BuildOcc: A Large Language Model Occupant Agent Platform for Building Energy Research
Wooyoung Jung
Sep 2026
Human-computer Interaction
Abstract
Occupants are a primary source of uncertainty in building energy consumption and management, yet existing occupant behavior models cannot capture adaptive and reasoning responses considering the occupant's personal history, current context, and the type of energy signal being delivered. This study presents BuildOcc, an open-source Python platform that grounds large language model agents in the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), a nationally representative diary dataset covering 16,684 respondents. Through BuildOcc, each simulated occupant agent can be instantiated with a demographic persona drawn from ATUS population statistics, a memory stream that accumulates and reflects on timestep-level observations, and an activity scheduler that samples empirically from ATUS time-at-activity distributions. The platform exposes a three-layer interface - Python library, REST API, and Model Context Protocol server - so that any building energy tool (EnergyPlus, Home Assistant) can integrate behavioral intelligence without bespoke coupling code. A plugin registry lets the community add new occupant strata, custom schedulers, and alternative memory backends as separate installable packages. Two validation tiers show that ATUS-grounded sampling reproduces empirically calibrated activity distributions and that demographic priors propagate into persona-consistent agent reasoning across timesteps, establishing internal consistency across strata. BuildOcc provides the building energy community with a reusable, openly available implementation of the occupant behavioral layer. BuildOcc is openly released at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21192895 under the Apache License 2.0 and installable via pip install buildocc.
Agile - denoting "the quality of being agile, readiness for motion, nimbleness, activity, dexterity in motion" - software development methods are attempting to offer an answer to the eager business community asking for lighter weight along with faster and nimbler software development processes. This is especially the case with the rapidly growing and volatile Internet software industry as well as for the emerging mobile application environment. The new agile methods have evoked substantial amount of literature and debates. However, academic research on the subject is still scarce, as most of existing publications are written by practitioners or consultants. The aim of this publication is to begin filling this gap by systematically reviewing the existing literature on agile software development methodologies. This publication has three purposes. First, it proposes a definition and a classification of agile software development approaches. Second, it analyses ten software development methods that can be characterized as being "agile" against the defined criterion. Third, it compares these methods and highlights their similarities and differences. Based on this analysis, future research needs are identified and discussed.
P. Abrahamsson, O. Salo, Jussi Ronkainen et al.· arXiv.org· 728 citations· ⚡54
Context: Software startups are newly created companies with no operating history and fast in producing cutting-edge technologies. These companies develop software under highly uncertain conditions, tackling fast-growing markets under severe lack of resources. Therefore, software startups present a unique combination of characteristics which pose several challenges to software development activities. Objective: This study aims to structure and analyze the literature on software development in startup companies, determining thereby the potential for technology transfer and identifying software development work practices reported by practitioners and researchers. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study, developing a classification schema, ranking the selected primary studies according their rigor and relevance, and analyzing reported software development work practices in startups. Results: A total of 43 primary studies were identified and mapped, synthesizing the available evidence on software development in startups. Only 16 studies are entirely dedicated to software development in startups, of which 10 result in a weak contribution (advice and implications (6); lesson learned (3); tool (1)). Nineteen studies focus on managerial and organizational factors. Moreover, only 9 studies exhibit high scientific rigor and relevance. From the reviewed primary studies, 213 software engineering work practices were extracted, categorized and analyzed. Conclusion: This mapping study provides the first systematic exploration of the state-of-art on software startup research. The existing body of knowledge is limited to a few high quality studies. Furthermore, the results indicate that software engineering work practices are chosen opportunistically, adapted and configured to provide value under the constrains imposed by the startup context.
Nicolò Paternoster, Carmine Giardino, M. Unterkalmsteiner et al.· Information and Software Tec...· 394 citations· ⚡54
A new method, called CW-Net, translates the reasoning process of an autonomous vehicle’s AI system into understandable concepts that explain its behavior.
