Publications

* indicates Chenhao is a corresponding author

In the Year of 2026

  1. Attribute Filtering in Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search: An In-depth Experimental Study
    Mocheng Li, Xiao Yan, Baotong Lu, Yue Zhang, James Cheng, Chenhao Ma*
    In ACM International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2026.
    Paper

  2. Scalable Privacy-Preserving Shortest Path Distance Computation via 2-Hop Labeling in MPC
    Huizhong Wang, Yuanyuan Zeng, Kun Chen, Wei Dong, Chenhao Ma*
    In ACM International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2026.

  3. BIRD-Interact: Re-imagining Text-to-SQL Evaluation via Lens of Dynamic Interactions
    Nan Huo, Xiaohan Xu, Jinyang Li, Per Jacobsson, Shipei Lin, Bowen Qin, Binyuan Hui, Xiaolong Li, Ge Qu, Shuzheng Si, Linheng Han, Edward Alexander, Xintong Zhu, Rui Qin, Ruihan Yu, Yiyao Jin, Feige Zhou, Weihao Zhong, Yun Chen, Hongyu Liu, Chenhao Ma, Fatma Ozcan, Yannis Papakonstantinou, Reynold Cheng
    In International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), Oral, 2026. (1-1.5%)
    BIRD-Critic

  4. Revisiting Task-Oriented Dataset Search in the Era of Large Language Models: Challenges, Benchmark, and Solution
    Zixin Wei, Yucan Guo, Jinyang Li, Xiaolin Han, Xiaolong Jin, Chenhao Ma*.
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 19, 2026.

  5. Scalable Approximate Biclique Counting over Large Bipartite Graphs
    Jingbang Chen, Weinuo Li, Yingli Zhou, Hangrui Zhou, Qiuyang Mang, Can Wang, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma*
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 19, 2026.

  6. A Semantics-aware Approach for Graph Edit Distance Estimation over Knowledge Graphs
    Yingli Zhou, Huizhong Wang, Chenhao Ma, Yixiang Fang.
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 19, 2026.

  7. Mamba Hawkes Process for Event Sequence Modeling
    Shan Dai, Yuyang Shen, Yuyang Liang, Chenhao Ma*, and Anningzhe Gao
    In The Web Conference (WWW), 2026.

  8. Robust Spatial-Temporal Similar Trajectory Search via Structure-Enhanced Domain-Invariant Learning,
    Xiaolin Han, Yonghao Zhou, Chenhao Ma*, Lingyun Song, Xinbiao Gan, Xuequn Shang.
    In IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), 2026.

  9. Explainable Anomaly Detection in Dynamic Heterogeneous Graphs via Relation Evolution,
    Xiaolin Han, Xiurui Hu, Chenhao Ma*, Xuequn Shang.
    In IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), 2026.

  10. Hitcher: Efficient GPU-based Vector Search via Cluster-Centric Kernel and Hitch-Ride Ordering
    Qihui Zhou, Changji LI, Guanxian Jiang, Chenhao Ma, Xiao Yan, Yu Mao, Ming-Chang Yang, James Cheng
    In SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), 2026.

  11. Finding Locally Densest Subgraphs: Convex Programming with Edge and Triangle Density
    Yi Yang, Chenhao Ma*, Reynold Cheng, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, Xiaolin Han.
    In The VLDB Journal, 2026.
    Paper

In the Year of 2025

  1. SWE-SQL: Illuminating LLM Pathways to Solve User SQL Issues in Real-World Applications
    Jinyang Li, Xiaolong Li, Ge Qu, Per Jacobsson, Bowen Qin, Binyuan Hui, Shuzheng Si, Nan Huo, Xiaohan Xu, Yue Zhang, Ziwei Tang, Yuanshuai Li, Florensia Widjaja, Xintong Zhu, Feige Zhou, Yongfeng Huang, Yannis Papakonstantinou, Fatma Ozcan, Chenhao Ma*, Reynold Cheng
    In NeurIPS, Poster, 2025.
    BIRD-Interact

