Qianli Zhou

Academic homepage

Qianli Zhou 周千里

Associate Professor

School of Electronics and Information
Northwestern Polytechnical University

Researcher in multi-domain information perception and fusion, classical and quantum uncertainty processing, and trustworthy intelligent systems.

Portrait of Qianli Zhou

About

Uncertainty research grounded in real-world problems

My research focuses on multi-domain information perception and fusion, with particular interest in classical and quantum methods for uncertain information processing. Using belief function theory (Dempster-Shafer theory) as a foundation, I study uncertainty-aware information processing and uncertainty quantification for intelligent models.

I am also interested in aerospace information processing, especially low-altitude UAV scenarios; AI safety, including large-language-model safety; and emerging AI technologies such as intelligent agents, world models, and quantum computing. My goal is to connect theoretical work with real scenarios and practical problems.

Google Scholar

Research snapshot

Metrics recorded 5 August 2026

697Citations
16h-index
19i10-index
41Google Scholar records, including preprints

Research interests

  • Information fusion and belief functions
  • Uncertainty quantification
  • Granular computing
  • Quantum computing for uncertain information
  • Low-altitude UAV perception
  • AI and large-language-model safety

Most-cited work

  1. A new divergence measure of Pythagorean fuzzy sets based on belief function152
  2. Fractal-based belief entropy76
  3. Higher order information volume of mass function47
  4. Modeling belief propensity degree41
  5. Order-2 probabilistic information fusion on random permutation set37
View the complete Google Scholar profile

Northwestern Polytechnical University

Academic appointment and education

Official university profile
2025.07 - Present

Associate Professor

School of Electronics and Information, Northwestern Polytechnical University

2025.06 - Present

Postdoctoral Researcher

School of Electronics and Information, Northwestern Polytechnical University; advisor: Prof. Wen Jiang

2019.09 - 2025.06

Ph.D., Computer Science and Technology

Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

2022.11 - 2023.10

CSC Visiting Researcher

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta

2015.09 - 2019.06

B.Eng., Communication Engineering

School of Information and Communication Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

Honors and awards

  • 2026 Postdoctoral Innovation Talent Support Program (National Postdoctoral Program, Tier A)
    博士后创新人才支持计划（国家资助博士后研究人员计划A档）
  • 2025 Graduate Thesis Support Program of the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics
    中国航空学会研究生学位论文托举工程（学会优博）
  • 2024 Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST, Doctoral Track
    中国科协青年人才托举工程博士生专项
  • 2021, 2025 Outstanding Paper, China Information Fusion Conference (first author)
    中国信息融合大会优秀论文（第一作者）
  • 2022 Outstanding Graduate Student CPC Member, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
    电子科技大学优秀研究生共产党员
  • 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 National Scholarship for Graduate Students
    研究生国家奖学金

Funded projects

  • 2026-2028 Postdoctoral Innovation Talent Support Program
  • 2026-2027 National Key Laboratory Open Fund
  • 2026-2027 China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, 78th General Program

Teaching and service

Instructor for Fundamentals of Circuits I (64 hours). Committee member in national information-fusion and intelligent-cognition societies; youth editorial board member of Data and Management Science; national-level athlete.

Complete publication record

Publications and preprints

All 41 records shown on Google Scholar · updated 5 August 2026

Titles link directly to their Google Scholar records. “Preprint” follows the venue shown on Google Scholar.

2026

  1. DataShield: Safety-degrading Data Filtering for LLM Benign Instruction Fine-Tuning

    J. Zhang, Q. Zhou, X. Deng, W. Jiang, J. Pan, and J. Zhu

    arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.00160Preprint

  2. Evidential Information Fusion on Possibilistic Structure

    Q. Zhou, Y. Cui, Z. Li, W. Pedrycz, and Y. Deng

    arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.17038Preprint

  3. Attribute fusion-based evidential classifier on quantum circuits

    H. Luo, Q. Zhou, L. Pan, Z. Li, and Y. Deng

    Quantum Machine Intelligence, 8, 51 · Cited by 3

  4. Evidential Quantum Vertical Federated Learning

    H. Luo, Z. Zhai, Q. Zhou, J. Qi, Y. Deng, and X. Wang

    arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.21102Preprint

  5. Feature Entanglement-based Quantum Multimodal Fusion Neural Network

    Y. Wu, Q. Zhou, J. Geng, X. Deng, and W. Jiang

    arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.07856Preprint · Cited by 1

