Digital Commons Network^™

Re-Engaging Chineseness: Political, Economic And Cultural Imperatives Of Nation-Building In Singapore, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article examines the management of Chinese identity and culture since Singapore attained independence in 1965. Due to the delicate regional environment, ethnic Chinese identity has been closely managed by the ruling elites, which have been dominated by the English-educated Chinese. There is the evolution from a deliberate policy of maintaining a low-key ethnic Chinese profile to the recent effort to re-sinicize--in form--the majority ethnic group. The article examines the policy impulses and implications for such a landmark change in reconceptualizing the Chinese-Singapore identity, which can be attributed to the needs of regime maintenance buttressed by Confucian ethos as well …

The Effect Of Domain Knowledge On Icon Visualization, Keng Siau, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Iconic interfaces are now the de facto interface for most computer systems. Despite the popularity of iconic interfaces and the widespread belief that iconic interfaces are easier to comprehend than non-iconic interfaces, we have not come across any published study that has examined the effect of domain knowledge on end users’ interpretation of icons. An understanding of the relationship between domain knowledge and its effect on interpretation will enable us to design better icons to not only facilitate end users’ interpretation but also reduce misinterpretations of icons. This paper reports on an experimental study that investigates the effect of domain …

Responsibility For Past Injustice: How To Shift The Burden, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article considers the question of the responsibility of present generations for injustices committed by previous ones. It asks whether the descendants of victims of past injustice have claims against the descendants of the perpetrators of injustice. Two modes of argument are examined: the individual responsibility approach, according to which descendants cannot have claims against other descendants, and the collective responsibility approach, according to which descendants do have strong claims. Both approaches are criticized, but for different failings. An alternative view, building on the individualist approach, is defended. This view argues that some people may have to bear responsibility for …

Using Support Vector Machines For Terrorism Information Extraction, Aixin Sun, Myo-Myo Naing, Ee Peng Lim, Wai Lam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Information extraction (IE) is of great importance in many applications including web intelligence, search engines, text understanding, etc. To extract information from text documents, most IE systems rely on a set of extraction patterns. Each extraction pattern is defined based on the syntactic and/or semantic constraints on the positions of desired entities within natural language sentences. The IE systems also provide a set of pattern templates that determines the kind of syntactic and semantic constraints to be considered. In this paper, we argue that such pattern templates restricts the kind of extraction patterns that can be learned by IE systems. …

Guest Editorial: Text And Web Mining, Ah-Hwee Tan, Philip S. Yu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Text mining and web mining are two interrelated fields that have received a lot of attention in recent years. Text mining [1, 2] is concerned with the analysis of very large document collections and the extraction of hidden knowledge from text-based data. Web mining [3] refers to the analysis and mining of all web-related data, including web content, hyperlink structure, and web access statistics.

The Lion And The Lamb: Demythologizing Franklin Roosevelt's Fireside Chats, Elvin T. Lim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We are accustomed to a characterization of Franklin Roosevelt’s legendary Fireside Chats as intimate exchanges between the president and the people. This essay argues that the Fireside Chats were a harsher, more castigatory rhetorical genre than such a characterization would allow. A content analysis of the 27 Fireside Chats recorded in FDR’s Public Papers suggests that the Fireside Chats were, on a number of indices, far less intimate than have traditionally been supposed, and in fact among the more vitriolic and declamatory utterances of the 32nd president. The essay proceeds with a discussion of how this illusion of intimacy was …

Kuo Pao Kun: The Spirit Of The Eagle, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Kuo Pao Kun (1939–2002) was the doyen of Singapore theatre and is considered by many as the most important figure in the nation’s cultural history. The author discusses the art of Kuo Pao Kun; his humanist theatre and his rigorous demands of artistic commitment.

Book Review: East Meeting West In The Mediation Marketplace, Nadja Alexander

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

China is now ‘all the rage’. Everyone is either learning Mandarin or tripping off on a conference to Beijing or a business trip to Shanghai. Commercial concerns are busy establishing trade links with Chinese partners to prepare for the emergence of the biggest marketplace in the world. The business of ADR is no exception.