  2. MoDiff - Graph Generation with Motif-aware Diffusion Model
    Yuwei Xu, Chenhao Ma*
    In SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), 2025.
    Paper

  3. UnG-MoCha: Neural Motif Counting in Uncertain Graphs
    Lujie Ban, Xiaolin Han, Jinyang Li, Chenhao Ma*
    In SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), 2025.
    Paper

  4. TempASD: Temporal Anomalous Subgraph Discovery in Large-Scale Dynamic Financial Networks
    Xiaolin Han, YikunZhang, Chenhao Ma*, Lingyun Song, Reynold Cheng, Xuequn Shang.
    In SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), 2025.
    Paper

  5. Micro-Act: Mitigate Knowledge Conflict in Question Answering via Actionable Self-Reasoning
    Nan Huo, Jinyang Li, Bowen Qin, Ge Qu, Xiaolong Li, Xiaodong Li, Chenhao Ma, Reynold Cheng.
    In Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), 2025.
    Paper

  6. SHARE: An SLM-based Hierarchical Action CorREction Assistant for Text-to-SQL.
    Ge Qu, Jinyang Li, Bowen Qin, Xiaolong Li, Nan Huo, Chenhao Ma, Reynold Cheng.
    In Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), 2025.
    Paper

  7. Efficient Maintenance of 2-Hop Labeling Index on Dynamic Small-World Graphs.
    Yuanyuan Zeng, Yixiang Fang, Kun Chen, Yangfan Li, Chenhao Ma*.
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 18, 2025.
    Paper

  8. SemExplorer: A User Interface for Semantic Approach to Customized Dataset Search.
    Zixin Wei, Jun Han, Xiaolin Han, Chenhao Ma*.
    In ACM International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), Demo, 2025.
    Paper

  9. Accelerating Skyline Path Enumeration with a Core Attribute Index on Multi-attribute Graphs.
    Yuanyuan Zeng, Yixiang Fang, Wensheng Luo, Chenhao Ma*.
    In ACM International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2025.
    Paper

  10. Are Large Language Models Ready for Multi-Turn Tabular Data Analysis?
    Jinyang Li, Nan Huo, Yan Gao, Jiayi Shi, Yingxiu Zhao, Ge Qu, Bowen Qin, Yurong Wu, Xiaodong Li, Chenhao Ma*, Jian-Guang Lou, Reynold Cheng.
    In International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2025.
    Paper

  11. Efficient Structural Clustering over Hypergraphs.
    Dong Pan, Xu Zhou, Lingwei Li, Quanqing Xu, Chuanhui Yang, Chenhao Ma, Kenli Li.
    In IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), 2025.
    Paper

  12. In-depth Analysis of Densest Subgraph Discovery in a Unified Framework.
    Yingli Zhou, Qingshuo Guo, Yi Yang, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma*, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 18, 2025.
    Paper

  13. Efficient Historical Butterfly Counting in Large Temporal Bipartite Networks via Graph Structure-aware Index.
    Qiuyang Mang, Jingbang Chen, Hangrui Zhou, Yu Gao, Yingli Zhou, Qingyu Shi, Richard Peng, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma*.
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 2025.
    Paper

  14. UTCS: Effective Unsupervised Temporal Community Search with Pre-training of Temporal Dynamics and Subgraph Knowledge.
    Yue Zhang, Yankai Chen, Yingli Zhou, Yucan Guo, Xiaolin Han, Chenhao Ma*.
    In ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR), Short, 2025.
    Paper

  15. CSPO: Cross-Market Synergistic Stock Price Movement Forecasting with Pseudo-volatility Optimization.
    Sida Lin, Yankai Chen, Yiyan Qi, Chenhao Ma*, Bokai Cao, Yifei Zhang, Xue Liu and Jian Guo.
    In The Web Conference (WWW), Industry-track, 2025.
    Paper

