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The urban open public spaces are the areas where people tend to gather together, which may lead to great crowd-gathering risk. This paper proposes a new method to assess the rank and spatial distribution of crowd-gathering risk in open public spaces in a large urban area. Firstly, a crowd density estimation method based on Tencent user density (TUD) data is built for different times in open public spaces. Then, a reasonable crowd density threshold is delimited to detect critical crowd situations in open public spaces and find out the key open public spaces that need to have intensive crowd-gathering prevention. For estimating the crowd-gathering risk in key open public spaces, the quantified risk assessment approach is conducted based on the classical risk theory that simultaneously considers the probability of an accident occurring, the severity of the accident consequence, and the risk aversion factor. A case study of the area within the Outer-ring Road of Shanghai was conducted to determine the feasibility of the new method. The thematic maps that describe the ranks and spatial distribution of crowd-gathering risk were generated. According to the risk maps, the government can determine the crowd control measures in different areas to reduce the crowd-gathering risk and prevent dangerous events.

AbstractShip-source pollution is one of the important contributors to marine environment pollution. Because the legal status of the Arctic shipping routes is not clear, there is a considerable degree of dispute in the application of the rules on the prevention and control of ship-source pollution. The increased melting of sea ice undermines the legal legitimacy of the "ice-covered areas" clause under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The conflict between the application of the Polar Code and "ice-covered areas" will also reach an initial conclusion in the context of melting sea ice. However, the inadequacy of ship-source pollution rules in the Polar Code hampers its application, which has led to a negative impact on the more active role in the governance of pollution from Arctic shipping. For replying to the Challenges in the prevention of ship-source pollution in Arctic shipping routes, the relevant rules of the Polar Code need to be further improved, while a more binding HFO ban according to ship types needs to be applied. Therefore, a more important role in the future Arctic governance mechanism will be played by the enhanced enforcement of the Polar Code, meanwhile, the target for uniform international regulation of preventing and controlling ship-source pollution in Arctic shipping routes should be achieved.

AbstractDo physicians behave rationally when facing a new disease? This study assesses physicians' ambiguity attitudes towards the future severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in its early stages and the financial market in the US using an incentive-compatible online experiment. Our findings indicate that physicians demonstrate significant deviations from expected utility, characterized by a modest degree of ambiguity aversion and pronounced levels of likelihood insensitivity. While physicians generally show less insensitivity to uncertainty compared to the general public, both groups exhibited similar levels of irrationality when dealing with the ambiguity surrounding the COVID-19 severity. These results underscore the necessity for debiasing strategies among medical professionals, especially in managing real-world uncertainties, with a specific focus on mitigating likelihood insensitivity.

Ice cream products are sweet and rich in taste, which make them popular desserts among consumers. However, the high-fat and high-sugar contents in ice creams may result in multiple health conditions after prolonged consumption. Camellia oil-based diacylglycerol (CD) oil can reduce the body fat accumulation due to their different metabolic pathways from triacylglycerol (TAG) oil. It is believed that the long-term consumption of CD can improve human's health by lowering the plasma TAG and blood sugar levels. Nevertheless, CD is unsuitable for direct application in ice cream products due to its low solid fat content (SFC). Therefore, in the present work, fractionation was attempted to increase the SFC of the CD. Subsequently, camellia oil, CD, and its solid fractions were characterised and further incorporated in ice cream formulations. It was found that fractionation significantly (p < 0.05) increased the SFC of the CD. The solid fractions of CD exhibited similar physicochemical properties with the oils/fats commonly used for ice cream production, namely palm olein and milk fat. At 0°C, the SFC of the CD solid fractions was 29.33%; whereas at 37°C, the SFC decreased rapidly, which enabled them to melt quickly in the mouth. At the same time, CD solid fractions were rich in β'-form crystals which contributed to the rich, delicate, and smooth texture for ice cream products. The ice cream formulated with CD solid fractions showed better overrun (48.24%) and hardness (594.18 g) as compared to the ice creams prepared with camellia oil (with the overrun and hardness of 41.27% and 524.36 g, respectively) and CD (with the overrun and hardness of 39.77% and 284.31 g, respectively). The substitution of TAG with CD solid fractions made the formulated ice cream product a healthier dessert, and at the same time provided similar organoleptic properties as conventional ice creams.