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Xin Cao

Senior Lecturer, ARC DECRA Fellow

School of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales

Office: K-17 201D

xin.cao AT unsw.edu.au

About Me

I am a senior lecturer (equivalent to a tenured position in the North American system) in the School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at The University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia. I was an ARC DECRA Fellow (2019-2022). I had worked as a lecturer in the Knowledge and Data Engineering research cluster within the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in UK from 2014 to 2016.

I did my PhD study in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University from August 2010 to October 2014, under the supervision of Prof. Gao Cong. Prior to joining NTU, I was a scientific assistant in the Center for Data-Intensive Systems at Aalborg University from September 2008 to June 2010, under the supervision of Prof. Christian S. Jensen and Prof. Gao Cong. I obtained my Master and Bachelor degrees from the School of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, China, in June 2008 and June 2006, respectively.

Research Interests

I am interested in Database Management, Data Mining, Big Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence, espcially on spatial data and graph data. My current research mainly focuses on:

  • Spatial Databases, Spatiotemproal Databases, Spatial and Textual Data Management

    • Efficient processing of spatial keyword queries (e.g., PVLDB10, SIGMOD11, SIGMOD13, PVLDB14, SIGMOD15, TODS15, PVLDB16)
    • Keyword-aware route planning (e.g., PVLDB12, IJCAI15, IJCAI20, ICDE22)

  • Graph Data Analytics (e.g., ICDE16, SIGMOD17, PVLDB20, IJCAI20, ICDE21, PVLDB22)

  • Geo-Social Network Data Management (e.g., ICDE18, ICDE20)

  • Artificial Intelligence for Database Problems (e.g., SIGMOD20, NeurIPS21, PVLDB23, SIGMOD23)

  • Graph Neural Networks and Applications (e.g., IJCAI20, ICDE22, KDD23)

Selected Publications

Full List    Google Scholar    DBLP

Full publications in CORE A*/CCF A conferences and journals:

  1. Yangqin Jiang, Yixiang Fang, Chenhao Ma, Xin Cao, Chunshan Li:
    Effective Community Search over Large Star-Schema Heterogeneous Information Networks. Accepted, PVLDB 2022.

  2. Xuefeng Chen, Liang Feng, Xin Cao, Yifeng Zeng, Yaqing Hou:
    Budgeted Sequence Submodular Maximization. Accepted, IJCAI 2022.

  3. Ding Zou, Wei Wei, Xian-Ling Mao, Ziyang Wang, Minghui Qiu, Feida Zhu, Xin Cao:
    Multi-level Cross-view Contrastive Learning for Knowledge-aware Recommender System. Accepted, SIGIR 2022.

  4. Linhan Zhang, Qian Chen, Wen Wang, Chong Deng, Shiliang Zhang, Bing Li, Wei Wang, Xin Cao:
    MDERank: A Masked Document Embedding Rank Approach for Unsupervised Keyphrase Extraction. ACL 2022 (Findings), Accepted.

  5. Xuefeng Chen, Xin Cao, Yifeng Zeng, Yixiang Fang, Sibo Wang, Xuemin Lin, Liang Feng:
    Constrained Path Search with Submodular Function Maximization. ICDE 2022, Accepted.

  6. Chenji Huang, Yixiang Fang, Xuemin Lin, Xin Cao, Wenjie Zhang, Maria Orlowska:
    Estimating Node Importance Values in Heterogeneous Information Networks. ICDE 2022, Accepted.

  7. Yu Hao, Xin Cao, Yufan Sheng, Yixiang Fang, Wei Wang. KS-GNN:
    Keywords Search over Incomplete Graphs via Graphs Neural Network. NeurIPS 2021, Accepted.

  8. Ting Wang, Xike Xie, Xin Cao, Torben Bach Pedersen, Yang Wang, Mingjun Xiao:
    On Efficient and Scalable Time-Continuous Spatial Crowdsourcing. ICDE 2021: 1212-1223.

  9. Kai Wang, Shuting Wang, Xin Cao, Lu Qin:
    Efficient Radius-bounded Community Search in Geo-social Networks. TKDE 2020, Accepted.