  16. TRACE: Intra-visit Clinical Event Nowcasting via Effective Patient Trajectory Encoding.
    Yuyang Liang, Yankai Chen, Yixiang Fang, Laks. V.S. Lakshmanan, Chenhao Ma*.
    In The Web Conference (WWW), Short, 2025.
    Paper

  17. ReadGraph: Relational Evolution Enhanced Anomaly Detection in Dynamic Heterogeneous Graph.
    Xiaolin Han, Xiurui Hu, Chenhao Ma, Xuequn Shang.
    In The Web Conference (WWW), Short, 2025.
    Paper

  18. STREAM: Hierarchical Dynamic Traffic Pattern Inference for Sparse Trajectory Recovery.
    Xiaolin Han, Tianwen Zhang, Yuke Li, Gaukhar ISSAYEVA, Chenhao Ma*, Lingyun Song, and Xuequn Shang
    In IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) 2025.

  19. Hypergraph-Enhanced Multi-Granularity Stochastic Weight Completion in Sparse Road Networks.
    Xiaolin Han, Yikun Zhang, Chenhao Ma, Xuequn Shang, Reynold Cheng, Tobias Grubenmann, Xiaodong Li.
    In Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data (TKDD), 2025.
    Paper

  20. Similarity and Diversity: PCA-based Contribution Evaluation in Federated Learning.
    Zhiheng Liu, Hongtao Lv, Xiangyu Liu, Chenhao Ma, Fan Wu, Lei Liu, Lizhen Cui.
    In IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 2025.

  21. STORM: Spatio-Temporal Similar Trajectory Retrieval onNon-Uniform Maritime Data.
    Xiaolin Han, Yonghao Zhou, Chenhao Ma*, Fang Li, Xuequn Shang
    In Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), Demo, 2025.

  22. RADIO: Effective and Efficient Anomalous Subgraph Discovery in Financial Networks.
    Xiaolin Han, Yikun Zhang, Chenhao Ma, Lingyun Song, Xuequn Shang.
    In The 30th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (DASFAA), 2025.

  23. STAR: Spatio-Temporal Trajectory Recovery for Sparse and Uncertain Marine Trajectories.
    Xiaolin Han, Songliang Bai, Gaukhar ISSAYEVA, Chenhao Ma, Fang Li, Xuequn Shang.
    In The 30th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (DASFAA), Demo, 2025.

In the Year of 2024

  1. Effective Job-market Mobility Prediction with Attentive Heterogeneous Knowledge Learning and Synergy
    Sida Lin, Zhouyi Zhang, Yankai Chen, Chenhao Ma*, Yixiang Fang, Shan Dai and Guangli Lu
    In The Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), Short, 2024.
    Paper

  2. Towards Effective Top-N Hamming Search via Bipartite Graph Contrastive Hashing
    Yankai Chen, Yixiang Fang, Yifei Zhang, Chenhao Ma, Yang Hong, Irwin King.
    In IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), 2024.
    Paper

  3. Efficient Maximal Motif-Clique Enumeration over Large Heterogeneous Information Networks
    Yingli Zhou, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma, Tianci Hou, Xin Huang
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 2024.
    Paper

  4. Scalable Algorithm for Finding Balanced Subgraphs with Tolerance in Signed Networks
    Jingbang Chen, Qiuyang Mang, Hangrui Zhou, Richard Peng, Yu Gao, Chenhao Ma*
    In SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), 2024.
    Paper

  5. Before Generation, Align it! A Novel and Effective Strategy for Mitigating Hallucinations in Text-to-SQL Generation
    Ge Qu, Jinyang Li, Bowen Li, Bowen Qin, Nan Huo, Chenhao Ma, Reynold Cheng
    In Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), Findings, 2024.
    Paper

  6. FDM: Effective and Efficient Incident Detection on Sparse Trajectory Data
    Xiaolin Han, Tobias Grubenmann, Chenhao Ma*, Xiaodong Li, Wenya Sun, Sze Chun Wong, Xuequn Shang, Reynold Cheng
    In Information Systems, 2024.
    Paper

  7. TRoute: Dynamic Time-dependent Route Recommendation on Road Networks
    Xiaolin Han, Xiurui Hu, Chenhao Ma, Xuequn Shang.
    In 21th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Applications (WISA), 2024.

