Papers by Wenqiang Zhang
GMH: A General Multi-hop Reasoning Model for KG Completion (2021.emnlp-main)
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| Challenge: | Knowledge graphs are incomplete with many facts missing, causing performance bottlenecks in many applications. |
| Approach: | They propose a general multi-hop reasoning task that can be formulated as a search process and can be extended to long-distance reasoning scenarios. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model improves on baselines in short and long distance reasoning scenarios. |
PACIFIC: Towards Proactive Conversational Question Answering over Tabular and Textual Data in Finance (2022.emnlp-main)
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| Challenge: | Existing studies on financial question answering systems focus on passively responding to user queries. |
| Approach: | They propose a new dataset to facilitate conversational question answering over hybrid contexts in finance . they propose PACIFIC to combine clarification question generation and CQA . |
| Outcome: | The proposed method performs multi-task learning over all sub-tasks in PACIFIC . it incorporates a simple ensemble strategy to alleviate error propagation issue . |
Incomplete In-context Learning (2026.acl-long)
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Wenqiang Wang, Wen Yujia, Yan Xiao, Zhifeng Chen, Yangshijie Zhang, Peng Chen, Mingbo Yang, Xiaochun Cao
| Challenge: | Existing in-context learning assumes the retrieval dataset contains demonstrations for all output label spaces. |
| Approach: | They propose a framework with train-free and train-based variants to address IICL . they propose to integrate a dataset with labeled demonstrations for each output space . |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework outperforms existing methods under incomplete retrieval datasets and even outperformed ICL with complete labels. |
Meta-Reflection: A Feedback-Free Reflection Learning Framework (2025.acl-long)
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Yaoke Wang, Yun Zhu, XintongBao XintongBao, Wenqiao Zhang, Suyang Dai, Kehan Chen, Wenqiang Li, Gang Huang, Siliang Tang, Yueting Zhuang
| Challenge: | Existing approaches to improve large language models' ability to understand and reason are limited by external feedback. |
| Approach: | They propose a feedback-free reflection mechanism that requires only a single inference pass without external feedback. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method is based on an industrial e-commerce benchmark and public datasets. |
SCOP: Evaluating the Comprehension Process of Large Language Models from a Cognitive View (2025.acl-long)
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| Challenge: | despite the potential of large language models, it is difficult to fully count on them in real-world scenarios. |
| Approach: | They propose to examine how LLMs perform during the comprehension process from a cognitive perspective. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model analyzes how LLMs perform during the comprehension process from a cognitive perspective. |
TAT-QA: A Question Answering Benchmark on a Hybrid of Tabular and Textual Content in Finance (2021.acl-long)
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Fengbin Zhu, Wenqiang Lei, Youcheng Huang, Chao Wang, Shuo Zhang, Jiancheng Lv, Fuli Feng, Tat-Seng Chua
| Challenge: | Existing QA systems focus on unstructured text, structured knowledge base, or semi-structured tables. |
| Approach: | They propose a large-scale question answering model based on financial reports . numerical reasoning is usually required to infer the answer . |
| Outcome: | The proposed model achieves 58.0% inF1, an 11.1% increase over the baseline model, but still lags behind the best human model. |
TEaR: Improving LLM-based Machine Translation with Systematic Self-Refinement (2025.findings-naacl)
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Zhaopeng Feng, Yan Zhang, Hao Li, Bei Wu, Jiayu Liao, Wenqiang Liu, Jun Lang, Yang Feng, Jian Wu, Zuozhu Liu
| Challenge: | Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved impressive results in Machine Translation (MT). human evaluations reveal that LLM-generated translations still contain various errors. |
| Approach: | They propose a LLM-based self-refinement framework that feeds error information back into LLMs to facilitate self-finement, leading to enhanced translation quality. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework outperforms internal refinement and feedback methods while ensuring a robust translation quality baseline. |
Equipping Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models with Document Structure Awareness (2025.findings-emnlp)
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| Challenge: | Existing approaches to retrieval-augmented generation ignore valuable structure that is crucial for document organization. |
| Approach: | They propose a framework that explicitly incorporates structural information throughout the RAG process. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework incorporates structural information throughout the RAG process. |
Breaking the Stigma! Unobtrusively Probe Symptoms in Depression Disorder Diagnosis Dialogue (2025.findings-naacl)
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| Challenge: | Recent efforts to improve depression-diagnosis-oriented dialogue systems ignore the Stigma preventing users from open conversations about their struggles. |
| Approach: | They propose a method to promote a sense of unobtrusiveness within the dialogue system and assessing depression disorder by probing symptoms. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method improves on baselines including unobtrusiveness evaluation of dialogue content and diagnostic accuracy. |
