probabilities vanish, destabilizing LLM training. |
| Approach: | They propose a decoupled gradient policy optimization that uses a decay mechanism to decouple the probability of a boundary token. |
| Outcome: | The proposed algorithm outperforms baselines on various mathematical benchmarks. |
APT: Improving Specialist LLM Performance with Weakness Case Acquisition and Iterative Preference Training (2025.findings-acl)
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| Challenge: | Large Language Models often require domain-specific fine-tuning to address targeted tasks, which risks degrading their general capabilities. |
| Approach: | They propose to use self-generated dis-preferred weakness data to enhance model performance with a targeted training approach that minimizes interference with existing knowledge base. |
| Outcome: | The proposed approach ensures no reduction in generic capacity and achieves superior performance on downstream tasks compared to existing methods. |
Gloss-Free End-to-End Sign Language Translation (2023.acl-long)
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| Challenge: | a study of sign language translation without gloss annotations focuses on the problem of gloss annotation . gloss annotation is hard to acquire, especially in large quantities, and limits the domain coverage of translation datasets . |
| Approach: | They propose a gloss-free end-to-end sign language translation framework to solve this problem . gloss annotations are hard to acquire, especially in large quantities, they argue . |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework improves sign language translation performance on large-scale datasets . gloss annotations are hard to acquire, especially in large quantities . |
SEA: Supervised Embedding Alignment for Token-Level Visual-Textual Integration in MLLMs (2025.emnlp-main)
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Yuanyang Yin, Yaqi Zhao, Yajie Zhang, Yuanxing Zhang, Ke Lin, Jiahao Wang, Xin Tao, Pengfei Wan, Wentao Zhang, Feng Zhao
| Challenge: | Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) integrate visual and textual inputs, yet modality alignment remains one of the most challenging aspects. |
| Approach: | They propose a token-level supervision alignment method that enables more precise visual-text alignment during pretraining. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method improves performance across various model sizes, with smaller models benefiting the most. |
AutoFigure-Edit: Generating Editable Scientific Illustrations via Reference-Guided Styling (2026.acl-demo)
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Zhen Lin, Qiujie Xie, Minjun Zhu, Shichen Li, QiYao Sun, Enhao Gu, Yiran Ding, Ke Sun, Fang Guo, Panzhong Lu, Zhiyuan Ning, Yixuan Weng, Yue Zhang
| Challenge: | Existing automated systems for scientific illustrations are limited in editability, stylistic controllability, and efficiency. |
| Approach: | They propose an end-to-end system that generates fully editable scientific illustrations from long-form scientific text while enabling flexible style adaptation through user-provided reference images. |
| Outcome: | The proposed system generates fully editable scientific illustrations from long-form scientific texts while enabling flexible style adaptation through user-provided reference images. |
How to Allocate, How to Learn? Dynamic Rollout Allocation and Advantage Modulation for Policy Optimization (2026.findings-acl)
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Yangyi Fang, Jiaye Lin, Xiaoliang Fu, Cong Qin, Haolin Shi, Chaowen Hu, Lu Pan, Ke Zeng, Xunliang Cai
| Challenge: | Existing methods for reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards are limited by the complexity of the problem and the complexity. |
| Approach: | They propose a theoretically-grounded dual-pronged optimization framework for reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards that compensates for gradient attenuation of high-confidence correct actions while utilizing entropy changes as computable indicators to stabilize excessive update magnitudes. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework compensates for gradient attenuation of high-confidence correct actions while utilizing entropy changes as computable indicators to stabilize excessive update magnitudes. |
Flexibly Utilize Memory for Long-Term Conversation via a Fragment-then-Compose Framework (2025.emnlp-main)
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Cai Ke, Yiming Du, Bin Liang, Yifan Xiang, Lin Gui, Zhongyang Li, Baojun Wang, Yue Yu, Hui Wang, Kam-Fai Wong, Ruifeng Xu
| Challenge: | Large language models extract useful information from conversation history to enhance the response in long-term conversations. |
| Approach: | They propose a Fragment-then-Compose framework to optimize memory utilization for long-term open-domain conversation. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework can be used to extract useful information from conversation history . it can be adapted to different situations and improve response generation . |
Adapt Once, Thrive with Updates: Transferable Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning on Evolving Base Models (2025.acl-long)
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| Challenge: | Parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) is a common method for fine- tuning large language models . however, once updated, PEFT modules suffer performance degradation on newer versions . |
| Approach: | They propose a method that enhances the PEFT module by focusing on the task-specific pattern while reducing its dependence on certain knowledge in the base model. |
| Outcome: | Experiments show that PEFT modules can maintain performance on updated models without re-tuning . the proposed approach can be used in real-world applications with large model sizes . |
Wav-BERT: Cooperative Acoustic and Linguistic Representation Learning for Low-Resource Speech Recognition (2021.findings-emnlp)
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| Challenge: | Existing methods to learn the transfer from speech to text are unexplored . how to solve the representation discrepancy of speech and text is unexplorable . |
| Approach: | They propose a cooperative acoustic and linguistic representation learning method to fuse and utilize contextual information of speech and text. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method outperforms existing methods on low-resource speech recognition. |
Adapting a Language Model While Preserving its General Knowledge (2022.emnlp-main)
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| Challenge: | Existing DA-training methods do not explicitly identify what knowledge should be preserved and what should be changed by the domain corpus. |
| Approach: | They propose to use an unlabeled corpus of aparticular domain to train a pre-trained general-purpose language model to adapt the LM so that end-tasks in the domain can give improved performances. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method improves the performance of pre-trained general-purpose language models by contrasting the representations of the general and the full (both general and domain knowledge) to learn an integrated representation with both general and specific knowledge. |
NeKo: Cross-Modality Post-Recognition Error Correction with Tasks-Guided Mixture-of-Experts Language Model (2025.acl-industry)
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Yen-Ting Lin, Zhehuai Chen, Piotr Zelasko, Zhen Wan, Xuesong Yang, Zih-Ching Chen, Krishna C Puvvada, Ke Hu, Szu-Wei Fu, Jun Wei Chiu, Jagadeesh Balam, Boris Ginsburg, Yu-Chiang Frank Wang, Chao-Han Huck Yang
| Challenge: | Existing methods to train a model on a mixture of domain datasets require separate correction language models. |
| Approach: | They propose a multi-task correction MoE that trains experts to become an "expert" of speech-to-text, language-totext and vision-to text datasets by learning to route each dataset’s tokens to its mapped expert. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model outperforms GPT-3.5 and Claude-3.5-Sonnet on the Open ASR Leaderboard and reaches an average relative 5.0% WER reduction and substantial improvements in BLEU scores. |