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Much research has been conducted to investigate the quality of writing and high-level revisions in word processing-assisted and pen-and-paper writing modes. Studies that address cognitive aspects, such as experience and comfort with computers, by which students compose essays during writing assessments have remained relatively unexplored. To fill this gap, the present study investigates the impact of writing using computers versus traditional writing with pen-and-paper based on 366 undergraduate students in Singapore. It analyses the students' thinking processes, the quality of their written work, and their perceptions of working with computers. The results indicate that the students demonstrated a positive attitude towards working with computers. Furthermore, the computer-delivered writing mode has a positive impact on their quality of writing in both technical aspects (content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics) and global aspects (setting macro rhetorical goal and ordering information in achieving the macro rhetorical goal). On the other hand, the results show that there was no significant difference between the paper and computer writing modes in their effects during the planning stage of writing in-class reflections. The study contributes to writing research by encouraging teachers to give students an option of delivery modes, beyond traditional pen-and-paper, for their writing assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why have Singapore's unique developmental state arrangements persisted in a region which has experienced democratic change? This paper argues that this is due to the PAP state's successful legitimation of its unique brand of meritocracy, one which has both competitive and interventionist elements. During the colonial era, a culture of economic meritocracy evolved in a bottom-up process through social and commercial interactions between the British class and Chinese community. This was then transmuted by the PAP's top-down imposition of the institutions and discourses of political meritocracy. This cultural hybrid allows the state to sustain its hegemony in the face of progressive social change. Accordingly, our emphasis on the wider institutional environment within which merit is conceived helps to better illuminate Singapore's challenges of encouraging organic innovation, alleviating social stratification, and opening up its political arena. This paper suggests that the problems in these areas stem not from meritocracy per se, but from the PAP's "monocentric meritocracy" where merit is narrowly defined and singularly imposed in the post-colonial era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing pressure to cut carbon emissions and develop sustainability plans, companies need carbon credits to offset emissions that cannot be eliminated from their operations, new global carbon exchange to launch in Singapore by 2021 end, the high-quality credit can bridge this gap and play an important role in the overall climate change mitigation strategy. The purpose of this research is to use the production data (including carbon emissions) of paper-making companies in Taiwan to establish a circular economy mathematical programming model and the concept based on the activity cost method (ABC) to explore the impact of different carbon emissions costs (such carbon tax, carbon cap-and-trade, etc.) on the company's production structure and profitability impact. The research results show that different carbon emission cost models have different effects on the company's optimal product-mix and profitability. The managerial implication is to combine the extensive application of the carbon emission credit mechanism, which can offset the carbon emissions in the production process and have a significant impact on the company's sustainable competitiveness. In addition, this study can also enable decision makers to understand the impact of different carbon emission cost models on the profitability of the company's product mix, which can be used as a reference for production planning decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As public transportation faces increasing ridership demand, metrics such as the number of passengers denied boarding become important for measuring the service quality of transit systems. Many studies in the past have used automated fare collection (AFC) (also known as smart card data) and automated vehicle location data to infer the probability distributions for commuters that experience unable-to-board (UTB) events in metro systems, but few have studied UTB events for buses. In this paper, we demonstrate that the probability distribution of UTB commuters inferred from AFC data can be modelled by a truncated binomial distribution under certain assumptions. This model is then validated against synthetic UTB events generated using simulations and against actual UTB events recorded from ground surveys. Finally, we apply our model on real AFC data of commuters in the Singapore bus network to serve as a case study. Our method enables transport planners and operators to identify bus stops and time intervals where overcrowding and UTB events is prevalent, so that appropriate measures can be taken to mitigate such occurrences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rare diseases pose immense challenges for healthcare systems due to their low prevalence, associated disabilities, and attendant treatment costs. Advancements in gene therapy, such as treatments for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), have introduced novel therapeutic options, but the high costs, exemplified by Zolgensma® at US$2.1 million, present significant financial barriers. This scoping review aimed to compare the funding approaches for rare disease treatments across high-performing health systems in Australia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US), aiming to identify best practices and areas for future research. Methods: In accordance with the PRISMA-ScR guidelines and the methodological framework by Arksey and O'Malley and ensuing recommendations, a comprehensive search of electronic databases (Medline, EMBASE, and Cochrane) and grey literature from health department websites and leading national organizations dedicated to rare diseases in these countries was conducted. Countries selected for comparison were high-income countries with advanced economies and high-performing health systems: Australia, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, and the US. The inclusion criteria focused on studies detailing drug approval processes, reimbursement decisions and funding mechanisms, and published from 2010 to 2024. Results: Based on a thorough review of 18 published papers and grey literature, various strategies are employed by countries to balance budgetary constraints and access to rare disease treatments. Australia utilizes the Life Saving Drugs Program and risk-sharing agreements. Singapore depends on the Rare Disease Fund, which matches public donations. South Korea's National Health Insurance Service covers specific orphan drugs through risk-sharing agreements. The UK relies on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to evaluate treatments for cost-effectiveness, supported by the Innovative Medicines Fund. In the US, a combination of federal and state programs, private insurance and non-profit support is used. Conclusion: Outcome-based risk-sharing agreements present a practical solution for managing the financial strain of costly treatments. These agreements tie payment to actual treatment efficacy, thereby distributing financial risk and promoting ongoing data collection. Countries should consider adopting and expanding these agreements to balance immediate expenses with long-term benefits, ultimately ensuring equitable access to crucial treatments for patients afflicted by rare diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in alcohol consumption, and the greater consequences of chronic alcohol use among females, as well as the convergence of the gender gap warrants investigation. This paper aims to uncover gender differences in individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) in Singapore. The SMHS 2016 was a population-based, cross-sectional, epidemiological study. Recruitment spanned from August 2016 to March 2018, where 6126 respondents were recruited. Similarly to global estimates, lifetime prevalence and 12-month prevalence for AUD were higher in males than females. However, females had a higher prevalence of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) co-morbidity than males. Women also had an earlier onset and age of recovery of AUD than men. Alarmingly, male (94.14%) and female (100%) respondents reported low help-seeking for their AUD. Gender differences in individuals with AUD were identified in Singapore population. Future research should direct its effort to identify barriers to help-seeking for individuals with alcohol use disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Good People, by Singaporean