Unifying Discrete and Continuous Representations for Unsupervised Paraphrase Generation (2023.emnlp-main)
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Mingfeng Xue, Dayiheng Liu, Wenqiang Lei, Jie Fu, Jian Lan, Mei Li, Baosong Yang, Jun Xie, Yidan Zhang, Dezhong Peng, Jiancheng Lv
| Challenge: | Existing unsupervised paraphrase generation methods require large-scale, manually annotated paraphrase datasets, which are labor-intensive to build. |
| Approach: | They propose a self-supervised pseudo-data construction method that generates diverse pseudo-paraphrases in distinct surface structures for a given sentence. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method generates diverse pseudo-paraphrases in distinct surface structures for a given sentence. |
Test-Time Code-Switching for Cross-lingual Aspect Sentiment Triplet Extraction (2025.naacl-long)
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| Challenge: | Aspect Sentiment Triplet Extraction (ASTE) is a thriving research area . current code-switching methods suffer from term boundary detection issues and out-of-dictionary problems. |
| Approach: | They propose a test-time code-switching framework which bridges the gap between bilingual training and monolingual test- time prediction. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework achieves an average improvement of 3.7% on four cross-lingual datasets. |
PRAM: An End-to-end Prototype-based Representation Alignment Model for Zero-resource Cross-lingual Named Entity Recognition (2023.findings-acl)
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| Challenge: | Existing methods to address the named entity recognition problem are limited and lack explicit optimization specific to the task. |
| Approach: | They propose a prototype-based representation alignment model for a cross-lingual named entity recognition task using labeled source language data. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in some challenging scenarios. |
Strength Lies in Differences! Improving Strategy Planning for Non-collaborative Dialogues via Diversified User Simulation (2024.emnlp-main)
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| Challenge: | Non-collaborative dialogue agents are expected to engage in strategic conversations with diverse users, and this poses two main challenges for existing dialogue agents: 1) the inability to integrate user-specific characteristics into the strategic planning; 2) the difficulty of training strategic planners that can be generalized to diverse users. |
| Approach: | They propose to integrate a user-aware strategic planning module and a population-based training paradigm into a non-collaborative dialogue agent for securing a mutual agreement that leans favorably towards the system's objectives. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model can be used to achieve a mutual agreement that leans favorably towards the system's objectives. |
Empathy in Diversity: Personalized Depression and Anxiety Therapy via Dialogue State Tracking and Patient-Aware Planning (2026.acl-long)
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Xinwei Yang, Junyi Fan, Yuqing Liu, Jiaxuan Wang, Jiashuai Zhang, Hongru Liang, Wenqiang Lei, Yao Song
| Challenge: | Recent efforts have turned to large language models (LLMs) as therapeutic agents for psychological therapy tasks, yet robustness across diverse patients remains underexplored. |
| Approach: | They propose a realistic role-play protocol for evaluating therapeutic dialogue agents and a de-identified, expert-annotated corpus of therapist–patient dialogues. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework outperforms baselines on therapeutic outcomes and dialogue quality while improving conversational efficiency. |
Multi-task Adversarial Attacks against Black-box Model with Few-shot Queries (2025.acl-long)
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| Challenge: | Existing adversarial text attacks rely on abundant access to shared internal features and numerous queries, limited to a single task type. |
| Approach: | They propose a black-box attack that exploits the transferability of adversarial texts . they use a deep-level substitute model trained in a plug-and-play manner for text classification . |
| Outcome: | The proposed attack can target multiple tasks with minimal perturbations . it can target commercial APIs, large language models, and image-generation models . |
GCPG: A General Framework for Controllable Paraphrase Generation (2022.findings-acl)
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Kexin Yang, Dayiheng Liu, Wenqiang Lei, Baosong Yang, Haibo Zhang, Xue Zhao, Wenqing Yao, Boxing Chen
| Challenge: | Existing studies highlight a special condition under two indispensable aspects of controllable paraphrase generation (CPG) individually, lacking a unified circumstance to explore and analyze their effectiveness. |
| Approach: | They propose a general controllable paraphrase generation framework that integrates lexical and syntactical conditions into a text sequence and uniformly processes them in an encoder-decoder paradigm. |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework can combine lexical and syntactical conditions and improve paraphrase generation. |
CLAMBER: A Benchmark of Identifying and Clarifying Ambiguous Information Needs in Large Language Models (2024.acl-long)
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Tong Zhang, Peixin Qin, Yang Deng, Chen Huang, Wenqiang Lei, Junhong Liu, Dingnan Jin, Hongru Liang, Tat-Seng Chua
| Challenge: | Large language models are used to meet user information needs, but their effectiveness in dealing with user queries that contain various types of ambiguity remains unknown. |