  10. Yixiang Fang, Yixing Yang, Wenjie Zhang, Xuemin Lin, Xin Cao:
    Effective and Efficient Community Search over Large Heterogeneous Information Networks. Proc. VLDB Endow. 13(6): 854-867 (2020)

  11. Jiehuan Luo, Xin Cao, Xike Xie, Qiang Qu, Zhiqiang Xu, Christian S. Jensen:
    Efficient Attribute-Constrained Co-Located Community Search. ICDE 2020: 1201-1212

  12. Yu Hao, Xin Cao, Yixiang Fang, Xike Xie, Sibo Wang:
    Inductive Link Prediction for Nodes Having Only Attribute Information. IJCAI 2020: 1209-1215

  13. Xuefeng Chen, Xin Cao, Yifeng Zeng, Yixiang Fang, Bin Yao:
    Optimal Region Search with Submodular Maximization. IJCAI 2020: 1216-1222

  14. Yankai Chen, Jie Zhang, Yixiang Fang, Xin Cao, Irwin King:
    Efficient Community Search over Large Directed Graph: An Augmented Index-based Approach. IJCAI 2020: 3544-3550

  15. Yaoshu Wang, Chuan Xiao, Jianbin Qin, Xin Cao, Yifang Sun, Wei Wang, Makoto Onizuka:
    Monotonic Cardinality Estimation of Similarity Selection: A Deep Learning Approach. SIGMOD Conference 2020: 1197-1212

  16. Dongxiang Zhang, Yuchen Li, Xin Cao, Jie Shao, Heng Tao Shen:
    Augmented Keyword Search on Spatial Entity Databases. VLDB J. 27(2): 225-244 (2018)

  17. Kai Wang, Xin Cao, Xuemin Lin, Wenjie Zhang, Lu Qin:
    Efficient Computing of Radius-Bounded k-Cores. ICDE 2018: 233-244

  18. Lisi Chen, Shuo Shang, Zhiwei Zhang, Xin Cao, Christian S. Jensen, Panos Kalnis:
    Location-Aware Top-k Term Publish/Subscribe. ICDE 2018: 749-760

  19. Zhiqiang Xu, Xin Cao, Xin Gao:
    Convergence Analysis of Gradient Descent for Eigenvector Computation. IJCAI 2018: 2933-2939

  20. Tao Guo, Xin Cao, Gao Cong, Jiaheng Lu, Xuemin Lin:
    Distributed Algorithms on Exact Personalized PageRank. SIGMOD Conference 2017: 479-494

  21. Farhana Choudhury, Shane Culpepper, Timos Sellis, Xin Cao:
    Maximizing Bichromatic Reverse Spatial and Textual k Nearest Neighbor Queries. Proc. VLDB Endow. 9(6): 456-467 (2016)

  22. Ryan McConville, Xin Cao, Weiru Liu, Paul Miller:
    Accelerating Large Scale Centroid-based Clustering with Locality Sensitive Hashing. ICDE 2016: 649-660

  23. Yifeng Zeng, Xuefeng Chen, Xin Cao, Shengchao Qin, Marc Cavazza, Yanping Xiang:
    Optimal Route Search with the Coverage of Users’ Preferences. IJCAI 2015: 2118-2124

  24. Tao Guo, Xin Cao, Gao Cong:
    Efficient Algorithms for Answering the m-Closest Keywords Query. SIGMOD Conference 2015: 405-418

  25. Lisi Chen, Gao Cong, Xin Cao, Kian-Lee Tan:
    Temporal Spatial-Keyword Top-k publish/subscribe. ICDE 2015: 255-266

  26. Xin Cao, Gao Cong, Tao Guo, Christian S. Jensen, Beng Chin Ooi:
    Efficient Processing of Spatial Group Keyword Queries. ACM Trans. Database Syst. 40(2): 13:1-13:48 (2015)

  27. Xin Cao, Gao Cong, Christian S. Jensen, Man Lung Yiu:
    Retrieving Regions of Interest for User Exploration. Proc. VLDB Endow. 7(9): 733-744 (2014)

  28. Lisi Chen, Gao Cong, Xin Cao:
    An Efficient Query Indexing Mechanism for Filtering Geo-Textual Data. SIGMOD Conference 2013: 749-760

  29. Xin Cao, Lisi Chen, Gao Cong, Xiaokui Xiao:
    Keyword-aware Optimal Route Search. Proc. VLDB Endow. 5(11): 1136-1147 (2012)

