SCPP: A Unified Python Library for Soft Clustering

In this paper, we present SCPP (Soft Clustering Python Package), an open-source Python framework for soft clustering. SCPP establishes a canonical, scikit-learn-compatible estimator interface that standardizes model training, prediction, membership representation, evaluation, and benchmarking across heterogeneous soft clustering methods, including fuzzy, probabilistic, graph-based, matrix factorization, and deep learning methods. The framework currently integrates 40 representative algorithms together with a comprehensive benchmarking comprising datasets, clustering quality metrics, and standardized runtime, memory, and scalability evaluation. SCPP further provides extensive documentation, practical examples, automated testing, and seamless integration with the scientific Python ecosystem, enabling reproducible experimentation and straightforward extension with new algorithms. The source code is publicly available at https://github.com/soft-clustering/soft-clustering.

Extracting Overlapping Microservices from Monolithic Code via Deep Semantic Embeddings and Graph Neural Network-Based Soft Clustering

Modern software systems are increasingly shifting from monolithic architectures to microservices to enhance scalability, maintainability, and deployment flexibility. Existing microservice extraction methods typically rely on hard clustering, assigning each software component to a single microservice. This approach often increases inter-service coupling and reduces intra-service cohesion. We propose Mo2oM (Monolithic to Overlapping Microservices), a framework that formulates microservice extraction as a soft clustering problem, allowing components to belong probabilistically to multiple microservices. This approach is inspired by expert-driven decompositions, where practitioners intentionally replicate certain software components across services to reduce communication overhead. Mo2oM combines deep semantic embeddings with structural dependencies extracted from methodcall graphs to capture both functional and architectural relationships. A graph neural network-based soft clustering algorithm then generates the final set of microservices. We evaluate Mo2oM on four open-source monolithic benchmarks and compare it against eight state-of-the-art baselines. Our results demonstrate that Mo2oM achieves improvements of up to 40.97% in structural modularity (balancing cohesion and coupling), 58% in inter-service call percentage (communication overhead), 26.16% in interface number (modularity and decoupling), and 38.96% in non-extreme distribution (service size balance) across all benchmarks.

Understanding User Intent Modeling for Conversational Recommender Systems: A Systematic Literature Review

Context: User intent modeling is a crucial process in Natural Language Processing that aims to identify the underlying purpose behind a user's request, enabling personalized responses. With a vast array of approaches introduced in the literature (over 13,000 papers in the last decade), understanding the related concepts and commonly used models in AI-based systems is essential. Method: We conducted a systematic literature review to gather data on models typically employed in designing conversational recommender systems. From the collected data, we developed a decision model to assist researchers in selecting the most suitable models for their systems. Additionally, we performed two case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed decision model. Results: Our study analyzed 59 distinct models and identified 74 commonly used features. We provided insights into potential model combinations, trends in model selection, quality concerns, evaluation measures, and frequently used datasets for training and evaluating these models. Contribution: Our study contributes practical insights and a comprehensive understanding of user intent modeling, empowering the development of more effective and personalized conversational recommender systems. With the Conversational Recommender System, researchers can perform a more systematic and efficient assessment of fitting intent modeling frameworks.