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The Law and Development Review has published a special issue featuring papers from the Law and Development Institute's annual conference, titled "Law and Development Post the Pandemic." The conference, co-hosted by the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore, provided an opportunity for scholars from seven countries on five continents to critically examine the relationship between law and development in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. The papers in the special issue highlight the need for inclusiveness, human rights, redistribution, and state strengthening in law and development, and also explore the role of technology in finding solutions to societal problems. The conference participants emphasized the importance of each state addressing its own response to future shocks and ensuring the well-being of vulnerable groups in society. [Extracted from the article]

Cybersecurity breaches pose a substantial concern in the digital era. We investigate how customers respond to multiple unexpected data breaches of their information in India. Difference-in-differences estimates show that digital payments declined by 9% relative to cash payments immediately after an unexpected data breach in a food delivery platform, but the gap disappeared three months later. Customer entry and exit also exhibit weak, short-lived changes. Additional analyses on bank and online grocery data breaches uncover even weaker effects of data breaches. Our findings imply that the perceived benefits of convenience outweigh the costs of payment security risks. This paper was accepted by David Sraer, finance. Funding: This work was supported by the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences [Project 20YJC790183], National University of Singapore [Start-Up Grant A-0003870-00-00], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72150004], and the National Nature Science Foundation of China [Grant 72203112]. Supplemental Material: The online appendices and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.01335. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the literature on resource reconfiguration theory, we formulate a new theoretical framework that explains how executive redeployment within a diversified firm transfers different types of human capital embodied in executives to different units facing specific business challenges. In the empirical context of Korean business groups, we find that executives with unit-specific human capital, like turnaround experience, competitive experience, and international expansion experience, are redeployed to units with corresponding business challenges like financial difficulties, intensifying competition, and early-stage international expansion, respectively. We also show that executives with unit-generic human capital, like corporate management practices and interunit coordination experiences, are redeployed to younger units seeking to establish corporate-level policies and practices. Additional analyses also show that the value of firm-specific human capital in driving the redeployment of executives is contingent on their functional orientation and seniority. Funding: S.-J. Chang appreciates financial support from the Lim Kim San Chair Professorship from National University of Singapore and Techno SK Chair Professorship from KAIST. Y.-C. Kim is also grateful for financial support from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRF-2022S1A5A2A01044597]. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.14525. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outdoor thermal environment (OTE) is closely related to sustainable urban development and human living, and related research has attracted widespread attention. The research hotspots and research frontiers were obtained using CiteSpace to analyze 4473 relevant studies published in English from the Web of Science (WOS) core database from 1998 to 2023. The results show that (1) Hong Kong Polytechnic University, National University of Singapore, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, and Harbin Institute of Technology are important in OTE research. China has the largest number of publications in the field of OTE, but the United States has the greatest centrality and significant influence. (2) The focus of OTE keyword clustering research is divided into four main categories: thermal environment perception, the thermal environment index, thermal environment quality, and thermal environment optimization. (3) The frontiers of OTE research have changed from focusing on environmental quality, thermal perception, numerical simulation, urban space, and thermal adaptation to thermal mitigation, energy conservation, energy consumption, and optimization strategies. Visualization research in the field of OTE helps to provide references for the direction of future research on improving climate change, human thermal comfort, urban planning, and pre-planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September and October 2020, the Real Estate Finance & Investment Symposium, sponsored and organized by the University of Cambridge, the University of Florida, the University of Geneva, and the National University of Singapore, was held online, given the COVID-19 pandemic. Ten papers on various research topics were presented in five two-hour sessions spread over five days. Each presentation was followed by remarks from a discussant as well as general discussion from the audience. This editorial discusses the five papers from the symposium that are included in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1 Department of Infectious Diseases, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 2 National Centre for Infectious Diseases, 3 Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 4 Division of Infectious Diseases, University Medicine Cluster, National University Hospital, 5 Department of Infectious Diseases, Singapore General Hospital, 6 Department of Infectious Diseases, Changi General Hospital, 7 Infectious Diseases Care Pte Ltd, Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre, 8 The Novena Medical Specialists, Mount Elizabeth Novena Specialist Centre, 9 Department of Care and Counselling, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 10Department of Pharmacy, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 11Department of Pharmacy, Singapore General Hospital, 12Department of Pharmacy, National University Hospital, Singapore [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of social science in Singapore's 'whole-of-government' management of COVID-19 was largely limited to evaluating public perceptions of government policy and understanding the socio-behavioural factors that could help better manage the pandemic. The problems faced by marginalized groups were largely overlooked, although NGOs using arguments based on social science and academics writing on public platforms sought to draw attention to some of those issues. This article identifies the barriers to a more robust application of social science in tackling systemic blind spots in Singapore and offers reflections from a 'post-normal science' perspective for interdisciplinary collaborative efforts that may complement state capacity in post-COVID-19 transformation and future crises. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, social sciences, Singapore, sociology, pandemic management, crisis response., The COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world at unprecedented speed, transcending territorial borders and highlighting the importance of both international collaboration as well as effective state responses in pandemic management. [...]

