Engineering Commons^™

Annual Conference 2024 Workshop Report, Rahat Ullah, Adhban Farea, Joe Harrington, Ted Mc Kenna

Reports

This report presents the findings from industry workshops held during the Build Digital Annual Conference on 17 October 2024 in Cork.

The workshops brought together stakeholders from national infrastructure, local authority infrastructure and housing to discuss challenges, priorities and opportunities associated with digital transformation in the Irish construction sector.

The report identifies common themes including leadership and organisational support, digital skills and training, information exchange, resource allocation and the management of asset information.

The findings provide insights into the practical supports required to advance digital adoption across public sector organisations.

Understanding Structured Data From The Perspective Of Irish Industry Professionals, Hamza Tariq, Ciaran Mcnally

Reports

This report examines the challenges associated with adopting structured data across the Irish construction sector, drawing on interviews with industry professionals involved in design and construction.

It explores why unstructured information remains prevalent and identifies barriers including digital knowledge gaps, inconsistent information requirements, fragmented information management systems, established working practices and contractual arrangements.

The report provides recommendations to support greater adoption of structured data, improved interoperability and more effective information exchange, helping organisations realise the benefits of digital construction.

Delivery Approach – Read Me First Guide, Robert Moore

Reports

This Build Digital guidance provides a structured approach to selecting and implementing information management delivery arrangements for public sector construction projects in Ireland, supporting the Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF), the Irish BIM Mandate and the ISO 19650 series.

The guidance considers four delivery approaches: In-house, Third-party, Design Team Lead and Sub-consultant. It supports public sector clients in evaluating their organisational capability, available resources, project complexity, governance requirements and associated risks to determine the most appropriate delivery approach.

The accompanying four-document suite comprises a Read Me First implementation guide, a comparative guide to the delivery approaches, a project-specific risk assessment …

Design Team Lead Delivery Approach - Implementation Guide, Robert Moore

Reports

This Build Digital guidance provides a practical framework for implementing the Design Team Lead information management delivery approach on public sector construction projects in Ireland, aligned with the Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF), the Irish BIM Mandate and the ISO 19650 series.

The approach enables the Design Team Lead to undertake additional information management services on behalf of the Client (Appointing Party), while the Client retains responsibility for governance, approval of information requirements and acceptance of information.

The four-document suite comprises an implementation guide, an activities schedule and two detailed scopes of services covering Standard and Complex project requirements. These …

1 / 2 Toward A Core Domain Ontology For Road Asset Management: A Consolidated Model Of Domain Requirements, Hamza Tariq, Ciaran Mcnally

Reports

This research explainer summarises a study examining how a shared conceptual model can improve interoperability in road asset management. Drawing on a systematic review of existing ontology research, the study consolidates key domain requirements into a Unified Modelling Language (UML) model. The findings provide a foundation for developing a core domain ontology to support more consistent interpretation, exchange and integration of road asset information across BIM, GIS and asset management systems.

Project Information Standard - Asset Register Building, Robert Moore

Tools

This Build Digital Asset Register for Buildings provides a practical starting point for public sector clients developing asset information requirements for conventional building projects.

Based on a simplified selection of COBie information fields, the Excel workbook supports the identification, organisation and collection of asset information for building operation and maintenance. It can assist clients in defining information requirements and communicating these to project delivery teams.

The workbook is particularly suited to organisations beginning their digital asset management journey. It is intended as an adaptable guidance resource rather than a comprehensive asset management solution. More complex buildings and critical infrastructure may …

Getting Started With Digitalisation: A Guide To Meeting Environmental Policy Requirements In The Built Environment, Conor Shaw, James .O'Donnell

Reports

This guide supports organisations across the built environment sector in adopting digital processes to meet environmental policy requirements and improve lifecycle decision-making.

It provides a practical five-step approach to digitalisation: establishing requirements, defining scope, collecting asset data, conducting calculations and interpreting results.

The guide explores how structured information and digital workflows can support environmental reporting, carbon accounting, lifecycle cost analysis and asset management, using practical examples to illustrate their application.

It helps organisations identify suitable starting points, assess their capabilities and make informed decisions about digital adoption.