  30. Xin Cao, Gao Cong, Bin Cui, Christian S. Jensen, Quan Yuan:
    Approaches to Exploring Category Information for Question Retrieval in Community Question-Answer Archives. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. 30(2): 7:1-7:38 (2012)

  31. Xin Cao, Lisi Chen, Gao Cong, Christian S. Jensen, Qiang Qu, Anders Skovsgaard, Dingming Wu, Man Lung Yiu:
    Spatial Keyword Querying (invited paper). ER 2012: 16-29

  32. Hua Lu, Xin Cao, Christian S. Jensen:
    A Foundation for Efficient Indoor Distance-Aware Query Processing. ICDE 2012: 438-449

  33. Xin Cao, Gao Cong, Christian S. Jensen, Beng Chin Ooi:
    Collective Spatial Keyword Querying. SIGMOD Conference 2011: 373-384

  34. Xin Cao, Gao Cong, Christian S. Jensen:
    Retrieving Top-k Prestige-Based Relevant Spatial Web Objects. Proc. VLDB Endow. 3(1): 373-384 (2010)

  35. Xin Cao, Gao Cong, Christian S. Jensen:
    Mining Significant Semantic Locations From GPS Data. Proc. VLDB Endow. 3(1): 1009-1020 (2010)

  36. Xin Cao, Gao Cong, Bin Cui, Christian S. Jensen:
    A Generalized Framework of Exploring Category Information for Question Retrieval in Community Question Answer Archives. WWW 2010: 201-210

Students:

  • Current Students (as a primary supervisor):

    • Jian GAO, PhD, 2021.06-present, Co-supervised with Prof. Wei Wang, Research Topic: AI for DB
    • Yufan SHENG, PhD, 2021.03-present, Co-supervised with Dr. Kaiqi Zhao and Prof. Yixiang Fang Research Topic: AI for DB.
    • Sijin WANG, PhD, 2021.06-present, Research Topic: Graph Neural Network for Business Applications
    • Zhuoqing XU, PhD, 2021.06-present, Co-supervised with Dr. Zhengyi Yang, Research Topic: Reachablility Query on Dynamic Graphs
    • Zixu ZHAO, PhD, 2022.03-present, Research Topic: Community Search in Social Networks
    • Siqing LI, PhD, 2022.06-present, Research Topic: Heterogeneous Information Networks Representation Learning
    • Yi XU, PhD, 2023.09-present, Research Topic: Graph Unlearning
    • Weixian QIAN, MPhil, 2023.09-present, Research Topic: Node Affinity Prediction in Dynamic Graphs
    • Jie LIU, PhD, 2024.09-present, Research Topic: Graph Neural Network for Business Applications

  • Alumni:

    • Xia LI, PhD, 2021.06-2024.03, Co-supervised with Prof. Wei Wang, Research Topic: Path Enumeration and Reachability Query Processing
    • Linhan ZHANG, PhD, 2021.06-2024.03, Co-supervised with Prof. Wei Wang, Research Topic: Natural Language Processing
    • Yong-Min SHIN, Visiting PhD from Yonsei University, 2024.01-2024.02
    • Jin-Duk PARK, Visiting PhD from Yonsei University, 2023.01-2023.02
    • Han ZHANG, Master by Research, 2019.09-2021.06, Research Topic: Link Prediction in Heterogeneous Information Networks
    • Yu HAO, 2018.03-2021.06, Research Topic: Learning Node Embedding From Graph Structure and Node Attributes
    • Xuefeng CHEN, PhD, 2017.03-2020.11, Research Topic: Sumodular optimization in Location-based Social Networks, now a lecturer at Chongqing University, China
    • Yanhui LI, Visiting PhD, 2017-2018, from Northeast University, China, now a lecturer at Chongqing Jiaotong University, China
    • Ryan McConville, PhD, 2015-2016, co-supervised with Prof. Weirui Liu at QUB, now a senior lecturer at the University of Bristol, UK

Teaching

  • ZZEN9313: Big Data Management, online degree course, 2020 - present, UNSW
  • COMP9313: Big Data Management, 2016 - present, UNSW
  • CSC2036: Database Systems, Level 2, 2014 Fall and 2015 Fall, QUB