2025

  1. Understanding and mitigating over-refusal for large language models via safety representation

    J. Zhang, R. Chen, Q. Zhou, X. Deng, and W. Jiang

    arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.19009Preprint · Cited by 14

  2. Measure-based uncertainty with Dempster-Shafer structure

    Q. Zhou, L. Zhu, and Y. Deng

    Science China Information Sciences, 68(10), 202204 · Cited by 4

  3. Transfer graph in the context of evidence theory

    T. Zhan, Q. Zhou, Y. He, and Y. Deng

    Computational and Applied Mathematics, 44(7), 345 · Cited by 3

  4. Towards an efficient uncertainty measure of probability distribution set: From the belief structure perspective

    Y. Guo, Q. Zhou, and Y. Deng

    Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 674, 130720

  5. Attribute fusion-based classifier on framework of belief structure

    Q. Hu, Y. Liang, Q. Zhou, and W. Pedrycz

    arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.00754Preprint · Cited by 2

  6. Layer-2 transferable belief model: Manage uncertainty on random permutation sets

    Q. Zhou and Y. Deng

    Journal of Electronic Science and Technology, 23(2), 100304 · Cited by 1

  7. Information fusion in order-2 fuzzy environments: A matrix transformation perspective

    L. Zhu, Q. Zhou, Y. Deng, and W. Pedrycz

    Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 498, 109146 · Cited by 1

2024

  1. Towards an efficient implementation of Dempster–Shafer: α-junction fusion rules on quantum circuits

    L. Li, Q. Zhou, Z. Li, Y. Deng, and É. Bossé

    Quantum Information Processing, 23(11), 374 · Cited by 2

  2. Order-2 probabilistic information fusion on random permutation set

    Q. Zhou, W. Pedrycz, and Y. Deng

    IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 37(2), 837–850 · Cited by 37

  3. Quantum Information Fusion and Correction with Dempster-Shafer Structure

    Q. Zhou, H. Luo, L. Pan, Y. Deng, and É. Bossé

    arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.08949Preprint · Cited by 2

  4. Why Combining Belief Functions on Quantum Circuits?

    Q. Zhou, H. Luo, É. Bossé, and Y. Deng

    Belief Functions: Theory and Applications, 161–170 · Cited by 3

  5. PSO-ECM: particle swarm optimization-based evidential C-means algorithm

    Y. Cai, Q. Zhou, and Y. Deng

    International Journal of Machine Learning and Cybernetics, 15(9), 4133–4153 · Cited by 5

  6. Evidence generalization-based discounting method: assigning unreliable information to partial ignorance

    Q. Hu, Q. Zhou, Z. Li, Y. Deng, and K. H. Cheong

    Artificial Intelligence Review, 57(9), 239 · Cited by 5

  7. Isopignistic Canonical Decomposition via Belief Evolution Network

    Q. Zhou, T. Zhan, and Y. Deng

    arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.02653Preprint · Cited by 1

  8. Conjunctive and disjunctive combination rules in random permutation set theory: A layer-2 belief structure perspective