Connecting Bim And Gis Through Bsdd: Automating Gis Data Templates And Semantic Mapping - Research Explainer, Hamza Tariq, Ciaran Mcnally

Reports

This research explainer examines how the buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) can support greater interoperability between Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Drawing on research presented at the 2026 Civil Engineering Research in Ireland conference, it explores practical approaches to automatically generating standardised GIS data templates, mapping existing asset information to common data definitions, and validating information against agreed requirements.

The explainer demonstrates how open standards and structured data can improve information quality, reduce manual processing and support more consistent asset information management throughout the asset lifecycle.

Building Services Engineering September/October 2026

Building Services Engineering

This issue of Building Services Engineering explores Ireland's net-zero transition, highlighting AI data centre liquid-cooling innovations, critical energy infrastructure updates, ASHRAE and CIBSE safety insights, commercial heat pump selections, decarbonising elevators, and examples of engineering innovation and leadership across the building services sector.

Building Services Engineering July/August 2026

Building Services Engineering

This issue of Building Services Engineering features heat pumps, propane usage, solar power, and ventilation for indoor air quality. Features include district heating, HVACR optimisation, lift retrofitting, EU water policy, and an interview with WiBSE Ireland Chair Heather Holt.

Optimizing Few-Shot Learning In Pruned Large Language Models With Task-Specific Prompts, Danyal Aftab

Dissertations

Few-shot learning enables large language models to efficiently perform tasks given only a limited number of labeled examples. However, training these models entirely from scratch requires substantial computational resources, making it challenging for many organizations to fully leverage their potential. This thesis explores how structured pruning, task-specific prompting, and parameter-efficient fine-tuning can be combined to preserve few-shot learning capabilities in compressed LLMs, while also extending their utility to real-world recommendation systems.

In this research, we propose the Tailored LLM framework, which first reduces model size through structured pruning and then enhances few-shot learning performance using carefully designed prompts. We experiment …

Genwriter 2.0: A Hybrid Case-Based And Llm Rewriting Approach For Mitigating Implicit Gender Cues In Text, Shweta Soundararajan, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

Gendered language is the use of words or phrases that indicate an individual's gender. Although useful in some contexts, gendered language can reinforce gender stereotypes and introduce bias, particularly in machine learning models for tasks involving people such as recruitment or occupation classification. When textual content about individuals, such as biographies, contain gender cues, models can learn spurious associations between gender and other characteristics of individuals, such as profession, potentially resulting in unfair outcomes such as reduced hiring opportunities for women.

To address this challenge, we propose GenWriter 2.0, a hybrid approach that integrates Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) with Large …

Adaptive Solar Energy Collection Fenestration Systems; Measured Performance On Test Cell Under Real Weather Conditions., Noel O’Neill

Doctoral

Buildings account for a significant share of global energy use, and improving façade performance is critical to achieving nearly zero-energy building targets. This research addresses the challenge of integrating multiple adaptive functions into a single façade system to reduce heat loss, harness solar energy, and provide dynamic environmental control. The aim was to design, construct, and evaluate an adaptive Multi-Functional Façade (MFF) that integrates vacuum glazing, switchable opacity glazing, and a ventilated cavity with active airflow control to provide façade insulation, heated fresh air, recirculated air, or exhaust ventilation.

A Solar Thermal Test Cell (STTC) designed to Passive House standard, …

Monitoring And Short-Term Forecasting Of Atmospheric Air Pollutants Using Deep Neural Networks, Prasanjit Dey

Dissertations

Accurate forecasting of near-surface atmospheric air pollutants such as PM2.5, NO2, SO2, CO, and O3 remains a critical scientific and societal challenge. This difficulty arises from several factors, including nonlinear pollutant dynamics, sparse ground monitoring net works, heterogeneous satellite observations, and strong cross-pollutant interdependencies. Substantial advances have been achieved in temporal deep learning, probabilistic modeling, satellite-based estimation, physics-informed methods, and foundation models. However, these paradigms have largely evolved in isolation. As a result, existing systems are often station-dependent or pollutant-specific and optimized for a single forecasting task. This limits their robustness and generalizability across regions and heterogeneous data regimes.

