Digital Commons Network^™

Parameter-Efficient Variational Autoencoder For Multimodal Multi-Interest Recommendation, Nhu Thuat Tran, Hady Wirawan Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Learning user preferences in recommendation systems is enriched by multimodal features, such as textual and visual content, and amplified by multi-interest modeling with Variational AutoEncoders (VAEs). However, prior efforts are limited by single modality focus and cumbersome, parameter-heavy architecture designs. To address these limitations, we introduce an innovative solution that blends the semantic richness of multimodal data with the representational power of multi-representation VAEs. Drawing inspiration from Mixture of Experts (MoE), we cast each VAE as an expert tailored to a specific modality, then fuse them via a novel parameter-merging function into a lean, unified model. This approach efficiently captures …

Search Trajectory Network-Enhanced Multi-Objective Dynamic Algorithm Configuration, Robbert Reijnen, Zaharah Bukhsh, Hoong Chuin Lau, Yaoxin Wu, Yingqian Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has emerged as an effective technique for dynamic algorithm configuration, particularly in evolutionary computation, enabling adaptive parameter updates during algorithmic execution. DRL-based methods have shown broad applicability across different problem domains and are designed to configure algorithms without problem-specific information, making them highly transferable across problem variants and scalable to different problem sizes. This paper proposes a novel graph neural network-based approach that learns representations of Search Trajectory Networks (STNs) to track the convergence behavior of multiple objectives and dynamically reconfigures multiobjective evolutionary algorithms during execution. By capturing how solutions evolve and interact over time, the …

Website Owner Identification Through Multi-Level Contrastive Representation Learning, Cheng Tu, Yunshan Ma, Yang Li, Min Zhang, Miao Hu, Fan Shi, Xiang Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Website owner identification aims to recognize the organization or individual who owns a given website that is served on the web. It is a crucial step for cyberspace surveying and mapping, playing a significant role in cyberspace administration and governance. Existing widely employed solutions for website owner identification mainly fall into two paradigms: (1) querying the public information databases such as WHOIS, which store the Internet resource’s registered users or assignees; and (2) directly extracting the organization or individual name of the website owner from the webpage using the technique of named entity recognition. However, the former is less reliable …

Ivycross: A Privacy-Preserving And Concurrency Control Framework For Blockchain Interoperability, Ming Li, Jian Weng, Jia-Si Weng, Yi Li, Yongdong Wu, Dingcheng Li, Guowen Xu, Deng, Robert H.

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Interoperability is a fundamental challenge for long-envisioned blockchain applications. A mainstream approach is using Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to support interoperable off-chain execution. However, this incurs multiple TEE configured with non-trivial storage capabilities running on fragile concurrent processing environments, rendering current strategies based on TEE far from being practical. This paper aims to fill this gap and design a practical interoperability mechanism with simplified TEE as the underlying architecture. Specifically, we present IvyCross, a TEE-based framework that achieves low-cost, privacy-preserving, and race-free blockchain interoperability. IvyCross allows running arbitrary smart contracts across heterogeneous blockchains atop two distributed TEE-powered hosts. We design …

Information-Bottleneck Driven Binary Neural Network For Change Detection, Kaijie Yin, Zhiyuan Zhang, Shu Kong, Tian Gao, Cheng-Zhong Xu, Hui Kong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we propose Binarized Change Detection (BiCD), the first binary neural network (BNN) designed specifically for change detection. Conventional network binarization approaches, which directly quantize both weights and activations in change detection models, severely limit the network's ability to represent input data and distinguish between changed and unchanged regions. This results in significantly lower detection accuracy compared to real-valued networks. To overcome these challenges, BiCD enhances both the representational power and feature separability of BNNs, improving detection performance. Specifically, we introduce an auxiliary objective based on the Information Bottleneck (IB) principle, guiding the encoder to retain essential input …

Auxiliary Prompt Tuning Of Vision‑Language Models For Few‑Shot Out‑Of‑Distribution Detection, Wenjun Miao, Guansong Pang, Zihan Wang, Jin Zheng, Xiao Bai

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent advancements in CLIP-based out-of-distribution (OOD) detection have shown promising results via regularization on prompt tuning, leveraging background features extracted from a few in-distribution (ID) samples as proxies for OOD features.However, these methods suffer from an inherent limitation: a lack of diversity in the extracted OOD features from the few-shot ID data.To address this issue, we propose to leverage external datasets as auxiliary outlier data (i.e., pseudo OOD samples) to extract rich, diverse OOD features, with the features from not only background regions but also foreground object regions, thereby supporting more discriminative prompt tuning for OOD detection. We further introduce …

