Dong Li
Other people with similar names: Dong Li
Unverified author pages with similar names: Dong Li
2026
Uncertainty-Aware Test-Time Search for Optimization Problem Solving
Linlin Yu | Xujiang Zhao | Dong Li | Yanchi Liu | Wei Cheng | Zhengzhang Chen | Chen Zhao | Feng Chen | Haifeng Chen
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
Linlin Yu | Xujiang Zhao | Dong Li | Yanchi Liu | Wei Cheng | Zhengzhang Chen | Chen Zhao | Feng Chen | Haifeng Chen
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
Automatically solving optimization problems from natural language descriptions with both efficiency and reliability is highly desirable but remains challenging. Language model hallucinations and the limited availability of labeled datasets often result in misaligned formulations, code errors, and feasibility failures We propose UMCTS, an Uncertainty-aware Monte Carlo Tree Search framework that combines the language understanding capability of large language models with the reliability of well-established solvers. UMCTS structures the solution process into four stages: global instruction, assumptions, mathematical formulation, and solver code generation. It employs Monte Carlo Tree Search with semantic-equivalence pruning, prior-guided exploration, and solver-based feasibility checks. An LLM judge provides numerical reward signals, qualitative error information, and uncertainty estimates. These signals are backpropagated to guide the search and flag unreliable outputs. Across six public benchmarks, UMCTS achieves state-of-the-art solution accuracy, improves efficiency by reducing token usage.