  8. Efficient and Effective Algorithms for Densest Subgraph Discovery and Maintenance.
    Yichen Xu, Chenhao Ma*, Yixiang Fang, Zhifeng Bao
    In The VLDB Journal, 2024.
    Paper

  9. Distributed Shortest Distance Labeling on Large-Scale Graphs.
    Yuanyuan Zeng, Chenhao Ma*, Yixiang Fang
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 17, 2024.
    Paper

  10. Efficient Core Decomposition over Large Heterogeneous Information Networks
    Yucan Guo, Chenhao Ma*, Yixiang Fang
    In IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), 2024.
    Paper

  11. A Counting-based Approach for Efficient 𝑘-Clique Densest Subgraph Discovery
    Yingli Zhou, Qingshuo Guo, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma
    In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2024.
    Paper

  12. On Efficient Large Sparse Matrix Chain Multiplication
    Chunxu Lin, Wensheng Luo, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma, Xilin Liu, Yuchi Ma
    In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2024.
    Paper

  13. A Similarity-based Approach for Efficient Large Quasi-clique Detection
    Jiayang Pang, Chenhao Ma*, Yixiang Fang
    In ACM TheWebConf 2024 Conference (WWW), 2024.
    Paper

  14. Efficient Distributed Hop-Constrained Path Enumeration on Large-Scale Graphs
    Yuanyuan Zeng, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma*, Xu Zhou, Kenli Li
    In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2024.
    Paper

  15. Influential Exemplar Replay for Incremental Learning in Recommender Systems
    Xinni Zhang, Yankai Chen, Chenhao Ma, Yixiang Fang, Irwin King
    In AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2024.
    Paper

  16. Accelerating Directed Densest Subgraph Queries with Software and Hardware Approaches
    Chenhao Ma, Yixiang Fang, Reynold Cheng, Laks. V.S. Lakshmanan, Xiaolin Han, Xiaodong Li
    In The VLDB Journal (VLDBJ), 33(1): 207-230, 2024.
    Paper

In the Year of 2023

  1. MOSER: Scalable Network Motif Discovery using Serial Test
    Mohammad Matin Najafi, Chenhao Ma, Xiaodong Li, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, Reynold Cheng
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 17, 2023.
    Paper

  2. Can LLM Already Serve as A Database Interface? A BIg Bench for Large-Scale Database Grounded Text-to-SQLs
    Jinyang Li, Binyuan Hui, GE QU, Binhua Li, Jiaxi Yang, Bowen Li, Bailin Wang, Bowen Qin, Ruiying Geng, Nan Huo, Xuanhe Zhou, Chenhao Ma, Guoliang Li, Kevin Chang, Fei Huang, Reynold Cheng, Yongbin Li
    In NeurIPS, Datasets and Benchmarks Track, Spotlight, 2023.
    BIRD | Paper | Slides

  3. Efficient and Effective Algorithms for Generalized Densest Subgraph Discovery
    Yichen Xu, Chenhao Ma*, Yixiang Fang, Zhifeng Bao
    In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2023.
    Paper

  4. On Querying Connected Components in Large Temporal Graphs.
    Haoxuan Xie, Yixiang Fang, Yuyang Xia, Wensheng Luo, Chenhao Ma
    In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2023.
    Paper

  5. Graphix-T5: Mixing Pre-Trained Transformers with Graph-Aware Layers for Text-to-SQL Parsing
    Jinyang Li, Binyuan Hui, Reynold Cheng, Bowen Qin, Chenhao Ma, Nan Huo, Fei Huang, Wenyu Du, Luo Si, Yongbin Li
    In AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2023.
    Paper