This …

Building Services Engineering May/June 2026

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Build Digital Annual Survey 2025 And Trends & Comparisons 2022 - 2025, Clare Eriksson, Robert Moore, Bilal Succar

Reports

The Build Digital Annual Survey 2025 provides an overview of digital transformation across Ireland’s construction and built environment sector, drawing on responses from 205 participants across industry, government, and academia. The findings show continued sector engagement with digital transformation, driven by government mandates, project benefits, and partner expectations. Common digital deliverables, such as model-based design, documentation, coordination, and clash detection, are now widely used, while more advanced uses linked to operations, sustainability, interoperability, and AI remain less mature. The report also highlights ongoing challenges, including skills gaps, uneven training provision, limited OpenBIM adoption, and inconsistent implementation of ISO 19650 and …

Building Services Engineering March/April 2026

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Active Listening And Reassurance In Text-Based Virtual Health Coaches, Ghulam Hussain

Dissertations

Conversational agents (CAs) have strong potential to support health and physical wellbeing through text-based coaching, but they remain limited in their ability to demonstrate supportive social behaviours that are important in human coaching interactions. In particular, relatively little is known about how Active Listening and Reassurance are perceived, modelled, and evaluated in text-based virtual healthcare coaching, or how such behaviours should be adapted to individual users.

This dissertation investigates how supportive interaction behaviours can enhance text based virtual health coaching, with an initial focus on Active Listening and Reassurance and a later theoretical emphasis on Active Listening. Across five unique …

Virtual Humans In Virtual Reality: A Scoping Review On Sociability, Fidelity, And Expression, J K Sangeeth Chandran, Marisa Llorens Salvador, Cathy Ennis

Articles

Introduction:

Virtual reality (VR) systems have evolved significantly over the past decade, enabling immersive experiences with enhanced realism and interactivity. This has motivated an interest in socially oriented applications. As user proxies, Virtual Humans (VHs) play essential roles in such applications. However, despite technological advancements, achieving realistic, expressive, and socially responsive VHs continues to present design and implementation challenges. In this scoping review, we present the state-of-the-art of VR VHs, examining the impact of VHs on the user experience.

Methodology:

We reviewed 59 papers retrieved from five databases across three core themes: the implementation and impact of VH facial expressions, …

Information Manager (Bim) Role Profiles, Davitt Lamon, Robert Moore, Stephen Lynam

Reports

This document, Information Manager (BIM) Role Profiles, has been prepared in support of the Irish Government’s Building Information Modelling (BIM) Mandate. It is the result of a collaborative effort between Build Digital, the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (DPER), the Infrastructure Division, and the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI). Its primary purpose is to define the competencies, responsibilities, and experience required for Information Management (BIM) roles to facilitate the successful digital delivery of public works projects. It is important to recognise that under the ISO 19650 series of standards, Information Management is defined as …

Sustainability Tool Inventory, Robert Moore, James O'Donnell

Tools

The purpose of this inventory is to inform Irish organisations, including the private sector, public agencies and semi-states, about Sustainability Tool

Building Services Engineering January/February 2026

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

The Ripple Effect: How The Hse Data Breach Shaped Public Opinion, Mugdha Srivastava, Abhishek Kaushik, Roisin Loughran, Fergal Mccaffery

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

The digital world is rapidly evolving, and healthcare systems now depend heavily on data-driven and connected technologies. While these tools bring many benefits, they also increase exposure to data breaches and cyberattacks, raising concerns about privacy, security, and trust. Although earlier research has focused on technical and policy solutions for data protection, less attention has been paid to how major cyber incidents influence public attitudes. This study addresses that gap by examining how a major cyberattack relates to people’s views on data security and trust in digital health. We surveyed individuals about their personal cybersecurity practices and their opinions on …

Beyond The Sayable: Wittgenstein, Theory Of Mind And Affective Simulation Of Llms, Haomiaomiao Wang, Lili Zhang, Tomás E. Ward

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

Wittgenstein’s distinction between what can be said and what can only be shown frames a limit of propositional language. Affect and aesthetic are not primarily matters of correct description but of how expressions function within shared forms of life. Large language models (LLMs), however, increasingly produce fluent language that resembles such understanding by reproducing the patterns through which people ordinarily talk about emotion and perspective.

