Dr Zichuan Xu 

Professor | Ph.D. Advisor
School of Software,
Dalian University of Technology,
Dalian, China
email: z.xu@dlut.edu.cn

Recruiting: We are recruiting Postdocs, Ph.Ds, Masters, and research assistants for various interesting research topics and research projects on mobile edge computing, network function virtualization, big data, cloud computing, and algorithm design. Please contact me if you are interested.

What’s New:

  • 14/12/2025 – Congratulations! One paper is accepted by IEEE Transactons on Services Computing.
  • 31/07/2025 – Congratulations! One paper is accepted by ACM/IEEE Transactons on Networking.
  • 26/07/2025 – Congratulations! Prof. Xu is invited to join the senior program committee of AAAI 2026.
  • 21/04/2025 – Congratulations! Prof. Xu is appointed as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
  • 31/12/2024 – Congratulations! One paper is accepted by IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
  • 21/12/2024 – Congratulations! Our paper entitled “Social-aware DT-assisted service provisioning in serverless edge computing” won the Best Paper Aware in the 20th International Conference on Mobility, Sensing and Networking.
  • 13/08/2024 – Our team has successfully organized the 10th International Conference on Big Data Computing and Communications. (Chinese report of the event.)

Selected Publications: ( Full list is here)

  1. [TSC] Zichuan Xu, Peichen Liu, Qiufen Xia, Weifa Liang, Guangyuan Xu, Wenzheng Xu, Pan Zhou, and Hao Li. Efficient and fault tolerant data stream processing with uncertain data rates in serverless edge computing. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, Acceptance date: 14 Dec, 2025. CCF-A.
  2. [ToN] Zhou Xu, Lizhen Zhou, Zichuan Xu*, Wenbo Qi, Jinjing Ma, Song Yan, Yuan Yang, Min Huang, Haomiao Jiang, Qiufen Xia, Guowei Wu. Empowering Dragonfly: A lightweight and scalable distribution system for large models with high concurrenty. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Acceptance date: 31 July, 2025. CCF-A. *Corresponding.
  3. [TPDS] Lizhen Zhou, Zichuan Xu*, Qiufen Xia, Zhou Xu, Wenhao Ren, Wenbo Qi, Jinjing Ma, Song Yan, Yuan Yang. Chasing common knowledge: Joint large model selection and pulling in MEC with parameter sharing. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 437 – 454, 2025. CCF-A. *Corresponding.
  4. [TMC] Zichuan Xu, Dongrui Li, Weifa Liang, Wenzheng Xu, Qiufen Xia, Pan Zhou, Omer F. Rana, and Hao Li. Energy or accuracy? near-optimal user selection and aggregator placement for federated learning in MEC. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Vol. 23. No. 3, pp. 2470 – 2485, 2024. CCF-A.
  5. [TC] Zichuan Xu, Lin Wang, Weifa Liang, Qiufen Xia, Wenzheng Xu, Pan Zhou, and Omer F. Rana. Age-aware data selection and aggregator placement for timely federated continual learning in mobile edge computing. IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 73, No. 2, pp. 466 – 480, 2024. CCF-A.
  6. [TPDS] Zichuan Xu, Guangyuan Xu, Hao Wang, Qiufen Xỉa, and Shangguang Wang. Enabling streaming analytics in satellite edge computing via timely evaluation of big data queries. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 105 – 122, 2023. CCF-A.
  7. [ToN] Zichuan Xu, Zhao Yuan, Weifa Liang, Dongqi Liu, Wenzheng Xu, Haipeng Dai, Qiufen Xia, and Pan Zhou. Learning-driven algorithms for responsive AR offloading with non-deterministic rewards in Metaverse-enabled MEC. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2024. CCF-A.