Yale University and the National University of Singapore (NUS) agreed in 2011 to open Yale-NUS College, an autonomous liberal arts college within NUS. As the College's first president, I recount in this essay some of the successes and challenges of creating the College, which opened in 2013, and the decision of NUS in 2021 to end the partnership as of 2025. I analyze the College's educational offerings, the political controversies surrounding its establishment and eventual closure, the finances of a small-scale, elite college within a large public university, and the broad social changes that contributed to the College's fate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practice and Policy-Oriented Abstract Law enforcement bodies have largely responded to the increase in darknet activities through site shutdowns, which involve significant investment of policing resources. Despite these efforts, new darknet sites continue to show up after the site takedowns. We offer a new look at this issue by assessing the viability of selectively targeting large drug vendors operating on darknet sites. We find that the arrest of a major drug vendor reduced subsequent transaction levels by 39% and the number of remaining vendors by 56% on Silk Road 2.0. This deterrent effect also spilled over to drug vendors located in countries beyond the prosecutorial jurisdiction of the arrested vendor. We further find that small darknet drug vendors were most deterred by the arrest and vendors selling dangerous drugs were relatively more deterred. Our study findings hold policy-relevant implications to government agencies and law enforcement. Whereas site shutdowns can disrupt these markets momentarily, the selective targeting of large-scale drug vendors should be given serious consideration and used to a broader extent. The design of future enforcement strategies should also account for the finding that darknet markets are made up of both small-scale drug dealers new to the drug trade and large-scale drug syndicates. Darknet markets have been used increasingly for the transaction of drugs in the last decade. The growth of illicit drug transactions on darknet markets has led enforcement agencies to invest a greater proportion of time and effort to monitor and crack down on criminal activities on darknet websites. Whereas large-scale site-shutdown efforts involving policing agencies across various countries can help in slowing down the growth of these markets, such enforcement strategies may not be sustainable in the long run given the cost and time they require to coordinate. Thus, there is a need for alternative, cost-efficient strategies to police darknet markets on a regular basis. In response, this study attempts to empirically evaluate and quantify the effectiveness of selectively targeting large drug vendors on darknet sites. Using data from the three largest darknet markets, we employ a difference-in-differences procedure to assess the impact of the arrest of a major drug dealer on subsequent darknet activities. Specifically, we contrast various outcomes from the policed site (Silk Road 2) with those from nonpoliced sites (Agora and Evolution) and find that enforcement efforts on the policed site reduced subsequent transaction levels and the number of remaining vendors. The enforcement was not only effective in deterring users in the same country as the arrestees, but also had a spillover effect on darknet participants who were beyond the prosecutorial jurisdictions of the arrestees. Test results on heterogeneous effects further suggest that small darknet drug vendors were most deterred by the arrest event and drug vendors selling dangerous drugs were more deterred relative to those selling less dangerous drugs. Our findings have policy and theoretical implications for law makers, enforcement agencies, and academics. History: Kai-Lung Hui, Senior Editor; Debabrata Dey, Associate Editor. Funding: This study acknowledges the support of the Networks, Electronic Commerce, and Telecommunications Institute grant and the National University of Singapore Academic Research Fund Tier 1 Research Grant [Grant R-253-000-171-114]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2023.1222. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a group of people with different preferences conduct a search together, they can benefit from committing to the number of products to search ex ante. In this paper, we build a two-member, two-period model to show that, when a group of people with different preferences conducts a search and makes a decision using the majority voting rule, they can benefit from making a commitment on the number of products to search ex ante (i.e., conducting a fixed-sample search) when the search cost is small enough or relatively large. The underlying mechanism is that, because of the preference inconsistency between group members, they tend to search fewer products and, thus, have lower expected utility in group search than in single-agent search, and making a commitment on the number of products to search helps mitigate the preference inconsistency problem in group search, especially when the search cost is small enough or relatively large. We further show that, under alternative voting rules, there also exist ranges of search cost in which fixed-sample search works better than sequential search as long as the voting rule is exogenously determined. If the group can endogenously choose the voting rule that maximizes their expected utility, then sequential search is always preferable to fixed-sample search. We also consider several extensions to show the robustness of our finding. History: Ganesh Iyer served as the senior editor. Funding: This work was supported by National University of Singapore [Grant WBS A-8000489-00-00]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2023.1447. [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]

To explore the decision-making patterns among expert and novice orthodontists and oral maxillofacial surgeons in the management of adults with Class III malocclusions and moderate skeletal discrepancies. Self-administered questionnaire survey. Faculty of Dentistry, National University of Singapore and the University Dental Cluster, National University Hospital, Singapore. A total of 55 clinicians, comprising 13 expert orthodontists, 20 novice orthodontists, 10 expert oral maxillofacial surgeons and 12 novice oral maxillofacial surgeons. Clinicians assessed six adults with a Class III malocclusion and moderate skeletal discrepancy. They were asked to decide who could be managed exclusively by orthodontic camouflage, who would require combined orthodontic-orthognathic surgery as the only viable treatment, or who could be offered both treatment options. The study found variable decision-making patterns among the clinicians in each case. Only 18.2%–40.0% of clinicians agreed that the cases selected were of moderate skeletal discrepancies and could be offered both treatment options whereas the rest were either more inclined to recommend orthodontic camouflage or orthognathic surgery. Intra-clinician agreement (n = 20) was only fair (Kappa value = 0.31). There was only slight inter-clinician agreement (n = 55) on their clinical decisions (Kappa value = 0.10). Clinical experience and dental specialty did not significantly influence clinicians' decisions. Oral and maxillofacial surgeons were 1.98 times more likely to indicate orthognathic surgery as the only viable treatment compared to the orthodontists (95% confidence interval = 1.15–3.42). Variability in the patterns of decision-making for adults with a Class III malocclusion and moderate skeletal discrepancy was observed among the clinicians with low repeatability and agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: International students encounter a wide range of challenges that can have a significant impact on their mental health. Seeking help is one of the primary means of managing mental health, and more attention is required. This study aimed to investigate the psychological distress(PD), mental health literacy(MHL), and mental help-seeking intentions(MHSI) in international students of National University of Singapore(NUS), to explore the correlation between the three and to verify the mediating role of MHL in PD and MHSI. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted between May and July 2023 using the Mental Help Seeking Intention Scale(MHSIS), Patient Health Questionnaire-9(PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7(GAD-7), and Mental Health Literacy Scale(MHLS). 281 international students(177 males, 104 females;) in NUS completed self-report questionnaires. SPSS 25.0 was applied to the data for descriptive analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and stepwise regression analysis. Mediation analysis fully for all potential confounding factors were conducted. Results: Significant correlations were found between PD, MHL and MHSI. MHLS- knowledge of how to seek professional information(MHLS- H) completely mediated the association of anxiety with MHSI[B=-0.271; 95% confidence interval(CI): (-0.067, 0.0037)]; MHLS- attitude that promote recognition or appropriate help-seeking behavior(stigma)(MHLS- H) partially mediated the association of PD with MHSI[B = 0.104, 95% CI: (0.008, 0.179)]; with mediating effects accounting for 100% and 24.847% of the total effect. In addition, demographic variables such as gender, years in Singapore and residence type mediated both the direct and indirect effect of the mediation model. Conclusions: MHL mediated both the direct and indirect effects on the association between PD and MHSI, especially, the mediator of the MHLS- H and MHL-A. It means that MHSI in this population can be improved by increasing