playwright Haresh Sharma, unmasks racial and religious tensions between Singapore's increasingly diverse racial groups and the attendant ramifications on the healthcare ecosystem and the doctor-patient relationship. Drawing upon Michel Foucault's notion of heterotopia, this paper argues that, in Good People, Sharma employs theater as a site of resistance by calling into question state and medical authority. First, state authority is challenged through the play's scrutiny of the ideological principle of multiculturalism and its usefulness in fostering meaningful cross-cultural exchanges and acceptance of different cultural and religious beliefs in the clinic. Second, the play destabilizes medical authority by surfacing the complex relationship between the doctor's unconscious biases, racial and religious prejudice, and clinical judgment, thereby casting doubt on medicine's claims of objectivity. In doing so, this paper argues, the play resists simplistic binary categorizations of the behaviors and motivations of the characters into good/bad or right/wrong, instead raising questions about power, knowledge, and contesting truths within the confines of the cultural space of a hospice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to provide a comprehensive analysis of English language teaching (ELT) research in Southeast Asia (SEA) using both quantitative and qualitative data. Specifically, this paper sought to describe the characteristics, growth, impact, trajectory, and distribution of ELT research in the SEA region, determine the research themes that emerged and how they have evolved for the past 6 years, and identify the extent of collaboration among SEA ELT scholars. This examination, covering a 6-year period, showcases the breadth and depth of research undertaken in the region. Overall, the research productivity and citations in the region have been increasing during the inclusive years, with Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia leading the list in almost all metrics. Research designs have also become more sophisticated in recent years as research contexts and topics continue to expand. Popular topics include teacher cognition and agency, teaching practices, computer-assisted language learning, and teaching macro skills. Although collaboration among SEA countries remains modest, their collaboration with western countries is relatively extensive, especially Vietnam and Singapore. Policy implications and future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the spectrum efficiency enhancement for Internet of Things (IoT) by introducing the graph-theory-based spectrum optimization reuse. During the spectrum reuse, how to ascertain the interference range and user's transmission status is critical. In this article, we model the interference range between IoT terminals by considering their interaction status which includes interaction frequency, duration and stability. The notion of interaction status is very similar to that of social distance among people in the context of pandemic control, which is a highly effective model for supporting contact tracing by analyzing the interaction frequency, duration and stability among people. Compared with other traditional dynamic spectrum optimization methods, introducing the concept of social distance can better evaluate the IoT user's interference and transmission status from a novel perspective, then enhancing the optimal spectrum allocation. By modeling the social distances among IoT terminals, we estimate the desirable interference range for IoT devices which serves as the basis for graph-theory-oriented spectrum optimization. Together with the actual physical distances between IoT devices, they form the basis for optimizing spectrum reuse patterns. Graph theory is further utilized to complete the final spectrum optimization. Furthermore, comparison simulation tests are conducted to evaluate the performances of our proposed solution in network benefits and system capacity.Kindly check and confirm the inserted city "Singapore" is correctly identified.CorrectPlease provide author biographys and photos.The biographys and photos are correct.Kindly check and confirm the corresponding affiliation processed is correctly identified.Corresponding author is both at Aff1 and Aff2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the associations between stress and fatigue and sexual spontaneity among heterosexual married couples in Singapore, a high-income society with high work performance expectations and long working hours. Data on self-reported menstrual dates, sexual activity within the marriage, and stress and fatigue levels were collected from 657 married women aged 25–34 years through biweekly online diaries over 14 weeks. Using a two-way fixed effects logistic model which controlled for time-invariant individual fixed effects and menstrual cycle fixed effects, the paper tests three hypotheses: (1) sexual activity is significantly lower on weekdays compared to weekends and public holidays, (2) sexual activity is significantly lower during periods when women reported higher stress and fatigue, and (3) stress and fatigue are more predictive of sexual activity during weekdays than during weekends. Frequencies of marital sexual intercourse during the diary keeping period were 3.69 and 2.55 per 30 days among women aged 25–29 and 30–34 years, respectively, much lower than ideal frequencies of 6.40 and 5.23. Consistent with all three hypotheses, there was a strong positive weekend effect and a weak but positive public holiday effect, and strong negative effects of both stress and fatigue, especially during weekdays. There was no evidence of compensatory sex on weekends to make up for hectic workweeks. Increased support for work-life balance can contribute to more spontaneous marital sex lives and may reduce underachievement of ideals for sexual intimacy and childbearing in Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient cargo logistics service for vessels anchored offshore becomes imperative to meet the increasing demand of transporting dry bulk cargoes and overcome insufficient infrastructural resources of ports. Offshore cargo handling service providers propose a fleet of offshore floating terminals (OFTs) performing the cargo handling service directly nearby anchorages at sea. This approach reduces the time and the usage of resources compared with relying on ports. In this paper, we develop a scheduling mathematical model for the fleet of OFTs to improve the operating efficiency in serving cargo vessels and their barges. This study proposes the model with various objective functions that can be used for a service provider depending on its goals and customer satisfaction policies. This study introduces real-world considerations inspired by an offshore service provider in Singapore and addresses complicated combinations of practical requirement owing to cargo/vessel/operation attributes, maintenance periods, and operating cost components in development of an optimization model via mixed-integer linear programming. An efficient genetic algorithm is also developed to solve the model with finding near-optimal effective solutions. Through examining a large set of real data provided by the service provider, the proposed genetic algorithm shows a high effectiveness in terms of solution quality and computational time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review paper describes the development of the pre-hospital system in Singapore from the pre-war days. Every country's prehospital community needs a deep understanding of how they developed over the years, factors that played a part, and the aspirations their community and government have set for this. This can guide future evolution of the services to ensure that care provided is relevant, applicable and in keeping with the community's needs. Countries with similar contextual circumstances, but at a different stage of development of their PECs, may learn from these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a part of the data from a larger study, the Enactment Project, is explored. The exploration is guided by two research questions. The first is specific to the instructional core of teacher practice while the second is related to student perceptions of how they learn mathematics. The project adopted the Complementary Accounts Methodology. Micro-analysis of how three teachers enacted their instructional objectives, using qualitative data analysis methods, led to the identification of three components of an instructional core, namely, Development of concepts and skills [D], Student work [S] and Review of student work [R] that pervade the lessons of the three teachers. They enacted their instructional objectives through instructional cycles comprising combinations of D, S, and R. A lesson was found to comprise one or more instructional cycles. The post-lesson video-stimulated student interview data, showed that teachers helped their students learn mathematics in their lessons specifically in the S and R activity segments. This paper also dispels the myth about