Contrastrepair: Enhancing Conversation-Based Automated Program Repair Via Contrastive Test Case Pairs, Jiaolong Kong, Xiaofei Xie, Mingfei Cheng, Shangqing Liu, Xiaoning Du, Qi Guo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Automated Program Repair (APR) aims to automatically generate patches for rectifying software bugs. Recentstrides in Large Language Models (LLM), such as ChatGPT, have yielded encouraging outcomes in APR,especially within the conversation-driven APR framework. Nevertheless, the efficacy of conversation-drivenAPR is contingent on the quality of the feedback information. In this article, we propose ContrastRepair, anovel conversation-based APR approach that augments conversation-driven APR by providing LLMs withcontrastive test pairs. A test pair consists of a failing test and a passing test, which offer contrastive feedback tothe LLM. Our key insight is to minimize the difference between the generated passing test and the …

Morphology-Aware Hrv Estimation From Wrist Ppg In Sedentary Scenarios, Changshuo Hu, Hung Manh Pham, Dong Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Photoplethysmography (PPG) is widely used in wearable devices for non-invasive heart rate variability (HRV) monitoring. While most prior work focuses on mitigating motion artifacts, recent studies highlight that even subtle contact pressure variations can distort waveform morphology and lead to inaccurate HRV estimates. In this work, we propose a morphology-aware deep learning framework that conditions HRV estimation on beat-level waveform types. Our model jointly encodes the raw PPG waveform and a sequence of pressure-induced morphology labels using parallel encoders, integrates them via cross-attention, and predicts normal-to-normal (NN) intervals and beat count to support downstream HRV computation. Evaluated on the public …

Impact Of Original Versus Reposted Social Endorsements On Content Consumption: The Moderating Role Of Endorsers’ Network Characteristics, Anqi Zhao, Qian Tang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social endorsements broadcast endorsers’ positive attitudes toward content or products, especially to their social ties. Original endorsements created by endorsers can be propagated further as reposted endorsements. Both are important marketing tools to increase content consumption, yet their differences are unclear. This study compares the impacts of original and reposted endorsements on content consumption and their contingencies on the endorsers’ network characteristics. Using data on social endorsements of YouTube videos on Twitter, we find that original endorsements (i.e., original tweets) significantly boost content consumption, and the effect is positively moderated by the endorsers’ network size but not their tie strength. …

Law Grapples With Its Achilles’ Heel? Uncertainties, Digital Experiments, And The Ai Frontier, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The governance of digitalization— which encompasses developments such as artificial intelligence (AI) and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — confronts serious challenges. At the core of the challenges are uncertainties, which form the central obstacle to effective governance. These uncertainties range from cyber risks to shifting societal responses. Law, as an institutionalized framework of governance, faces mounting pressure and wrestles with a fundamental vulnerability: traditional legal frameworks struggle to address uncertainties in digitalization.

To tackle the pervasive challenges of uncertainties, this article addresses two connected questions: What uncertainties does law face in governing digitalization shaped by emerging technologies? How can …

Precipitated By The Pandemic: From Remote Witnessing To Electronic Wills, Edward Ti, Hang Wu Tang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the rigidity of will-making laws requiring in-person witnessing. Jurisdictions responded differently: some introduced temporary measures, others implemented permanent reforms allowing remote witnessing. This article compares responses in England and Wales, selected Australian states, Singapore, and Hong Kong SAR, tracing developments toward potential recognition of electronic wills. The central argument is that law reform should balance accessibility with safeguards against fraud and undue influence, avoiding overly burdensome formalities that deter compliance. The article concludes by examining how national digital identity systems could be used for the execution of electronic wills.

Interpreting The Private‑ And Public‑Sector Service Criteria For Singapore’S Aspiring Presidential Candidates, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Singapore President's role is not only ceremonial: from 1991, it has encompassed the substantive function of serving as a guardian of public reserves and the integrity of the public service. A person must meet certain qualifying criteria in order to run in a Presidential election. This article focuses on one set of qualifying criteria, namely, the "service criteria": the requirement that candidates have had certain experience in serving in certain roles in the public sector or the private sector. The service criteria were last amended in 2016, and came to the fore in the 2023 Presidential Election following George …

The Excellent Legal Scholar, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Excellent Legal Scholar: This article considers how virtues pan out in the life of the legal scholar, bearing in mind the purpose of legal scholarship and the identity of the legal scholar, who plays multifarious roles in today's research landscape. I consider how vision is important for the excellent legal scholar, bearing in mind that an aretaic account should be attentive to eudaimonia. I conclude with soul-searching questions for the legal scholar who endeavours to live an examined life that stands up to aretaic appraisal.