  8. [TPDS] Qiufen Xia, Zhiwei Jiao, and Zichuan Xu*. Online learning algorithms for context-aware video caching in D2D edge networks . IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 1-19, 2024. CCF-A.
  9. [TC] Zichuan Xu, Lizhen Zhou, Weifa Liang, Qiufen Xia, Wenzheng Xu, Wenhao Ren, Haozhe Ren, and Pan Zhou. Stateful serverless application placement in MEC with function and state dependencies. IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 72, No. 9, pp. 2701 – 2716, 2023. CCF-A.
  10. [INFOCOM] Zichuan Xu, Yuexin Fu, Qiufen Xia, and Hao Li. Enabling age-aware big data analytics in serverless edge clouds. Proc. of INFOCOM’23, New York Area, 2023. CCF-A.
  11. [TPDS] Zichuan Xu, Dapeng Zhao, Weifa Liang, Omer F. Rana, Pan Zhou, Mingchu Li, Wenzheng Xu, Hao Li, and Qiufen Xia. HierFedML: aggregator placement and UE assignment for hierarchical federated learning in mobile edge computing. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 328-345, 2023. CCF-A, Impact Factor 3.402.
  12. [ToN] Zichuan Xu, Haozhe Ren, Weifa Liang, Qiufen Xia, Wanlei Zhou, Pan Zhou, Wenzheng Xu, Guowei Wu, and Mingchu Li. Near optimal learning-driven mechanisms for stable NFV markets in multi-tier cloud networks. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 2601-2615, 2022. CCF-A.
  13. [TMC] Zichuan Xu, Qiufen Xia, Lin Wang, Pan Zhou, John, C. S. Lui, Weifa Liang, Wenzheng Xu, and Guowei Wu. Stable service caching in MECs of hierarchical service markets with uncertain request rates. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Vol. 22, No. 7, pp. 4279 – 4296, 2023. CCF-A.
  14. [TMC] Zichuan Xu, Lizhen Zhou, Sid Chau, Weifa Liang, Haipeng Dai, Lixing Chen, Wenzheng Xu, Qiufen Xia, and Pan Zhou. Near-optimal and collaborative service caching in mobile edge clouds. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Vol. 22, No. 7, 4070 – 4085, 2023. CCF-A.
  15. [TPDS] Zichuan Xu, Liqian Zhao, Weifa Liang, Omer F. Rana, Pan Zhou, Qiufen Xia, Wenzheng Xu, and Guowei Wu. Energy-aware inference offloading for DNN-driven applications in mobile edge clouds. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems , Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 799-814, IEEE, 2021. CCF-A.
  16. [TC] Zichuan Xu, Zhiheng Zhang, John C.S. Lui, Weifa Liang, Qiufen Xia, Pan Zhou, Wenzheng Xu, and Guowei Wu. Affinity-aware VNF placement in mobile edge clouds via leveraging GPUs. IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 70, No. 12, pp. 2234 – 2248, 2021. CCF-A.
  17. [TPDS] Haozhe Ren, Zichuan Xu*, Weifa Liang, Qiufen Xia, Pan Zhou, Omer F. Rana, Alex Galis, and Guowei Wu. Efficient algorithms for delay-aware NFV-enabled multicasting in mobile edge clouds with resource sharing. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems , Vol. 31, No.9, pp. 2050-2066, 2020. CCF-A. *Corresponding.
  18. [TMC] Zichuan Xu, Wanli Gong, Qiufen Xia, Weifa Liang, Omer F. Rana, and Guowei Wu. NFV-enabled IoT service provisioning in mobile edge clouds. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Vol. 20, No. 5, pp.1892 – 1906, 2021. CCF-A.
  19. [TMC] Zichuan Xu, Weifa Liang, Mike Jia, Meitian Huang, and Guoqiang Mao. Task offloading with network function requirements in a mobile edge-cloud network. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Vol.18, No. 11, pp. 2672-2685, IEEE, 2019. CCF-A.
  20. [TPDS] Qiufen Xia, Zichuan Xu*, Weifa Liang, Shui Yu, Song Guo, and Albert Zomaya. Efficient data placement and replication for QoS approximate query evaluation of big data analytics.  IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol.30, No. 12, pp.2677-2691, IEEE, 2019. CCF-A. *Corresponding
