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Globally, designing cities to meet diverse community needs and improve well-being is becoming increasingly essential and challenging. At the foremost of this challenge is inclusive design (ID), which considers all individuals, is a key aspect, coinciding with a growing focus on public open spaces (POS), particularly after the outbreak of COVID-19. The pandemic and its aftermath led people to use POS to fulfill physical and recreational activities, revealing a lack of ID understanding for diverse abilities. Thus, there is a need to consider different design aspects of POS such as ease of accessibility, inclusiveness, and social interaction to maintain a wellbeing-oriented City design. From the previous, this paper aims to understand ID in POS and address design aspects in order to make cities more resilient under the mandate of Goal 11 of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The paper follows three main phases: theoretical, identifying the research problem and framework; analytical, reviewing existing literature on universal and inclusive design (UID) strategies in POS; and empirical, analyzing a disability-friendly public beach in Alexandria as a case. The aim is to bridge the gap between design and user needs, proposing strategies and recommendations for future urban interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increase in car domination, air pollution, traffic congestion, and urban sprawl, sustainable, livable, creative, and walkable cities are critical, now more than ever, for improving quality of life. The effect of neighborhood urban morphologies on walkability has received much attention in recent years. In this vein, the main research question is: how do different neighborhood urban morphologies impact the level of walkability in urban environments, and what are the essential elements impacting the walkability index? Thus, this research aims to determine the impact of urban morphology on walkability in the city of Alexandria, Egypt, as a case study by utilizing multi-spatial analysis. In particular, the study focused on assessing the walkability of four different study areas that vary according to their urban morphology: Kafr–Abdo, Smouha, Latin Quarter, and Roushdy areas. The analysis utilized GIS to calculate a number of indicators to reach the final walkability index for each study area. Results helped to identify the neighborhoods characterized by the lowest level of pedestrian walkability in relation to the area's urban morphology in an attempt to help decision-makers suggest the appropriate interventions for those areas. The aggregated index results showed that the highest walkability index was that of the gridiron morphology, followed by the linear morphology, with the radial and organic morphologies coming in behind them, respectively. The composite walkability index values were 0.364, 0.247, 0.232 and 0.225, respectively. The reason for this is mainly the presence of the commercial density, intersection density, street density, services density, BCR, and residential density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Room occupancy prediction based on indoor environmental quality may be the breakthrough to ensure energy efficiency and establish an interior ambience tailored to each user. Identifying whether temperature, humidity, lighting, and CO2 levels may be used as efficient predictors of room occupancy accuracy is needed to help designers better utilize the readings and data collected in order to improve interior design, in an effort to better suit users. It also aims to help in energy efficiency and saving in an ever-increasing energy crisis and dangerous levels of climate change. This paper evaluated the accuracy of room occupancy recognition using a dataset with diverse amounts of light, CO2, and humidity. As classification algorithms, K-nearest neighbors (KNN), hybrid Adam optimizer–artificial neural network–back-propagation network (AO–ANN (BP)), and decision trees (DT) were used. Furthermore, this research is based on machine learning interpretability methodologies. Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) improve interpretability by estimating the significance values for each feature for classifiers applied. The results indicate that the KNN performs better than the DT and AO-ANN (BP) classification models have 99.5%. Though the two classifiers are designed to evaluate variations in interpretations, we must ensure that they have accurate detection. The results show that SHAP provides successful implementation following these metrics, with differences detected amongst classifier models that support the assumption that model complexity plays a significant role when predictability is taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goal Three of the Sustainable Development Goals emphasizes the concept of "leaving no one behind"; a model for inclusivity and coherence. Amongst those that are often "left behind" are patients at the end stage of their life due to a terminal illness or a medical diagnosis. These are often left to die without thought to the quality of life that they receive before their demise, and many experience this stage at home due to fear of expenses, or in a best-case scenario at a hospital to help alleviate or manage pain. In many places worldwide, this is where palliative and hospice care come in and focus on the End-of-Life care provided to patients who fit the criteria. The number of architecture and design related studies in this field are not numerous, and those that are there do not focus on the patient as a user with rights, but merely as a patient that is there. The concept of a user-centered design is forgotten in midst of all the pain and suffering of all concerned, namely, the patient, his beloved, and his caregivers. However, focusing on this nexus at the core of the design project may help promote this painful and stressful time in life and induce serenity and acceptance in a time that is often dark and ominous. This research aims to develop a design framework for places that deal with End-of-Life care and how to provide a better quality of End-of-Life experience for terminally ill patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tracking rural areas and studying them may not be an easy task. The concept of whether the area at hand is urban or rural could be simple, but lately rural areas could carry many features that may deviate the definition into one which is unclear. In urbanized rural development, reversing the urbanization spotted may not be the ideal way to go, urban developers often suggest that to go back to the roots is to regenerate the area back into rural, however, regenerating rural areas using rural parameters and definitions may not be what the urban area in hand needs and the changes and challenges that are facing rural communities in Egypt need to be understood before any plan can be deemed as effective or even worthwhile The rapid increase in urbanization and how it affects agriculture land, shorelines, and rural land, has affected badly the rural capacity, and led to a constant threat of overhaul in place of towns, cities, and other urban activities. However, rural areas are the lungs of the planet alongside forests and other green areas and having them diminish substantially will lead to an inevitable catastrophe. Regenerating rural areas should focus on revitalizing and embedding them into the social, cultural, and economic structure of the region, however, it may not always involve turning them back to what is commonly termed as rural. This research attempts to review and discuss the meaning and definitions of rural regeneration with a view to propose a strategic plan to regenerate borderline areas in Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores walking and walkability in the smart city and makes a case for their centrality in the debate on the resilience and sustainability of smart cities, as outlined in the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is argued that, while the human/inhabitant-centric paradigm of urban development consolidates, and research on walking, walkability, and pedestrian satisfaction flourishes, the inroads of ICT render it necessary to reflect on these issues in the conceptually- and geographically-delimited space of the smart city. More importantly, it becomes imperative to make respective findings useful and usable for policymakers. To this end, by approaching walking and walkability through the lens of utility, the objective of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework in which the relevance of walking and walkability, hereafter referred to as w2, as a distinct subject of research in the smart cities debate is validated. This framework is then employed to construct a model of a composite w2 smart city utility index. With the focus on the development of the conceptual framework, in which the w2 utility index is embedded, this paper constitutes the first conceptual step of the composite index development process. The value added of this paper is three-fold: First, the relevance of walking and walkability as a distinct subject of research in the realm of smart cities research is established. Second, a mismatch between end-users' satisfaction derived from walking and their perception of walkability and the objective factors influencing walking and walkability is identified and conceptualized by referencing the concept of utility. Third, a model smart city w2 utility index is proposed as a diagnostic and prognostic tool that, in the subsequent stages of research and implementation, will prove useful for decisionmakers and other stakeholders involved in the process of managing smart cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]