Beneficial Ownership In Domestic Tax Legislation, Some Clarity, But Far From ‘Well Established’: Hargreaves Property Holdings Ltd V Hmrc [2024] Ewca Civ 365, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The concept of beneficial ownership is extensively used in domestic tax legislation, but several decades ofinconsistent case law have muddied the waters as to exactly what it means. With the leading casesstopping short of the apex court, it is difficult to reconcile the cases and come up with a clear definition ofbeneficial ownership. The recent Hargreaves decision by Falk LJ (with whom Nugee and Peter JacksonLJJ agreed) represents the most structured judicial attempt to rationalise the concept to date. This notesuggests that, contrary to Falk LJ’s statement that the concept is ‘well established’, the law pre-Hargreaveswas far from clear. This …

Risk Premia-Return Spillovers Among Commodity-Us Equity Markets, Marinela Adriana Finta

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

This study examines the risk premia-return spillovers of eight commodities (corn, soybean, wheat, copper, silver, gold, oil, and natural gas) and the U.S. equity market from 2008 to 2016. We define volatility, skewness, and kurtosis risk premia as the difference between implied and realized moments. Our results reveal an increasing trend in cross-market and cross-moment spillovers until mid-2012, with various announcements explaining these effects. Moreover, we document substantial cross-energy and cross-metal spillovers to the equity market and cross-return spillovers to risk premia. Higher-order risk premia also exhibit the highest effects on returns. In addition, we underline the prominent influence of …

Impacts Of U.S. Environmental Regulations On Industry, Xiao Ji, Mengyu Wang, Tianyi Zhang

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

This paper analyzes the impacts of U.S. environmental regulations on industry, focusing on command-and-control environmental regulations (CCER) and market-based environmental regulations (MBER). Drawing on empirical data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spanning over four decades, we examine key legislation such as the Clean Water Act (CWA), Clean Air Act (CAA), and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), while also discussing more recent frameworks like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Our findings suggest that although penalties under CCER contribute to immediate compliance, they often fail to elicit long-term changes in corporate behavior. In contrast, MBER, exemplified by the IRA, …

Foreword, Pey Woan Lee

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

No abstract provided.

Acknowledgements, Ee Ing Ong

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

No abstract provided.

The Law On Deposits In Singapore, Tiong Min Yeo

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

This article traces the development of the law of deposits in Singapore and reviews the restatement of the law in the 2024 landmark decision of the Court of Appeal in Li Jialin v Wingcrown Investments Pte Ltd, as well as some of the issues left open by the decision. It is argued that while the decision has clarified that deposits are not subject to the penalty rule but instead subject to the common law test of reasonableness—with the practical consequence that, with clear drafting, contracting parties can rely on the validity of reasonable deposit clauses without the complication of …

A Settlement By “Any Other Name”: Evaluating The Sustainability Of Settlement Mechanisms, Dorcas Quek Anderson

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

Private settlements have been consistently encouraged by the Singapore civil justice system. Depending on the context, the settlement may take on many forms, including consent orders and settlement agreements. This begs the question of whether the exact form of settlement matters, or whether a settlement “by any other name” suffices. This article proposes the concept of “sustainable settlements” – comprising the measures of ease of enforcement, finality, and confidentiality – to holistically appraise the effectiveness of settlement mechanisms. The assessment of six settlement mechanisms using these measures clearly indicates that not every mechanism is equally sustainable. Exploring settlement amidst the …

Where Singapore Meets Asean: Shaping Insolvency Reform For Micro And Small Enterprises, Lovein Leying Sui

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

Given the economic dependence on micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in the ASEAN region, the MSE insolvency regime is of paramount regional importance. Evidence indicates that the ASEAN region has prioritised the improvement of such a regime, especially after the financial instability following the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores how trends in ASEAN MSE insolvency can inform Singapore’s insolvency reforms to improve MSE access and efficiency, while also considering broader implications for the region.

The Guilty Plea Discount: An Elaboration On Singapore’S Guidelines, Genieve Zhi Yi Wu

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

Over the past two decades, a defining feature of Singapore’s sentencing regime has been the creation of structured sentencing methodology, with the aim of ensuring broad consistency and fairness across offenders. The exercise of judicial discretion in sentencing has largely been guided by statutory frameworks and guideline judgments. However, beyond the legislature and judiciary, an inter-agency body named the Sentencing Advisory Panel has also been formed to issue persuasive but non-binding guidelines. This article focuses on the first set of guidelines issued by the Sentencing Advisory Panel in 2023, concerning the sentencing of accused persons who plead guilty. It explains …

Revisiting Letters Of Credit And The Enforceability Of Sanctions Clauses: Case Comment: Kuvera Resources Pte Ltd V Jpmorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Bing Feng, Keith Law

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

This article is a case commentary on the recent Singapore Court of Appeal decision of Kuvera Resources Pte Ltd v JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. [2023] 2 SLR 389. It begins with a brief review of the structure of documentary credit transactions before setting out the judgments by the High Court and Court of Appeal. The commentary then examines how both courts rationalised letters of credit within the traditional framework of unilateral contracts, before scrutinising the current position of sanctions clauses within letters of credit. It disagrees with the Court of Appeal’s hesitance towards accepting such clauses, noting that the unilateral …

1 Front Matter, Smu Lexicon

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

Front matter with cover page, title page, title verso (copyright page) and table of contents.