| Approach: | They propose a benchmark for evaluating large language models using a well-organized taxonomy. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model is based on a well-organized taxonomy and compares it with other models. |
Beyond Prompt: Fine-grained Simulation of Cognitively Impaired Standardized Patients via Stochastic Steering (2026.findings-acl)
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| Challenge: | Existing methods for training patients with cognitive impairment rely on discrete prompt engineering and fail to capture the heterogeneity of deficits across domains and severity levels. |
| Approach: | They propose to use steering vectors from contrastive pairs of instructions and responses to capture domain-specific features and introduce a Stochastic Token Modulation mechanism to regulate the intervention probability. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model outperforms baselines in clinical authenticity and severity controllability while remaining open-source. |
Adversarial Preference Learning for Robust LLM Alignment (2025.findings-acl)
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Yuanfu Wang, Pengyu Wang, Chenyang Xi, Bo Tang, Junyi Zhu, Wenqiang Wei, Chen Chen, Chao Yang, Jingfeng Zhang, Chaochao Lu, Yijun Niu, Keming Mao, Zhiyu Li, Feiyu Xiong, Jie Hu, Mingchuan Yang
| Challenge: | Modern language models rely on Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) to encourage safe behaviors, but they remain vulnerable to adversarial attacks due to three key limitations: (1) the inefficiency and high cost of human annotation; (2) the vast diversity of potential adversarials; and (3) the risk of feedback bias and reward hacking. |
| Approach: | They propose an iterative adversarial training method that incorporates three key innovations to address these challenges. |
| Outcome: | Experiments on Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.3 show that the proposed method significantly enhances robustness and reduces harmful outputs from 5.88% to 0.43%. |
Task-Related In-Context Learning (2026.findings-acl)
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| Challenge: | Standard in-context learning assumes identical output spaces between test and retrieval datasets . however, in practice, these datasets can be fully aligned, partially alignes, or fully disjoint in label space . |
| Approach: | They propose a framework for in-context learning under output-space mismatch . they identify demonstrations relevant to the test label space via a Bayesian probabilistic criterion . |
| Outcome: | The proposed framework achieves state-of-the-art results across three LLMs, three task types, and four datasets. |
Modeling Event-Pair Relations in External Knowledge Graphs for Script Reasoning (2021.findings-acl)
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| Challenge: | Existing methods focus on graph triples with event overlap, but ignore more supportive triples . Script reasoning relies on understanding the relationship between two events . |
| Approach: | They propose a model to learn the inferential relations between events from the whole eventuality KG . they propose 'script adapter' to extend the model to infer the associated relations between an event chain and a subsequent event candidate. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model is compared with baselines using external KG or not on a script reasoning task. |
Dynamic Voting for Efficient Reasoning in Large Language Models (2023.findings-emnlp)
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Mingfeng Xue, Dayiheng Liu, Wenqiang Lei, Xingzhang Ren, Baosong Yang, Jun Xie, Yidan Zhang, Dezhong Peng, Jiancheng Lv
| Challenge: | Multi-path voting methods generate multiple reasoning paths for each problem, causing factual errors and illusion generation. |
| Approach: | They propose a multi-path voting technique that effectively reduces the number of reasoning paths during multi-path voting while preserving accuracies. |
| Outcome: | The proposed method outperforms Self-consistency using 24.7% of the number of paths on the LetterConcat task. |
ELABORATION: A Comprehensive Benchmark on Human-LLM Competitive Programming (2025.acl-long)
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| Challenge: | Existing studies on human-LLM competitive programming use scattered, application-specific human feedback. |
| Approach: | They propose a taxonomy of human feedback consolidating the entire programming process, which promotes fine-grained evaluation. |
| Outcome: | The proposed benchmark pinpoints strengths and weaknesses of existing methods and will be openly released. |
Towards Effective Automatic Debt Collection with Persona Awareness (2023.emnlp-industry)
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| Challenge: | Existing debt collection agents fail to tailor strategies to debtor personas, leading to ineffective collection. |
| Approach: | They present a commercial practice on debt collection agents that organizes debtor personas into a taxonomy and constructs a persona-aware conversation dataset. |
| Outcome: | The proposed agent increases recovery rate by 3.31% and collects additional 100K RMB after two months of testing. |
Improving Zero-Shot Cross-lingual Transfer for Multilingual Question Answering over Knowledge Graph (2021.naacl-main)
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| Challenge: | Existing approaches to solve multilingual question answering over knowledge graph (KGQA) use of bilingual lexicon induction to map training questions into those in target language circumvents language inconsistency . |
| Approach: | They propose to use bilingual lexicon induction to map training questions in source and target languages as augmented training data to minimize syntax-disorder. |
| Outcome: | The proposed model narrows the gap in zero-shot cross-lingual transfer between source and target languages. |