  6. Scalable Algorithms for Densest Subgraph Discovery
    Wensheng Luo, Zhuo Tang, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma, Xu Zhou.
    In IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), 2023.
    Paper

In the Year of 2022

  1. Densest Subgraph Discovery on Large Graphs: Applications, Challenges, and Techniques
    Yixiang Fang, Wensheng Luo, Chenhao Ma.
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 15, 2022.
    Paper

  2. Finding Locally Densest Subgraphs: A Convex Programming Approach
    Chenhao Ma, Reynold Cheng, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, Xiaolin Han
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 15, 2022.
    Paper

  3. Effective Community Search over Large Star-Schema Heterogeneous Information Networks
    Yangqin Jiang, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma, Xin Cao, Chunshan Li
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 15, 2022.
    Paper

  4. DeepTEA: Effective and Efficient Online Time-dependent Trajectory Outlier Detection
    Xiaolin Han, Reynold Cheng, Chenhao Ma* and Tobias Grubenmann
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 15(7): 1493-1505, 2022.
    Paper

  5. A Convex-Programming Approach for Efficient Directed Densest Subgraph Discovery
    Chenhao Ma, Yixiang Fang, Reynold Cheng, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, Xiaolin Han
    In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), pages 845-859, 2022 .
    Paper

  6. Leveraging Contextual Graphs for Stochastic Weight Completion in Sparse Road Networks
    Xiaolin Han, Reynold Cheng, Tobias Grubenmann, Silviu Maniu, Chenhao Ma*, Xiaodong Li
    In SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM), pages 64-72, 2022.
    Paper

  7. The Social Technology and Research (STAR) Lab in the University of Hong Kong
    Reynold Cheng, Chenhao Ma, Xiaodong Li, Yixiang Fang, Ye Liu, Victor Y.L. Wong, Esther Lee, Tai Hing Lam, Sai Yin Ho, Man Ping Wang, Weijie Gong, Wentao Ning, Ben Kao
    In ACM SIGMOD Record, 51, 2022.

In the Year of 2021

  1. On Directed Densest Subgraph Discovery
    Chenhao Ma, Yixiang Fang, Reynold Cheng, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, Wenjie Zhang, Xuemin Lin
    In ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS), 46(4):1-45, 2021.
    Invited as one of four Best of SIGMOD 2020.
    Paper

  2. Efficient Directed Densest Subgraph Discovery
    Chenhao Ma, Yixiang Fang, Reynold Cheng, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, Wenjie Zhang, Xuemin Lin
    In SIGMOD Record, 50(1):33-40, 2021, Special Issue on the 2021 ACM SIGMOD Research Highlight Award.
    Paper

  3. On Analyzing Graphs with Motif-Paths
    Xiaodong Li, Reynold Cheng, Kevin Chen Chuan Chang, Caihua Shan, Chenhao Ma, Hongtai Cao
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 14(6): 1111-1123, 2021.
    Paper

In the Year of 2020

  1. Efficient Algorithms for Densest Subgraph Discovery on Large Directed Graphs
    Chenhao Ma, Yixiang Fang, Reynold Cheng, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, Wenjie Zhang, Xuemin Lin
    In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), pages 1051-1066, 2020.
    One of four Best of SIGMOD 2020, rate: 4/458.
    Paper

In the Year of 2019

  1. Motif Paths: A New Approach for Analysing Higher-order Semantics between Graph Nodes
    Xiaodong Li, Tse Nam Chan, Reynold Cheng, Caihua Shan, Chenhao Ma, Kevin Chang
    In HKU Technical Reports, 2019.

  2. LINC: A Motif Counting Algorithm for Uncertain Graphs
    Chenhao Ma, Reynold Cheng, Laks V.S. Lakshmanan, Tobias Grubenmann, Yixiang Fang, Xiaodong Li
    In Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), 13(2): 155-168, 2019.
    Paper