  21. [TPDS] Zichuan Xu, Weifa Liang, Wenzheng Xu, Mike Jia, and Song Guo. Efficient algorithms for capacitated cloudlet placements. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol.27, No. 10, pp.2866–2880, 2016. CCF-A, Impact Factor 3.402.
  22. [INFOCOM] Zichuan Xu, Haozhe Ren, Weifa Liang, Qiufen Xia, Wanlei Zhou, Guowei Wu, and Pan Zhou.  Near optimal and dynamic mechanisms towards a stable NFV market in multi-tier cloud networks. Proc of INFOCOM’21, IEEE, 2021. CCF-A.
  23. [MM] Zichuan Xu, Jiangkai Wu, Qiufen Xia, Pan Zhou, Jiankang Ren and Huizhi Liang. Identity-aware attribute recognition via real-time distributed inference in mobile edge clouds. Proc of ACM Multimedia’20, United States, ACM, 2020. CCF-A.
  24. [INFOCOM] Zichuan Xu, Lizhen Zhou, Sid Chau, Weifa Liang, Qiufen Xia and Pan Zhou. Collaborate or separate? Distributed service caching in mobile edge clouds. Proc of INFOCOM’20, Beijing, IEEE, 2020. CCF-A.
  25. [INFOCOM] Zichuan Xu, Wenhao Ren, Weifa Liang, Wenzheng Xu, Qiufen Xia, Pan Zhou, and Mingchu Li. Schedule or wait: age-minimization for IoT big data processing in MEC via online learning. Proc of INFOCOM’22, London, IEEE, 2022. CCF-A.
  26. [ToN] Weifa Liang, Zichuan Xu, Wenzheng Xu, Jiugen Shi, Guoqiang Mao, and Sajal K. Das. Approximation algorithms for charging reward maximization in rechargeable sensor networks via a mobile charger. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol.25, No. 5, pp.3136-3174, IEEE/ACM, 2017. CCF-A.
  27. [INFOCOM] Wenzheng Xu, Zichuan Xu, Jian Peng, Weifa Liang, Tang Liu, Xiaohua Jia and Sajal K. Das. Approximation algorithms for the team orienteering problem. Proc of INFOCOM’20, Beijing, IEEE, 2020. CCF-A.
  28. [ToN] Wenzheng Xu, Chenxi, Wang, Hongbin Xie, Weifa Liang, Haipeng Dai, Zichuan Xu*, Bing Guo, and Sajal Das.
    Reward maximization for disaster zone monitoring with heterogeneous UAVs.
    IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 32. No. 1, 2024. *Corresponding
  29. [INFOCOM] Wenzheng Xu, Dezhong Peng, Weifa Liang, Xiaohua Jia, Zichuan Xu*, Pan Zhou, Weigang Wu and Xiang Chen. Maximizing h-hop independently submodular functions under connectivity constraint. Proc. of INFOCOM’22, London, IEEE, 2022. CCF-A. *Corresponding
  30. [ToN] Wenzheng Xu, Tao Xiao, Junqi Zhang, Weifa Liang, Zichuan Xu*, Xuxun Liu, Xiaohua Jia, and Sajal Das. Minimizing the deployment cost of UAVs for delay-sensitive data collection in IoT networks. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 812 – 825, 2022. CCF-A. *Corresponding
  31. [ToN] Wenzheng Xu, Hongbin Xie, Chenxi Wang, Weifa Liang, Xiaohua Jia, Zichuan Xu*, Pan Zhou, Weigang Wu, and Xiang Chen. An Approximation algorithm for the h-hop independently submodular maximization problem and its applications. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 1216 – 1229, 2023. CCF-A. *Corresponding.
  32. [TSC] Qiufen Xia, Wenhao Ren, Zichuan Xu*, Xin Wang, and Weifa Liang. When edge caching meets a budget: near optimal service delivery in multi-tiered edge clouds. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, Vol. 16, No. 6, pp.3634 – 3648, IEEE, 2022. CCF-A. *Corresponding.
  33. [TMC] Qiufen Xia, Guijie Wang, Zichuan Xu*, Weifa Liang, and Zhou Xu. Efficient algorithms for service chaining in NFV-enabled satellite edge networks. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Vol. 23. No. 5, pp. 5677 – 5694, 2024. CCF-A, *Corresponding.