MHL and thus the PD. The findings suggest that, such as providing information about how to access to professional services and promoting disorder recognition to the international students, may help them develop their psychological well-being and good mental health care decisions. Highlights: Prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms was observed in 19.57% and 20.28% of the participants, respectively. The MHSI displayed significant variations across demographic characteristics. Depression, MHLS- A, MHLS- H, and gender were identified as significant predictors of MHSI. A significant mediating effect of MHL was observed in the relationship between PD and MHSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To keep up with the contemporary health landscape, there is an imperative need for healthcare professionals to practise health advocacy through health promotion on the individual, population, and systems levels. In the Academic Year of 2020/2021, the National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Pharmacy implemented a new spiral curriculum integrating basic, clinical, and systems sciences with one of its aims to deepen students' health advocacy internalisation and prepare them as future health advocates. A mixed-methods approach was adopted. Questionnaires were disseminated across three time-points to elicit students' levels of internalisation of health advocacy, which were then categorised into levels, and a Mann–Whitney U test was conducted. In comparison with prematriculation, no significant difference was found after students underwent the first year of the curriculum, while a significant difference was found after students underwent two years of the curriculum. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted after each Academic Year to gain deeper insights into the questionnaire results. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed that curricular integration in the first year was perceived to be lacking. However, with learnt knowledge constantly reinforced and more experiential learning opportunities incorporated throughout the second year, students found the integrated curriculum beneficial in instilling confidence to practise health advocacy. This study offers insights into the prospects of a spiral integrated curriculum in imparting health advocacy, and may even suggest its potential to be applied to other educational settings. Future follow-up studies can also be conducted on the same study population to evaluate long-term impacts and areas for improvement of the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hand gesture recognition (HGR) is a rapidly evolving field with the potential to revolutionize human–computer interactions by enabling machines to interpret and understand human gestures for intuitive communication and control. However, HGR faces challenges such as the high similarity of hand gestures, real-time performance, and model generalization. To address these challenges, this paper proposes the stacking of distilled vision transformers, referred to as SDViT, for hand gesture recognition. An initially pretrained vision transformer (ViT) featuring a self-attention mechanism is introduced to effectively capture intricate connections among image patches, thereby enhancing its capability to handle the challenge of high similarity between hand gestures. Subsequently, knowledge distillation is proposed to compress the ViT model and improve model generalization. Multiple distilled ViTs are then stacked to achieve higher predictive performance and reduce overfitting. The proposed SDViT model achieves a promising performance on three benchmark datasets for hand gesture recognition: the American Sign Language (ASL) dataset, the ASL with digits dataset, and the National University of Singapore (NUS) hand gesture dataset. The accuracies achieved on these datasets are 100.00%, 99.60%, and 100.00%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Jakarta: The City of a Thousand Dimensions" by Abidin Kusno provides a critical analysis of the transformation of Jakarta since Indonesia's transition to decentralization. The book explores how the urban environment and governance have been shaped, highlighting the influence of the private sector and the limited capacity of local governments. It examines key dimensions of life in Jakarta, including the challenges facing communities, transportation issues, environmental infrastructure deficits, and uncontrollable developments in the outer city. The book also discusses the ongoing problems of traffic congestion and flooding in Jakarta, as well as the emergence of luxury cities like Meikarta. It concludes with a discussion of the decision to build a new capital city in East Kalimantan. Overall, the book offers a nuanced perspective on Jakarta's complex urban landscape and the challenges it faces. [Extracted from the article]