stereotypical mathematics instruction in Asian classrooms whilst contributing to this issue of ZDM in memory of David Clarke. It was his work related to the Complementary Accounts Methodology that provided colleagues in Singapore with a tool to illuminate mathematics instruction in their schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate whether the predictive performance and behaviour of professional forecasters are different during the COVID-19 pandemic as compared with the global financial crisis of 2008 and normal times. To this end, we use a survey of professional forecasters in Singapore collated by the central bank to analyse the forecasting records for GDP growth and CPI inflation for the period 2000Q1–2021Q4. We first examine the point forecasts to document the extent of forecast failure during the two crises and explore various explanations for it, such as leader-following and herding behaviour. Then, using percentile-based summary measures of probability distribution forecasts, we study how the degree of consensus and extent of subjective uncertainty among forecasters were affected by crisis conditions. A trend break is observed in the subjective uncertainty associated with growth projections after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. In contrast, both subjective uncertainty and the degree of consensus in inflation projections were essentially unchanged in crises, suggesting that the short-term inflation expectations of forecasters were strongly anchored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that an entrepreneurial state can inadvertently crowd out entrepreneurship. Using the context provided by Singapore, the paper finds that coordinated policies that prioritize and target capital, knowledge, and human capital accumulation in particular industries, sectors, technologies, and firms have created a formidable societal knowledge filter, which in turn can impede endogenous entrepreneurial activity. By serving as the entrepreneur, Singapore's entrepreneurial state imposes its vision by assuming the core entrepreneurial values and traits of opportunity recognition, discovery, and action. The entrepreneurial state, at least in the case of Singapore, retards the transition to an entrepreneurial society, which, paradoxically, is the vision of Singapore's entrepreneurial state. Plain English Summary: States increasingly engage in entrepreneurial activities. This paper explains how the policies and activities of such entrepreneurial states may inadvertently create barriers to a more inclusive entrepreneurial society where entrepreneurship is embraced by diverse citizens. Drawing on the case of Singapore, this paper shows that it is not the individual state activities in the entrepreneurial sphere, but the mix of activities, which starves entrepreneurship. The article focuses on state activities in the areas of capital, knowledge, and human capital, and shows how such activities jointly have reduced the scope of private entrepreneurial endeavor. In doing so, the article provides knowledge on the relationship between entrepreneurial states and an inclusive entrepreneurial society. It draws attention to the effects of policy configurations and action on entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based upon my experience in research, teaching, writing textbooks, and editing handbooks and journals, this review paper discusses how financial econometrics, mathematics, statistics, and financial technology can be used in research and teaching for students majoring in quantitative finance. A major portion of this paper discusses essential content of Lee and Lee (Handbook of financial econometrics, mathematics, statistics, and machine learning, World Scientific, Singapore, 2020). Then Lee (From east to west: memoirs of a finance professor on academia, practice, and policy, World Scientific, Singapore, 2017), Lee et al. (Financial econometrics, mathematics and statistics, Springer, New York, 2019a; Machine learning for predicting default of credit card holders and success of kickstarters. Working paper, 2019b), and Lee and Lee (Handbook of financial econometrics and statistics, Springer, New York, 2015) are used to enhance the content of this paper. In addition, important and relevant papers, which have been published in different journals are also used to support the issues discussed in this paper. I have found the applications of financial econometrics, mathematics, statistics, and technology have improved drastically over the last five decades. Therefore, both practitioners and academicians need to update their skills in this area to compete in both financial market and academic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a dataset collected by infrared thermography, a non-contact, non-intrusive technique to acquire data and analyze the built environment in various aspects. While most studies focus on the city and building scales, an observatory installed on a rooftop provides high temporal and spatial resolution observations with dynamic interactions on the district scale. The rooftop infrared thermography observatory with a multi-modal platform capable of assessing a wide range of dynamic processes in urban systems was deployed in Singapore. It was placed on the top of two buildings that overlook the outdoor context of the National University of Singapore campus. The platform collects remote sensing data from tropical areas on a temporal scale, allowing users to determine the temperature trend of individual features such as buildings, roads, and vegetation. The dataset includes 1,365,921 thermal images collected on average at approximately 10-second intervals from two locations during ten months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of linear cryptanalysis of block ciphers, let p 0 (resp. p 1 ) be the probability that a particular linear approximation holds for the right (resp. a wrong) key choice. The standard right key randomisation hypothesis states that p 0 is a constant p ≠ 1 / 2 and the standard wrong key randomisation hypothesis states that p 1 = 1 / 2 . Using these hypotheses, the success probability P S of the attack can be expressed in terms of the data complexity N. The resulting expression for P S is a monotone increasing function of N. Building on earlier work by O'Connor (In: Preneel B (ed) Fast Software Encryption: Second International Workshop. Leuven, Belgium, 14–16 December 1994, Proceedings, volume 1008 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 131–136. Springer, 1994) and Daemen and Rijmen (J Math Cryptol 1(3):221–242, 2007), Bogdanov and Tischhauser (In: Moriai S (ed) Fast Software Encryption—20th International Workshop, FSE 2013, Singapore, March 11–13, 2013. Revised Selected Papers, volume 8424 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 19–38. Springer, 2013) argued that p 1 should be considered to be a random variable. They postulated the adjusted wrong key randomisation hypothesis which states that p 1 follows a normal distribution. A non-intuitive consequence is that the resulting expression for P S is no longer a monotone increasing function of N. A later work by Blondeau and Nyberg (Des Codes Cryptogr 82(1–2):319–349, 2017) argued that p 0 should also be considered to be a random variable and they postulated the adjusted right key randomisation hypothesis which states that p 0 follows a normal distribution. In this work, we revisit the key randomisation hypotheses. While the argument that p 0 and p 1 should be considered to be random variables is indeed valid, we show that if p 0 and p 1 follow any distributions with supports which are subsets of [0, 1], and E [ p 0 ] = p and E [ p 1 ] = 1 / 2 , then the expression for P S that is obtained is exactly the same as the one obtained using the standard key randomisation hypotheses. Consequently, P S is a monotone increasing function of N even when p 0 and p 1 are considered to be random variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly 30 years after the end of apartheid in South Africa, the education system has yet to provide learners with an adequate school experience. With school closures during the pandemic, the urgency to provide a quality education in the townships became even more dire. In collaboration with the leadership of Charles Duna Primary School in Gqeberha, South Africa, Partnerships for Educational Excellence and Research (PEER) International reestablished a partnership to design a flexible implementation of methods and curricula to build numeracy repertoires. Professional development efforts leverage evidence-based best teaching and learning strategies included in the Morningside Model of Generative Instruction (Johnson et al., 2020). Weekly videoconferences target the development of basic computation skill acquisition and math problem solving skills. The dramatically different environment and available resources in township schools is a prevailing consideration in this transfer of instructional technology. Our project started early in 2022 and continues with optimism and determination. The purpose of this paper