Children's independent activities within public spaces emerge as a fundamental condition for their development considered in the context of their needs: socialization, movement, autonomy, and enrichment of their creative, imaginative, and cognitive potential. The promotion of their independence represents a relevant issue for implementing the smart city paradigm. This paradigm calls for a methodological framework where the urban fabric's performance is evaluated via comprehensive analytic protocols. The proposed study presents an audit tool for evaluating the quality of urban spaces in terms of their practicability by children: the Survey on Conditions of Practicable Environments (SCOPE). The practicability of this research is establishing the quality of urban spaces' usability, and it is expressed in terms of compositional, configurational, functional, and social factors of the built environment organized within a framework articulated in seven key dimensions (connectivity, convenience, comfort, commitment, conviviality, conspicuousness, and coexistence). The introduction of the concept of practicability and of indicators incorporating the demand for a children-sensitive perspective in the project of public spaces determine the novelty of the SCOPE procedure. This methodology was applied to an area in Central Cagliari, Italy, to evaluate the usability of public spaces. The results reveal that the proposed methodology is relevant for implementing the smart city paradigm because it addresses children's autonomy and their rights to the city by selecting and defining indicators to clarify and assess conditions of the built environment conducive to children's autonomy and independent social activities.Sustainability 2018, 10, 4189 2 of 23 functionality of the city [5,6], but also a condition for inclusion and equality to consolidate sustainable communities [7]. Practicability can be defined as the potential of the public urban space to promote children's independence by accommodating their independent social activities [6][7][8][9][10][11]. The concept of practicability incorporates not only the demand for a children-sensitive perspective in public spaces [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] but also the conceptualization of the inclusivity of public spaces as their potential to accommodate and enable children's independent mobility, and informal and structured, individual and collective ludic activities [6][7][8][10][11][12].The issue of children's engagement in independent outdoor activities can be referred to the more general problem of a contemporary city's walkability. Walkability can be defined as the extent to which the urban environment is usable for pedestrians [17]. Concerns about walkability relate to a recognition of walking as a fundamental factor for promoting more sustainable, active, and inclusive communities [18,19]. The concept of practicability diverges from the notion of walkability because it emphasizes the importance of exploration and appropriation of public spaces through play as a conditi...

No abstract

This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

This paper presents ongoing research to measure the in situ response to airplane traffic of flexible pavement on a runway at Cagliari-Elmas Airport in Italy. Understanding how pavement materials respond to traffic and environmental loading is fundamental to designing pavements and assessing their performance. The pavement material behavior is affected by many factors (i.e., load magnitude, material properties, and environmental conditions). The influence of these factors can be simultaneously taken into account by measuring in situ stresses and strains using embedded instruments. The pavement layers of the Cagliari-Elmas runway were equipped with 149 instruments: 36 linear variable differential transformers, 36 pressure cells, four time domain reflectometers, 28 T-thermocouples, and 45 hot-mix asphalt strain gauges. The instrumented area, 55 m2, allows measuring the responses during three main loading maneuvers: taking off, landing, and taxiing. The preliminary data acquired during and after the runway's construction and before its opening to airplane traffic and its analysis show that the instrumentation process was a success. The instrument response testing includes falling weight deflectometer, truck, and airplane loading of various types, magnitudes, and speeds. The collected data were successfully compared with preliminary numerical simulations. Further data collection and research will be performed, particularly involving airplane traffic data. Data analysis will include the effect of the environmental data (i.e., moisture and temperature) and airplane configuration and speed. The collected data will be used to validate advanced pavement modeling and predict pavement runway performance. In addition, data resulting from this research have the potential to support and improve runway pavement design and to improve the evaluation process for new and existing runway pavement performance and damage prediction.

No abstract