Optimal building design in terms of comfort and energy performance means designing and constructing a building that requires the minimum energy demand under the given conditions while also providing a good level of human comfort. This paper focuses on replacing the complex energy and comfort simulation procedure with fast regression model-based processes that encounter the building shape as input. Numerous building shape descriptors were applied as inputs to several regression models. After evaluating the results, it can be stated that, with careful selection of building geometry describing design input variables, complex energy and comfort simulations can be approximated. Six different models with five different building shape descriptors were tested. The worst results were around R² = 0.75, and the generic results were around R² = 0.92. The most accurate prediction models, with the highest level of accuracy (R² > 0.97), were linear regressions using 3rd power and dense neural networks using 1st power of inputs; furthermore, averages of mean absolute percentage errors are 1% in the case of dense neural networks. For the best performance, the building configuration was described by a discrete functional point cloud. The proposed method can effectively aid future building energy and comfort optimization processes.

As cities expand, many old towns face the threat of being renovated or demolished. In recent years, the drawbacks of extensive urban renewal have become increasingly apparent, and the focus of urban development is gradually shifting from efficiency to quality. This study aims to combine urban renewal with emerging technologies to address the dilemma between efficiency and quality in urban renewal. The study found that algorithm models based on graph theory, topology, and shortest path principles neglect the influence of internal states and visual features on pedestrian activity, resulting in lower simulation accuracy. Although incorporating internal states and visual features into the core of the algorithm further improved the simulation accuracy, the model operates in a 3D environment with lower efficiency. To address the problems of insufficient simulation accuracy and low efficiency, this study proposes a dynamic pedestrian activity model based on a multi-agent system and incorporating visual features. The model simulates pedestrian daily activity paths using pheromones and virtual sensors as the core, and it was found that using Visibility Graph Analysis could accurately divide pheromones in the environment, thus obtaining more accurate simulation results. Subsequently, based on the optimized pedestrian model’s agent activity rules and dynamic pheromone theory, a model for automatically generating road paving in urban renewal projects was developed, and the generated results were verified for their rationality through design practice. This technology can effectively promote urban renewal and the preservation of historic neighborhoods, providing technical support for achieving sustainable urban development.

This paper describes experiments on finned tube heat exchangers, focusing on reducing the thermal contact resistance at the contact between the pipe and the lamella. Various contact materials, such as solders and adhesives, were investigated. Several methods of establishing contact were tested, including blowtorch soldering, brazing, and furnace soldering. Thermal camera measurements were carried out to assess the performance of the contact materials. Moreover, finite element analysis was performed to evaluate the contact materials and establish guidelines in the fin–tube connection modeling by comparing simplified models with the realistic model. Blowtorch brazing tests were successful while soldering attempts failed. During the thermographic measurements, reflective surfaces could be measured after applying a thin layer of paint with high emissivity. These measurements did not provide valuable results; thus, the contact materials were assessed using a finite element analysis. The results from the finite element analysis showed that all the inspected contact materials provided better heat transfer than not using a contact material. The heat transfer rate of the tight-fit realistic model was found to be 33.65 for air and 34.9 for the Zn-22Al contact material. This finding could be utilized in developing heat exchangers with higher heat transfer with the same size.

Finite element analysis (FEA)-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are essential in biomedical engineering for studying haemodynamics, yet their high computational cost limits large-scale parametric studies. This paper presents a comparative analysis of FEA and surrogate modelling techniques applied to renal artery haemodynamics. The aortic–renal bifurcation strongly influences renal perfusion, affecting conditions such as hypertension, infarction, and transplant rejection. This study evaluates GPU-accelerated voxel simulations (Ansys 2024 R2 Discovery), 2D and 3D FEA simulations (COMSOL Multiphysics 6.3), finite volume CFD (Ansys 2020 R2 Fluent), and deep neural networks (DNNs) as surrogate models. Branching angles and blood pressure were systematically varied, and their effects on velocity, pressure, and turbulent kinetic energy were assessed in a time-dependent framework. Fluent provided accurate baseline results, while COMSOL 2D gave sufficient accuracy with much lower runtimes. In contrast, COMSOL 3D required over 160 times longer, making it prohibitive. Surrogate models trained on 6500 or more FEA-derived samples achieved high predictive accuracy (R² > 0.98 for velocity and pressure), balancing training cost and result quality. Cost analysis showed surrogate models become advantageous after 76–93 simulations. Symmetry is expressed in balancing model fidelity and computational efficiency, providing a resource-effective methodology with broad potential in vascular applications.

As part of a project targeting geometrical structure analysis and identification of ragweed leaves, sample images were created. Even though images were taken under near optimal conditions, the samples still contain noise of cast shadow....