is to describe our constructional approach (Goldiamond, 1974/2002 Behavior and Social Issues, 11(2), 108-197) when invited to improve classroom conditions for teachers and learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Borrower hardship, while a critical issue, is not often addressed by consumer protection frameworks across the Asia–Pacific. The widespread use of payment holidays during the COVID-19 crisis provides a significant case study on the importance of having borrower hardship provisions as a consumer protection tool. This paper compares the pre-pandemic availability of payment holidays in three Asia–Pacific jurisdictions: Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. It evaluates their existing legislative frameworks, as well as regulatory and industry guidelines on borrower hardship, and contrasts this with their use of payment holidays during the pandemic. Where there were existing industry guidelines on borrower hardship, lenders were able to spearhead an industry-wide approach towards payment relief without regulatory intervention by governments. Beyond the pandemic, the paper argues that self-regulation has potential for protecting borrower interests by standardising the scope of, and the procedure for, obtaining hardship relief. It argues that there is a need for a greater prevalence of industry codes of conducts governing lenders' approach towards borrower hardship across the Asia–Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2014 and April 2019, the government of Myanmar banned international migration for domestic work to Singapore and criminalised the brokering of such migration as well as predeparture training and placement of migrants as domestic workers in Singapore. These measures were taken in response to concerns over the alleged abuse of migrant women as well as international pressures to eliminate trafficking and debt bondage. Experienced brokers and recruitment agencies who were trading openly up until then were forced to cease operations. At the same time, large numbers of inexperienced and uncouth recruitment agencies emerged to take advantage of the black economy created by the ban. This resulted in women migrating irregularly from Myanmar to Singapore being exposed to greater risks which the paper traces. Four discernible impacts of the ban on the recruitment practices and working conditions faced by migrant women from Myanmar before departure and after arriving in Singapore were identified: a sharp increase in migration and placement costs, inadequate predeparture training, placement in forced labour conditions with extended and unclear repayment periods and no access to support from the Myanmar government while in Singapore. Although the ban has since been lifted, the resulting migration system had placed workers in conditions of extreme exploitation with little recourse to justice or having their voices heard. The paper ends by summarizing the unanticipated negative consequences of the criminalisation of migration brokerage in Myanmar and lessons for other countries that may be considering controls on female migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The real estate agency industry has seen the emergence and growth of disruptive technology and innovation to the extent that real estate agents view search portals such as Zillow and Purplebricks as serious competition. In response to these threats, a major real estate agency in Singapore, OrangeTee, launched a property agent review and rating program called Property Agent Review (PAR) to provide better information on their agents for prospective clients. The PAR program provides a natural experiment to test the effect of informative reviews and ratings on agent performance in terms of commissions and transactions. This is done via a difference-in-difference approach, carefully controlling for observed agent characteristics and market conditions. This paper also analyses the informativeness of reviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the emergence of Property Technology, online listing data have drawn increasing interest in the field of real estate–related big data research. Scraped from the online platforms for property search and marketing, these data reflect real-time information on housing supply and potential demand before actual transaction data are released. This paper analyzes the interactions between the keywords of online home listings and actual market dynamics. To do so, we link the listing data from the major online platform in Singapore with the universal transaction data of resale public housing. We consider the COVID-19 outbreak as a natural shock that brought a significant change to work modes and mobility and, in turn, consumer preference changes for home purchases. Using the Difference-in-Difference approach, we first find that housing units with a higher floor level and more rooms have experienced a significant increase in transaction prices while close proximity to public transportation and the central business district (CBD) led to a reduction in the price premium after COVID-19. Our text analysis results, using the natural language processing, suggest that the online listing keywords have consistently captured these trends and provide qualitative insights (e.g. view becoming increasingly popular) that could not be uncovered from the conventional database. Relevant keywords reveal trends earlier than transaction-based data, or at least in a timely manner. We demonstrate that big data analytics could effectively be applied to emerging social science research such as online listing research and provide useful information to forecast future market trends and household demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapid population growth and increasing demand for urban mobility, metropolitan areas such as Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai are increasingly dependent on public transport systems. Various strategies are proposed to improve the service quality and capacity of bus and subway systems. Express trains—i.e., trains that skip certain stations—are commonly used because they can travel at higher speeds, potentially reduce travel time, and serve more passengers. In this paper, we study cyclic express subway service (CESS), in which express trains provide routine transport service with cyclic (periodic) station-skip patterns that can be used in daily service. We propose an exact Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) model to optimize cyclic station-skip patterns for express trains operating in a single-track subway system. The objective is to reduce passengers' total travel time—i.e., the sum of waiting time and riding time—while considering demand intensity and distribution and train headway, frequency, and capacity. We implement the model in a set of numerical experiments using real data from Singapore. To solve the optimization problem more efficiently, we also propose a heuristic to solve large-scale problems. We observe that the exact MIP model for CESS provides optimal cyclic express service patterns within a reasonable computational time, and the heuristic method can significantly reduce the computational time and provide a good solution. The case study demonstrates that passengers' average travel time could be significantly reduced compared to local train service. We also discuss the potential transfer of passengers between express trains and evaluate its effects using numerical experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at metro station clustering based on passenger flow data. Compared with existing clustering methods that only use boarding or alighting data of each station separately, we focus on higher granularity origin-destination (O-D) path flow data, and provide more flexible and insightful clustering results. In particular, we regard the metro system as a network, with each station as a node. The real-time passenger flows over time between different O-D paths serve as directed edges between nodes. Compared with traditional networks, our edges are temporal curves, and can be regarded as functional data. For this functional data-edged graph, we are the first to develop a novel community detection approach for node clustering. Our method is based on functional factorization. First a dual time-warped sparse nonnegative functional factorization is proposed for extracting patterns of the functional edges. Then the passenger flow of each O-D path can be regarded as a linear combination of different extracted passenger flow patterns. Based on it, we construct a multi-view directed and weighted network, where each view represents one particular pattern, and the factorization coefficient of each O-D path on this pattern is treated as the weight of this directed edge in this particular view. Then a novel community detection algorithm based on nonnegative matrix tri-factorization is constructed according to the topological structure of the multi-view network. The fusion of different views can be either subjectively determined or objectively learnt in a data-driven way, which gives