Detecting Defi Fraud With A Graph-Transformer Language Model, Wei Ma, Junjie Shi, Jiaxi Qiu, Cong Wu, Jing Chen, Lingxiao Jiang, Shangqing Liu, Yang Liu, Yang Xiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rapid development of blockchain technology, the widespread adoption of smart contracts—particularly in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications—has introduced significant security challenges, such as reentrancy attacks, phishing, and Sybil attacks. To address these issues, we propose a novel model called TrxGNNBERT, which combines Graph Neural Network (GNN) and the Transformer architecture to effectively handle both graph-structured and textual data. This combination enhances the detection of suspicious transactions and accounts on blockchain platforms like Ethereum. TrxGNNBERT was pre-trained using a masked language model (MLM) on a dataset of 60,000 Ethereum transactions by randomly masking the attributes of nodes and edges, thereby …

In Crypto We Trust: A Cross-National Comparison Of Factors Affecting Trust In Cryptocurrencies, Arif Perdana, W. Eric Lee, Chu Yeong Lim, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Background: Trust in cryptocurrencies is a complex and evolving construct influenced by technological, economic, and social factors. Unlike traditional information systems that rely on institutional trust, cryptocurrency users often depend on underlying technology and community insights. Despite growing interest, existing research has primarily focused on narrow aspects of trust, with limited cross-national perspectives and comprehensive models.

Method: This study investigates how geographic differences impact user trust in cryptocurrencies by surveying 644 respondents from China, Germany, and the USA. Drawing on established trust formation theories, it utilizes a comprehensive model encompassing technological, economic, and social factors.

Results: Our analysis reveals multiple …

How Do Analysts Affect Corporate Innovation? Evidence From Site Visits, Qiang Cheng, Brian Yutao Wang, Holly I. Yang, Zheyuan Zhang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

While prior studies have examined whether financial analysts affect corporate innovation, there is little research on the mechanism through which this occurs. In this paper, we examine whether and how analysts' questions about innovation during site visits affect corporate innovation. Using a sample of corporate site visits in China, we find that when analysts ask questions about innovation during site visits, firms invest more in R&D in the future. Consistent with knowledge diffusion across firms, this association is stronger when analysts cover more firms in the same industry, when firms share similar technologies as industry peers, and when an innovation-expert …

Firm Digitalization And Accounting Jobs, Amanda Awyong, Qiang Cheng, Tian Deng, Rencheng Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines how firm digitalization affects the demand for corporate accountants and their digital skills. Using more than 373,000 job posts for corporate accountants by U.S. non-technology firms between 2010 and 2019, we find that firm digitalization does not change the overall demand for financial specialists-accountants who are responsible for financial reporting, budgeting, and forecasting-but reduces the demand for financial clerks-accountants who primarily perform administrative financial tasks. We further show that firms digitalization increases the demand for digital skills among financial specialists, but not among financial clerks, and that such demand is greater than that for other employees within …

Regulatory Impacts On Us Hazardous Waste Exports, Xiaofan Ji, Mengyu Wang, Tianyi Zhang

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

This paper examines the impact of key domestic and international regulations on US hazardous waste exports, focusing on shifts in export destinations and waste types from 2002 to 2023. Since 2005, OECD countries and US Trade Agreement Partners have become primary destinations for US hazardous waste, with significant surges after 2018 and a notable decline in 2022. An analysis of the regulatory landscape reveals that, while international frameworks such as the Basel Convention of 2021 have had a relatively limited impact on reducing US hazardous waste exports, domestic policies—particularly those in California—have more directly influenced export behaviors. Additionally, the US …

The New Framework For Directors’ Duty To Creditors And The Challenges Ahead – Foo Kian Beng V Op3 International Pte Ltd (In Liquidation) [2024] 1 Slr 361, Jonathan Ren Hao Cheong

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

In Foo Kian Beng v OP3 International Pte Ltd (in liquidation) [2024] 1 SLR 361, the Singapore Court of Appeal introduced a two-step, three-category framework for evaluating whether a director has breached his fiduciary duty to consider the interests of creditors. This decision not only affirms the traditional understanding of the duty in other common law jurisdictions but also provides directors with clearer guidance on managing the affairs of the company in times of financial distress. This article builds upon the discussion in Foo Kian Beng by evaluating the new framework established by the SGCA. It also identifies potential challenges …