This paper argues that apparent Theory of Mind (ToM) in LLMs is understood as competence in the publicly shared patterns of mental-state language, rather than as grounded understanding. Using abstract artworks, we show that LLMs …

Bridging Research And Practice: Your Guide To Implementing Evidence-Based Gender Equality Actions In Computing Education, Alina Berry

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

What if you could access proven strategies for promoting gender equality without spending months reviewing academic and grey literature? TechMate makes this possible. This free, open-access toolkit transforms scattered research into actionable guidance (actions) that anyone can use, whether you are a lecturer wanting to make your classroom more inclusive, a department head developing new policies, or a student advocate pushing for change. Actions are structured into four context-based categories and relevant subcategories. Each action comes with implementation instructions, where relevant, with ready-to-use templates, and links to the supporting evidence. While developed for computing higher education, TechMate’s research-driven approach is …

Engaging Older Adults Through Artefact-Driven Approaches For Ai Literacy Development: A Multi Stakeholder For Digital Inclusion, Paula Kelly, Mayank Parmar, Damon Berry, André Almo, Fatima Badmos, Peterson Jean

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes deeply integrated into modern ICT and e-Accessibility services, older adults face a growing "digital divide" often characterised by a lack of awareness regarding how automated AI systems frequently functioning as "black boxes" infiltrate and impact their daily lives. This paper presents a multimodal workshop model designed to foster critical AI literacy among older adults, transitioning them from passive recipients to active stakeholders. Utilising an Action Research framework, the study details the co-creation phase of a three-phase national Age- Friendly AI literacy initiative in Ireland. Central to the methodology is the use of tangible exhibits as …

Lidar Mirror Detection Model For Autonomous Robotics, Sofiia Sarana

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

LiDAR sensors are widely used in autonomous robots and vehicles for mapping, navigation, and obstacle avoidance. Because mapping is a foundational capability in nearly all robotic systems, it must be both accurate and reliable. However, LiDAR frequently fails in environments containing mirrors or highly reflective surfaces, where distorted returns corrupt maps and generate false obstacles. Current solutions typically rely on additional sensors and computationally expensive sensor-fusion pipelines, which is costly and difficult to scale for compact robots with limited onboard resources. This paper presents a machine-learning–based LiDAR mirror detection model that identifies reflective surfaces directly from LiDAR data, reducing the …

When Irl Is Not An Option: Social Media Bans And The Exclusion Of Autistic Youth, Melanie Gruben, Ashley Sheil, Anne Ryan Duffy, Jacob Camillleri, Michelle O'Keeffe, Hazel Murray

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

After the roll-out of the social media ban in Australia in 2025, policy makers are considering psychosocial benefits and logistical implications. However, the needs of autistic people, who may rely more on the Internet for social connection earlier in life, should be taken into account. This white paper proposes a responsibility to support alternative means of social connection for autistic young people where bans are considered, as IRL (in real life) socialising is not always accessible.

Selfhealth: Continuous Semantic Intelligence For Privacy-Aware Lifelogging, Allie Tran

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

Lifelogging — the continuous digital recording of everyday experience through wearable cameras and sensors — has long promised benefits for memory augmentation, health monitoring, and lifestyle analysis. However, current systems follow a capture–store–retrieve model that delays analysis until after data collection, limiting their practical usefulness and creating significant privacy risks through prolonged retention of sensitive raw data. This paper argues that lifelogging should instead analyse data at the moment of capture, enabling timely, context-sensitive support and safer handling of personal information through privacy-by-design. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach through SelfHealth, an early prototype system built on a custom …

A Human-Centred View Of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships Operations Using The Shell Model, Natasya Habibah, Paul Hegarty, Breda Kenny

Women+ in Early Career Research Symposium

The concept of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) has existed for decades and is advancing rapidly as a result of developments in artificial intelligence. Despite these technological advancements, human involvement remains essential to ensure safety and reliability. This study applies the Software, Hardware, Environment, and Liveware (SHELL) model to develop a human-centric framework for examining the integration of human elements with intelligent and automated technologies in MASS. The framework considers software, with particular attention to regulatory aspects; hardware, including general system and sub-system architecture; environmental factors, including both natural and artificial, as well as dynamic and static elements; and liveware, …