flexibility of the clustering algorithm to emphasize on different travel patterns. Two real datasets of Singapore and Hong Kong metro systems are used to validate the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, we have seen a worldwide expansion of the concept and practice of cultural diplomacy, along with the emergence of a multipolar world. This raises the question of the way in which the notion is mobilized and understood beyond Europe and North America. This paper is based on comparative research carried out in Qatar and Singapore. Both countries have developed ambitious cultural diplomacy strategies, based on the establishment of world-class cultural and educational institutions, and on their integration into regional and global cultural networks. But many have highlighted contradictions between these ambitious strategies and the restrictions and pressures that both countries place on their civil societies. This paper discusses how curators, who have become key global gatekeepers, negotiate their role in their country's global cultural strategy and position themselves with regard to the official national narrative. With their multiple belonging, they shape narratives that make regional and local scenes and can put cities on the world art map. This symbolic power puts them in a strategic position to shape the nation-branding discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of climate change adaptation plans for drainage infrastructure in a small country as that of Singapore, rainfall projections on the time scale of minutes and on the spatial scales of 1 km are deemed appropriate In this paper, we introduce an application of radar-based stochastic downscaling for rainfall projections at high temporal and spatial resolutions. The input for stochastic model is derived from a Regional Climate Model. The sub-hourly extreme rainfall intensity derived from stochastic model outputs was validated against observed rain-gauge data over the historical period. Considering the advantage in computational efficiency of the stochastic downscaling method, thousand scenarios of rainfall projections at very high temporal and spatial resolution were generated. The implication of this approach is that, from these stochastically downscaled time series of rainfall, it is possible to study future sub-hourly extreme rainfall intensities which would be useful to address issue of flash floods/drainage systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hospital at Home (HaH) programs have been shown to improve clinical outcomes, quality of care, and patient satisfaction. However, how Asian patients experience HaH remained underexplored. Objective: To explore the perceptions and experiences of patients and caregivers admitted to a hospital-at-home program in Singapore. Design: Descriptive qualitative study design. Participants: Purposive sampling was used to conduct 36 interviews with 13 patients, nine Legally Acceptable Representatives (LARs), and 14 caregivers until data saturation was achieved. Interventions: NUHS@Home is a HaH program providing care through a multi-disciplinary team, enabled by remote vital signs monitoring through a tablet and wireless blood pressure and oxygen meters. Approach: This study used in-depth semi-structured individual interviews. Interviews were transcribed and thematically analyzed using Braun and Clark's six-step inductive approach. Key Results: The overarching theme identified was "Enablers, difficulties, and improvements to the HaH experiences" which was supported by three key themes: (1) Perceived better care at home, (2) Importance of social support, and (3) Organizational structures required to support HaH. Participants described overall HaH experiences around factors contributing to their impeding engagement, overall satisfaction, and quality of care. Conclusions: Although HaH is unfamiliar to the Singapore population, most of the participants in this study had an overall positive experience. The key challenges found in this paper were the stress and inconvenience caused to caregivers. The enablers for positive HaH experiences were (1) consideration of patient's family members as key participants in the patients' therapeutic alliance; (2) the HaH care team must be accessible, approachable, and reassuring, and communicate frequently and timely with patients and their families; and (3) financing strategies to ensure HaH out-of-pockets costs remain affordable which are critical to keeping HaH as an option for patients and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, internet connectivity and the ubiquitous use of digital devices have afforded a landscape of expanding opportunity for the proliferation of scams involving attempts to deceive individuals into giving away money or personal information. The impacts of these schemes on victims have shown to encompass social, psychological, emotional and economic harms. Consequently, there is a strong rationale to enhance our understanding of scams in order to devise ways in which they can be disrupted. One way to do so is through crime scripting, an analytical approach which seeks to characterise processes underpinning crime events. In this paper, we explore how Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods might be applied to support crime script analyses, in particular to extract insights into crime event sequences from large quantities of unstructured textual data in a scalable and efficient manner. To illustrate this, we apply NLP methods to a public dataset of victims' stories of scams perpetrated in Singapore. We first explore approaches to automatically isolate scams with similar modus operandi using two distinct similarity measures. Subsequently, we use Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) to extract key terms in scam stories, which are then used to identify a temporal ordering of actions in ways that seek to characterise how a particular scam operates. Finally, by means of a case study, we demonstrate how the proposed methods are capable of leveraging the collective wisdom of multiple similar reports to identify a consensus in terms of likely crime event sequences, illustrating how NLP may in the future enable crime preventers to better harness unstructured free text data to better understand crime problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to probe the influence of innovation spillovers in the artificial intelligence (AI) and financial technology (Fin-tech) industries on the value of the internet of things (IoT) companies. Python was utilized to download public information from Yahoo Finance, and then the GARCH model was used to extract the fluctuations of cross-industry innovation spillovers. Next, the Fama–French three-factor model was used to explore the interactive changes between variables. The panel data regression analysis indicates that the more firms accept innovation spillovers from other industries, the better the excess return; however, this effect differs because of industrial attributes and the environmental changes induced by COVID-19. Additionally, this study finds that investing in large-cap growth stocks of IoT firms is more likely to yield excess returns. Finally, the study yields lessons for policy leverage to accelerate the upgrading and transformation of innovation-interactive industries by referring to the practices of Singapore and South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2011 Singapore General Election (GE2011) has often been hailed as an ‘Internet Election’, highlighting the role of networked technologies in enabling democratization practices/processes for the unprecedented consolidation of oppositional politics in the city-state. Building on theorizations that broach the interface between social media and digital democracy, this paper critically examines Singaporeans’ myriad engagements with the internet during GE2011 in order to tease out the constructions of social and political debates within these online communities and the extent to which they facilitate democratic discussions. These computer-mediated colliding and emerging of perspectives related to Singapore’s (electoral) politics can in turn set the scene for the (re)production and negotiations of the multifarious meanings of democracy in place. Hence, in addressing these research inquiries, this paper goes beyond GE2011 to reflect on the ways in which web technologies and social media can make a difference to political debates, deliberation and representation in societies where there are limited public avenues for citizenry to articulate their voices/concerns. It also enables documentation of ordinary people’s aspirations and hopes for political change and the sort of democracy they want to see progressively initiated in the Singaporean society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the global implications of policy borrowing, employing case examples of Chinese school systems, which enjoy the success of grafting new identities to improve education. The paper comments on contemporary scholars' use of identity grafting theory (Lee in Managing Chineseness: identity and ethnic management in Singapore, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017) to generate insights on how schools, teachers and students engaged educational change in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Scholars presented empirical findings by using identity grafting constructs to explain education stakeholders' diverse responses to change: (1) born-again—rejecting change by reviving traditional practices; (2) repression—repressing traditional identities instead of embracing change; (3) integration—combining traditional identities and progressive change to achieve a balance; and (4) situationalism—developing new identities that transcend boundaries between traditional identities and progressive change. The scholars contributed research that advances the theorization of identity grafting. First, rising born-again Chinese sentiments seek to reject the imposition of a singular Chinese identity imposed by state governments. Born-again Chineseness no longer singularly focuses on defending traditional identities against Western influences. Second, a better understanding is achieved on identity repression—change resistance results from a displaced focus on repressing traditional identities. Third, the prevalence of identity integration strategies can be explained by intensive policy borrowing in the region. Policy borrowers need to ensure externally imposed identities are represented to overcome challenges generated by identity grafting strategies that impede progressive change. This popularity of integrationist strategies accounts for the challenges in achieving identity situationalism—policy borrowing needs culturally divisive identity markers that provide clear indicators to what needs to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines a patient with borderline mental capacity, where the healthcare team is conflicted about how to proceed. This case demonstrates the complicated intersection between undue influence and mental capacity, allowing us to explore how the law is applied in clinical practice. Patients have the right to decline or accept medical treatments offered to them. In Singapore, family members perceive a right to be involved in the decision-making process for sick and elderly patients. Elderly patients, dependent on mainly family members for care and support, sometimes submit to their overbearing influence resulting in decisions that fail to protect the patients' own best interests. However, the clinicians' own well-intentioned influence, driven by a desire for the best medical outcome can also be undue, and neither influence should seek to be a substitution for the patient's decision. Following Re BKR [2015] SGCA 26, we are now obliged to examine how mental capacity can be affected by undue influence. A lack of capacity can be found when a patient fails to appreciate the presence of undue influence or is susceptible to undue influence due to their mental impairment causing their will to be overborne. This then paves the way for the health care team to decide based on best interests, because the patient is determined to be lacking in mental capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an artificial intelligence based automated valuation model (AI-AVM) using the boosting tree ensemble technique to predict housing prices in Singapore. We use more than 300,000 private and public housing transactions in Singapore for the period from 1995 to 2017 in the training of the AI-AVM models. The boosting model is the best predictive model that produce the most robust and accurate predictions for housing prices compared to the decision tree and multiple regression analysis (MRA) models. The boosting AI-AVM models explain 91.33% and 94.28% of the price variances, and keep the mean absolute percentage errors at 8.55% and 5.34% for the public housing market and the private housing market, respectively. When subject the AI-AVM to the out-of-sample forecasting using the 2018 housing sale samples, the prediction errors remain within a narrow range of between 5% and 9%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "hyperscanning" refers to the simultaneous recording of multiple individuals' brain activity. As a methodology, hyperscanning allows the investigation of brain-to-brain synchrony. Despite being a promising technique, there is a limited number of publicly available functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning recordings. In this paper, we report a dataset of fNIRS recordings from the prefrontal cortical (PFC) activity of 33 mother-child dyads and 29 father-child dyads. Data was recorded while the parent-child dyads participated in an experiment with two sessions: a passive video attention task and a free play session. Dyadic metadata, parental psychological traits, behavioural annotations of the play sessions and information about the video stimuli complementing the dataset of fNIRS signals are described. The dataset presented here can be used to design, implement, and test novel fNIRS analysis techniques, new hyperscanning analysis tools, as well as investigate the PFC activity in participants of different ages when they engage in passive viewing tasks and active interactive tasks. Measurement(s) Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent Response Technology Type(s) Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Factor Type(s) Parenting Stress • Parental Bonding • Attachment Style Sample Characteristic - Organism Homo sapiens Sample Characteristic - Location Singapore [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formative assessment (FA) has been a popular discourse in education, but its potential benefit is fundamentally dependent on teachers' willingness to make changes to their classroom practices. These changes bring about much assessment tension (AT). This paper argues that how well teachers experience and manage AT determines the efficacy of their FA practices. Past studies have warned that AT experienced by teachers is complex and problematic. Therefore, it would be useful to investigate the variation of AT experienced by teachers, and how well they are dealing with these tensions. This phenomenographic research examines the use of FA in the context of different ways that AT is experienced. Findings on teachers' conceptions of AT are presented, and each is then discussed for insights into teachers' meanings and practices of assessment. In particular, instances of how AT hindered or helped FA are identified to highlight more productive ways of understanding and using assessment to support students' learning. Implications of the research findings for the Singapore Teaching Practice (STP) will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the incorporation of new literacies to an adapted framework by Parsons et al. in Journal of Computers, 2(4), 1-8, (2007) to design mobile learning applications for "Elements of Business Skills (EBS)" for a group of lower academic ability secondary school learners in Singapore. Accounts of the actual process of designing a mobile learning application for teaching and learning are used to consider factors in incorporating new literacies into the modified mobile learning design framework based on mobile learning design principles. The suggested framework incorporating mobile learning and new literacies looks at the interaction dimension, individual learning needs and collective learning for mobile learning through these four perspectives: generic mobile environment issues, learning contexts, learning experiences, and learning objectives. The accounts of the app development process highlight how new literacies come into play when enhancing learning through blending text, sound and imagery, and how app users underscore the importance of mobility and ubiquity for anywhere and anytime continuous, on-the-go learning in terms of the dimensions of new literacies. This paper contributes to the ever evolving and dynamic field of designing future mobile learning systems for the twenty-first century, in a new seamless learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses autocalibration, object detection, and object tracking for unmanned surface vehicles. Input data are recorded with a wide-baseline stereo vision system providing accuracy for distance estimations. The paper reports about followed ways and novel contributions for ensuring a working system solution. Automatic self-calibration is used for the wide-baseline stereo vision system. Robust sea surface estimation and the detection of the horizon support the understanding of the given scene environment. Long-range (i.e. up to 500 m) object detection and tracking are supported by the used wide-baseline stereo system. The paper informs about the complete system design, informs about applied or designed methods, and also about experiments which verify that the system achieved an operational state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study of calculus instructional material (comprising of lecture notes and tutorial practice worksheets) designed by teachers from a Singapore pre-university