000 Informatik, Informationswissenschaft, allgemeine Werke
This research aims to model soil temperature (ST) using machine learning models of multilayer perceptron (MLP) algorithm and support vector machine (SVM) in hybrid form with the Firefly optimization algorithm, i.e. MLP-FFA and SVM-FFA. In the current study, measured ST and meteorological parameters of Tabriz and Ahar weather stations in a period of 2013–2015 are used for training and testing of the studied models with one and two days as a delay. To ascertain conclusive results for validation of the proposed hybrid models, the error metrics are benchmarked in an independent testing period. Moreover, Taylor diagrams utilized for that purpose. Obtained results showed that, in a case of one day delay, except in predicting ST at 5 cm below the soil surface (ST5cm) at Tabriz station, MLP-FFA produced superior results compared with MLP, SVM, and SVM-FFA models. However, for two days delay, MLP-FFA indicated increased accuracy in predicting ST5cm and ST 20cm of Tabriz station and ST10cm of Ahar station in comparison with SVM-FFA. Additionally, for all of the prescribed models, the performance of the MLP-FFA and SVM-FFA hybrid models in the testing phase was found to be meaningfully superior to the classical MLP and SVM models.
Urban planners are often challenged with the task of developing design solutions which must meet multiple, and often contradictory, criteria. In this paper, we investigated the trade-offs between social, psychological, and energy potential of the fundamental elements of urban form: the street network and the building massing. Since formal mehods to evaluate urban form from the psychological and social point of view are not readily available, we developed a methodological framework to quantify these criteria as the first contribution in this paper. To evaluate the psychological potential, we conducted a three-tiered empirical study starting from real world environments and then abstracting them to virtual environments. In each context, the implicit (physiological) response and explicit (subjective) response of pedestrians were measured. To quantify the social potential, we developed a street network centrality-based measure of social accessibility.
For the energy potential, we created an energy model to analyze the impact of pure geometric form on the energy demand of the building stock. The second contribution of this work is a method to identify distinct clusters of urban form and, for each, explore the trade-offs between the select design criteria. We applied this method to two case studies identifying nine types of urban form and their respective potential trade-offs, which are directly applicable for the assessment of strategic decisions regarding urban form during the early planning stages.