    Q. Zhou, Y. Cui, W. Pedrycz, and Y. Deng

    Information Fusion, 102, 102083 · Cited by 33

  9. HIE-EDT: Hierarchical interval estimation-based evidential decision tree

    B. Gao, Q. Zhou, and Y. Deng

    Pattern Recognition, 146, 110040 · Cited by 11

  10. Variational quantum linear solver-based combination rules in Dempster–Shafer theory

    H. Luo, Q. Zhou, Z. Li, and Y. Deng

    Information Fusion, 102, 102070 · Cited by 16

  11. Fractal-based basic probability assignment: A transient mass function

    L. Zhu, Q. Zhou, Y. Deng, and K. H. Cheong

    Information Sciences, 652, 119767 · Cited by 20

2023

  1. CD-BFT: Canonical decomposition-based belief functions transformation in possibility theory

    Q. Zhou, Y. Deng, and R. R. Yager

    IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics · Cited by 21

  2. Marginalization in random permutation set theory: from the cooperative game perspective

    Q. Zhou, Y. Cui, Z. Li, and Y. Deng

    Nonlinear Dynamics, 111(14), 13125–13141 · Cited by 27

  3. Belief entropy rate: a method to measure the uncertainty of interval-valued stochastic processes

    Z. Wang, Q. Zhou, and Y. Deng

    Applied Intelligence, 53(14), 17476–17491 · Cited by 9

  4. Information granule based uncertainty measure of fuzzy evidential distribution

    Q. Zhou, W. Pedrycz, Y. Liang, and Y. Deng

    IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, 31(12), 4385–4396 · Cited by 21

  5. BF-QC: Belief functions on quantum circuits

    Q. Zhou, G. Tian, and Y. Deng

    Expert Systems with Applications, 223, 119885 · Cited by 27

  6. Generating Sierpinski gasket from matrix calculus in Dempster–Shafer theory

    Q. Zhou and Y. Deng

    Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 166, 112962 · Cited by 18

2022

  1. Modeling belief propensity degree: Measures of evenness and diversity of belief functions

    Q. Zhou, É. Bossé, and Y. Deng

    IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, 53(5), 2851–2862 · Cited by 41

  2. NPNT: Non-oscillating Process Negation Transformation of Mass Functions and A Negation-based Discounting Method in Information Fusion

    Q. Zhou and Y. Deng

    Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 116, 105381 · Cited by 9

  3. Belief Evolution Network-based Probability Transformation and Fusion

    Q. Zhou, Y. Huang, and Y. Deng

    Computers & Industrial Engineering, 108750 · Cited by 20

  4. BIM-AFA: Belief Information Measure-based Attribute Fusion Approach in Improving the Quality of Uncertain Data

    B. Gao, Q. Zhou, and Y. Deng

    Information Sciences, 608, 950–969 · Cited by 16

  5. Fuzzy fractal: An information entropy view

    Q. Zhou, C. Qiang, and Y. Deng

    International Conference on Computer, Control and Communication, 250–259 · Cited by 2

  6. Information Dimension of Galton Board

    Q. Zhou, Y. Deng, and W. Pedrycz

    Fractals, 30(4), 1–11 · Cited by 17

2021

  1. Fractal-based Belief Entropy

    Q. Zhou and Y. Deng

    Information Sciences · Cited by 76

  2. Higher Order Information Volume of Mass Function

    Q. Zhou and Y. Deng

    Information Sciences · Cited by 47

  3. Handling uncertainty in view of inner product

    Q. Zhou and Y. Deng

    2021 IEEE International Conference on Unmanned Systems, 305–308 · Cited by 2

  4. Belief EXtropy: Measure Uncertainty from Negation

    Q. Zhou and Y. Deng

    Communications in Statistics—Theory and Methods, 1–23 · Cited by 28

2020

  1. A New Divergence Measure of Pythagorean Fuzzy Sets based on Belief Function and Its Application in Medical Diagnosis

    Q. Zhou, H. Mo, and Y. Deng

    Mathematics, 8(1), 142 · Cited by 152

Year not listed

  1. Transferable Adversarial Attacks Based on Robust Feature Guidance and Spectrum Enhancement

    C. Zhao, X. Deng, Q. Zhou, and J. Geng

    Year and venue are not listed on Google Scholar.

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Contact

Research collaboration and student inquiries

Prospective graduate students and research collaborators working in information fusion, uncertainty, UAV perception, AI safety, or quantum computing are welcome to get in touch.

School of Electronics and Information
Northwestern Polytechnical University
Xi'an, China