is presented in this paper. As textbooks have not been available for mathematics at the pre-university levels, the instructional material was a product of the teachers' collaborative work based on their interpretation of the school mathematics curriculum. Through a study of the instructional material, the teachers' instructional goals and their alignment to the curriculum were examined. It was clear that the instructional material was more than a mere compilation of resources for the instruction; the teachers' effort was also in building the close connection within and across the concepts and sub-topics. The discrete parts of the content were organized under a "big idea" in the lecture notes. Anchor questions were used in the tutorial practice worksheets to facilitate students to recognize the similarity of the underlying structures of seemingly different questions. In addition to the teachers' articulated instructional goals such as covering all the key concepts, reducing students' cognitive load, or developing their algorithmic mastery, the study revealed the unarticulated goal as to raise the students' cognitive growth, which could be explained by the APOS cognitive growth model. In aligning to the school curriculum, it was observed that the teachers made judgement to tap on the advantage of the spiral curriculum to advance their students' understanding of calculus from the secondary level using a higher perspective, and to better their students' understanding of calculus concepts in addition to focusing on algorithmic mastery. The effort to engage their students in problem-solving and the use of technology to develop higher order thinking or enhance conceptual understanding remained implicit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contracts often make provision for the remedies available upon breach, i.e., by providing for a sum or stipulation available to either party upon breach by the other (an 'agreed damages clause'). A persistent question is whether, and to what extent, such clauses are enforceable. In this paper, we analyse the convergences and divergences between Malaysia, Singapore, and England, in particular following decisions in the apex courts. These clauses are always enforceable under s 75 of the Malaysian Contracts Act 1950, albeit up to the point of 'reasonable compensation' only. Whereas, in Singapore and England, if the clause is found to be a 'penalty' it is liable to be unenforceable in toto. Malaysian law also differs in that a truncated assessment for 'reasonable compensation' is provided for in statute. We argue that the 'proportionality' and 'legitimate interest' elements in the Cavendish analysis, over the compensatory-centric analysis in Denka Advantech, may be a better fit with the concept of 'reasonable compensation' under Malaysian law, and may give content to the statutory interpretation of the phrase in future cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore has resulted in the adoption of home-based learning (similar to remote or distance learning' worldwide) due to periodic school closures in Singapore. The media and academia have diverse views on the effectiveness of this alternative mode of education. This study draws data from teachers' interviews and students' focus group discussions of an ongoing large-scale baseline study on mother tongue education to reveal teachers' and students' perceptions of home-based learning. Findings showed that the participating teachers generally mimicked physical lessons online during home-based learning, and they faced difficulties in monitoring students' tasks online. Though students enjoyed the freedom of doing their learning tasks at their own pace, they were concerned with the lack of teachers' support and the social-emotional support from peers. With the feedback and reflections from teachers and students, it was observed that despite the availability of technology and online infrastructure, teachers need readiness for transiting between physical teaching and online instruction, whereas students need readiness for self-directed learning. From students' feedback, it was also noted that parents need readiness for educational technology and support for their children. To better prepare teachers, students, and parents for home-based learning, it is recommended that the developers provide more dedicated resources that take into consideration the different characteristics (e.g. orthography) of each language subject. Parents should also assume a greater role in monitoring their children's learning on behalf of the teachers for better effect in home-based learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces narratives in entrepreneurial ecosystems as drivers of effectuation vs. causation. Drawing on 43 interviews with successful players in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore, we found ecosystem-specific narratives indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in each ecosystem, and these narratives encourage either effectuation or causation. Our findings indicate that the narratives in the ecosystem in Silicon Valley facilitate effectuation, in Munich causation, and in Singapore a cautious balance of both. Our research suggests that narratives can explain mechanisms how ecosystems influence entrepreneurship: the national culture, market characteristics, available resources, and networks in an ecosystem spark ecosystem-specific narratives, which in turn shape tendencies towards effectuation and causation. Thereby, we introduce a new ecosystem-focused perspective on predictors of effectuation and causation. Plain English Summary: The ecosystems in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore spark different narratives about entrepreneurship, which indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in the ecosystem and in turn encourage different kinds of entrepreneurial approaches. We conducted 43 interviews with successful players in Silicon Valley, Munich, and Singapore. We found ecosystem-specific narratives indicate what is common, appropriate, and successful in an ecosystem and encourage different kinds of entrepreneurial behavior and decision-making. Those narratives seem to shape tendencies towards specific strategic logics. The narratives either encourage "effectuation" (i.e., when they focus on building partnerships and utilizing the networks, and when they encourage confidence and speed) or "causation" (i.e., when they focus on developing systematics and structured plans, and when they encourage harmony and conformity). Narratives in Silicon Valley seem to facilitate effectuation, in Munich causation, and in Singapore both. Our research suggests that narratives explain mechanisms how ecosystems influence entrepreneurship: the national culture, market characteristics, available resources, and networks in an ecosystem spark ecosystem-specific narratives, which in turn shape tendencies towards effectuation and causation. Thereby, we introduce a new ecosystem-focused perspective on predictors of effectuation and causation. Our findings suggest specific strategies and success factors in each ecosystem. For example, the narratives prevalent in Silicon Valley have a sales focus, in Munich a need for detailed plans, and in Singapore value conformity. Thus, our findings provide insights for entrepreneurs for strategic location choices and on how to position their new venture at a specific location. VCs and policy makers gain from insights into how to leverage strengths and how to counteract problematic mechanisms in an ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and practitioners continue to recognize the crucial role of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in creating a conducive environment for productive entrepreneurship. Although EEs are fundamentally interaction systems of hierarchically independent yet mutually dependent actors, few studies have investigated how interactions among ecosystem actors drive the entrepreneurial process. Seeking to address this gap, this paper explores how ecosystem actor interactions influence new ventures in the financial technology (fintech) EE of Singapore. Guided by an EE framework and the use of an exploratory-abductive approach, empirical data from semi-structured interviews is collected and analyzed. The findings reveal four categories representing both the relational perspective, which features interaction and intermediation dynamics, and the cultural perspective, which encompasses ecosystem development and regulatory dynamics. These categories help explain how and why opportunity identification and resource exploitation are accelerated or inhibited for entrepreneurs in fintech EEs. The present study provides valuable contributions to scholars and practitioners interested in EEs and contributes to the academic understanding of the emerging fintech phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiations for the EU-Singapore FTA were concluded on December 6, 2012. Given that this is the EU's first FTA with an ASEAN member country and the second one with a major Asian trading partner