Xiaojun Ma


2026

Large language models (LLMs) show strong reasoning abilities but often produce unnecessarily long explanations that reduce efficiency. Although reinforcement learning (RL) has been used to improve reasoning, most methods focus on accuracy and rely on uniform length-based rewards that overlook the differing contributions of individual tokens, often harming correctness. We revisit length optimization in RL through the perspective of token significance. Observing that many chain-of-thought (CoT) tokens contribute little to the final answer, we introduce a significance-aware length reward that selectively penalizes insignificance tokens, reducing redundancy while preserving essential reasoning. We also propose a dynamic length reward that encourages more detailed reasoning early in training and gradually shifts toward conciseness as learning progresses. Integrating these components into standard policy optimization yields a framework that improves both reasoning efficiency and accuracy. Experiments across multiple benchmarks demonstrate substantial reductions in response length while preserving or improving correctness, highlighting the importance of modeling token significance for efficient LLM reasoning.

2025

Predictive analysis is a cornerstone of modern decision-making, with applications in various domains. Large Language Models (LLMs) have emerged as powerful tools in enabling nuanced, knowledge-intensive conversations, thus aiding in complex decision-making tasks. With the burgeoning expectation to harness LLMs for predictive analysis, there is an urgent need to systematically assess their capability in this domain. However, there are no relevant evaluations in existing studies. To bridge this gap, we introduce the PredictiQ benchmark, which integrates 1130 sophisticated predictive analysis queries originating from 44 real-world datasets of 8 diverse fields. We design an evaluation protocol considering text analysis, code generation, and their alignment. Twelve renowned LLMs are evaluated, offering insights into their practical use in predictive analysis.
Spreadsheets are critical to data-centric tasks, with rich, structured layouts that enable efficient information transmission. Given the time and expertise required for manual spreadsheet layout design, there is an urgent need for automated solutions.However, existing automated layout models are ill-suited to spreadsheets, as they often (1) treat components as axis-aligned rectangles with continuous coordinates, overlooking the inherently discrete, grid-based structure of spreadsheets; and (2) neglect interrelated semantics, such as data dependencies and contextual links, unique to spreadsheets. In this paper, we first formalize the spreadsheet layout generation task, supported by a seven-criterion evaluation protocol and a dataset of 3,326 spreadsheets. We then introduce SheetDesigner, a zero-shot and training-free framework using Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) that combines rule and vision reflection for component placement and content population. SheetDesigner outperforms five baselines by at least 22.6%. We further find that through vision modality, MLLMs handle overlap and balance well but struggle with alignment, necessitates hybrid rule and visual reflection strategies. Our codes and data is available at Github.

2014