after the conclusion of the EU-Korea FTA, this agreement paves the way for future FTAs with countries in the region. The goal of this paper is to quantify the economic impacts of the EU-Singapore FTA using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model. The resutls estimated in this paper suggest that the bilateral reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers brings benefits for both sides: Singapore GDP is expected to increase by € 2.7 billion whereas the EU gains are assessed at € 550 million. In addition, EU exports to Singapore would rise by some € 1.4 billion and Singapore's exports to the EU by some € 3.5 billion. In a complementary scenario, the current paper also assesses the value of this FTA as an insurance policy against any hypothetical tariffs hikes in Singapore to WTO bound levels. In such a 'worst case' scenario, the EU-Singapore FTA will protect EU GDP from a decrease of € 350 million and prevents a loss of € 3.7 billion EU exports to Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate how new rules and practices in multilateral, regional and bilateral trade negotiations related to the services industries can be adopted and implemented at the business level, using the recently concluded free-trade agreement (FTA) negotiations between the EU and Singapore as an illustrative case. The purpose is to put the services sector into the larger framework of business service interaction between the EU and the outside world by identifying crucial sub-sectors within the services industries and their relations to physical, 'visible' production and trade. Furthermore, to assess the prospects of 'multilateralising' regional trade agreements within the service sector, through the ambitions by both parties to make bilateral and interregional FTAs and EPAs more compatible and mutually comparable with the multilateral GATS' rules. The EU-Singapore FTA is an agreement that became a 'second-best' solution of the stalled interregional EU-ASEAN negotiation, taking place 2006-2009. It can nevertheless be seen as a 'WTO-plus' endeavour, since it aims at reaching beyond what is under negotiation in the likewise stalled Doha Development Agenda within the WTO framework, particularly in the fields of business services, public procurement, intellectual property rights, trade-related investment measures, and, generally, competition rules. Since both parties already apply low or zero tariffs in most sectors of manufacturing, the main issues in the negotiations were related to services in general and knowledge-intensive business services in particular, with an emphasis on technical barriers to trade. To what extent will there be a true mutual opening up of the service markets between the two parties as a result of the agreement, and what technical and mental barriers remain? This FTA, if successfully implemented, can also pave the way for a revitalisation of the 'paused' EU-ASEAN talks, in which issues related to services were most controversial. Furthermore, it should also be seen in the global context of parallel and overlapping existing agreements or proposed talks, e.g. FTAAP, RCEP, TTIP and TPP, as well as the plurilateral TiSA initiative. In this respect, it can also be considered a test of the EU 'Global Europe' initiative, launched in 2006, and its follow-up communications from the Commission-the latest so far by the 'Trade-for-All' document in October 2015. The paper takes a combined policy- and firm-level approach, by investigating the already reached as well as the potential future impacts by the actors at both sides of the agreement through interviews with diplomatic officials representing EU, ASEAN and separate member-states within both parties, as well as with EU-originated service firms operating in Singapore. A major conclusion is that the business sector sees little direct impact of the future FTA, and that most companies stick to an 'ad-hoc' approach to meet and to overcome trade barriers rather than building a comprehensive strategy regarding how to behave after that the agreement has come into force. On the other hand, most companies are positive to the agreement as such but would welcome resumed EU-ASEAN talks, since the most troublesome remaining barriers are related to doing business with neighbouring countries in the region, using Singapore as the hub for transfer of knowledge-based services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper initiates a series of works dedicated to the rigorous study of the precise structure of gravitational radiation near infinity. We begin with a brief review of an argument due to Christodoulou (in: The Ninth Marcel Grossmann Meeting, World Scientific Publishing Company, Singapore, 2002) stating that Penrose's proposal of smooth conformal compactification of spacetime (or smooth null infinity) fails to accurately capture the structure of gravitational radiation emitted by N infalling masses coming from past timelike infinity i - . Modelling gravitational radiation by scalar radiation, we then take a first step towards a dynamical understanding of the non-smoothness of null infinity by constructing solutions to the spherically symmetric Einstein–Scalar field equations that arise from polynomially decaying boundary data, r ϕ ∼ t - 1 as t → - ∞ , on a timelike hypersurface (to be thought of as the surface of a star) and the no incoming radiation condition, r ∂ v ϕ = 0 , on past null infinity. We show that if the initial Hawking mass at i - is nonzero, then, in accordance with the non-smoothness of I + , the asymptotic expansion of ∂ v (r ϕ) near I + reads ∂ v (r ϕ) = C r - 3 log r + O (r - 3) for some non-vanishing constant C. In fact, the same logarithmic terms appear already in the linear theory, i.e. when considering the spherically symmetric linear wave equation on a fixed Schwarzschild background. As a corollary, we can apply our results to the scattering problem on Schwarzschild: Putting compactly supported scattering data for the linear (or coupled) wave equation on I - and on H - , we find that the asymptotic expansion of ∂ v (r ϕ) near I + generically contains logarithmic terms at second order, i.e. at order r - 4 log r . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prevailing conditions of access to justice and due process in the Singapore courts are criticised through McBarnet's two-tier lens and Carlen's dramaturgical understandings of criminal court realities. More than an interest in the structural separation of the Singapore judiciary, the paper interrogates the dualism between the imagined workings of justice and the daily operational experience for users of the Singapore courts. The scene is set to understand ideologies of triviality and irrelevance and their impact on justice service delivery in subordinate courts where legal representation and offender participation are the exception. To speculate on novel influences of triviality and irrelevance through machine-learned automation, an audit of Singapore's present-day court technologies and its increasingly digitised court processes and format is detailed in the second part. The administrative benefits of digitisation notwithstanding, the paper reasons that digitalisation motivated by convenience, cost-cutting and emergency exigencies presents additional dangers to justice access and due process delivery above those already at play. These further challenges are deciphered through considerations of how justice service delivery is depersonalised and routinised in disruptive digital models. Digitized justice suggests a new 'two tiers' duality between physical and virtual frames of service delivery and contestation. The 'on-line' screen shifts the theatre from the courtroom to the 'zoom room'. This exploration of two tiers of justice and theatre of the courtroom re-imagined through digitisation offers the opportunity to appreciate and activate automated decision processes and data management as part of the solution, rather than conceding their exacerbation of the 'injustice' posed by this two tiers ideology and courtroom drama exclusionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance and not merely the presence of one's DNA at a crime scene has become the emerging issue in courtrooms all over the world today. By studying the length of time DNA is likely to persist in an environment until detection, a more holistic assessment of DNA evidence in the context of a case can be made. The current study looks at the persistence of DNA from blood, keratinocytes, and several types of mock exhibits under various conditions, in the tropical rainforest climate of Singapore. While DNA on articles left outdoors showed highly variable persistence subject to the presence of rainfall, DNA from items placed indoors at ambient temperature and under controlled temperature and humidity is comparatively stable. The information gathered from this study, while not exhaustive, serves to provide investigators and the courts with a better understanding of the relevance of DNA recovered from crime scenes of different environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]