Validity And Obligation In Natural Law Theory, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The relation between law and morality is a point of contention amongst legal philosophers. There are several issues: first, the extent to which law should incorporate moral standards; second, the effect of moral status on legal validity (the "validity question"); third, the effect of legal validity on the obligation created by the law (the "obedience question"). Because most positivists concede that it is desirable for law to accord with notions of justice and morals and that law often incorporates morals, the first issue features less prominently in the positivism-natural law debate. This article examines John Finnis's views on the latter …

Survey Article: Multiculturalism As Fairness: Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

According to Will Kymlicka's book Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, `the liberal ideal is a society of free and equalindividuals'.1 But what, he goes on to ask, is the relevant `society'? The answer he says most people would give is `their nation'. `The sort of freedom and equality they most value, and can make use of is freedom and equality within their own societal culture'. Indeed, most people `are willing to forgo a wider freedom and equality to ensure the continued existence of their nation' (93). Thus few favour open borders which allow people freely to settle, …

Orwell And Huxley: Making Dissent Unthinkable, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper I compare the fictional world depicted by Orwell’s 1984 with that of Huxley’s Brave New World from the point of view of an analytic philosopher. Neither novel should be read as predictions, the accuracy of which can be used to judge them. Rather, both attempt to portray what humanity could conceivably become. The authenticity of this conceivability is a necessary condition of the power of both works to raise central philosophical questions about the human condition. What is ethically wrong with control? How far can Man go in recreating himself? In what sense are these worlds anti-utopian? …

Moorean Absurdities And Higher Order Beliefs, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Equality And Diversity, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The foundations of human inequality lie in the fact of human diversity, or in the human tendency to differentiate from some while associating with others to form groups. The diversity which results from association and differentiation makes equality unattainable. Diversity and equality are incompatible, and attempts to promote one can only be made at the expense of the other. In these circumstances, we should abandon the ideal of equality as incapable of offering us an adequate understanding of the nature of the good society.

Letters Of Comfort Revisited, Pey Woan Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Since the English Court of Appeal’s decision in Kleinwort Benson Ltd v. Malaysia Mining Corp. Bhd, it would be understandable if the business community placed little or no reliance on letters of comfort save in the exceptional case where the terms evince an undeniably clear intention to create binding obligations. It might therefore seem somewhat surprising that an experienced and sophisticated institution should commence proceedings in the High Court of Singapore on the premise of a letter of awareness in Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd v. Jurong Engineering Ltd. This could plausibly be explained as the bank’s last-ditch attempt …

Five Trends In Presidential Rhetoric: An Analysis Of Rhetoric From George Washington To Bill Clinton, Elvin T. Lim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Several political scientists have argued that the presidential recourse to public rhetoric as a mode of political influence in the twentieth century represents a significant departure from a pre-twentieth-century institutional norm where “going public” was both rare and frowned upon. This article looks specifically at the changes in the substance of rhetoric that have accompanied this alleged institutional transformation. Applying computer-assisted content analysis to all the inaugural addresses and annual messages delivered between 1789 and 2000, the author identifies and explores five significant changes in twentieth-century presidential rhetoric that would qualifiedly support the thesis of institutional transformation in its rhetorical …

French Military Policies In The Aftermath Of The Yên Bay Mutiny, 1930: Old Security Dilemmas Return To The Surface, Tobias Frederik Rettig

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper provides a brief summary of the Yên Bay mutiny of 10 February 1930, before examining its links to a wider insurrectionary attempt by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party in parts of Tonkin and the reasons why the attempted insurrection was to begin at Yên Bay but not in other garrison towns. It then places the mutiny in a context in which the use of Vietnamese soldiers in French service was necessary in order to maintain French supremacy as a colonial and protectorate power in French Indo-China. But instead of focusing on the mutiny itself and its causes, the main …

Singapore Management University Report To Stakeholders 2002 - 2003, Singapore Management University

Report to Stakeholders

From a start-up institution with great expectations just three years ago, SMU has grown leaps and bounds. This past year was no exception, as we reached new heights while reaffirming the foundational vision of what we are – and want to be. A university with a rigorous curriculum and the right kind of academic and cultural environment for research, exploration and experimentation – where calculated risks can lead to ultimate success. A university full of dynamically talented students and academically outstanding faculty – interactive players in the process of education who make up SMU’s rich intellectual and personally diverse fabric. …

Externalism And Knowledge Of Comparative Content, Yoo Guan Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Concepts are the constituents of thoughts, which in turn, are the contents of propositional attitudes. They are also what the predicates of our language express. According to a tradition going back to Plato, questions about comparative content – questions of the form Is concept F the same as concept G? – are purely about relations of ideas, and so are answerable a priori. This does not mean that no experience at all is necessary to answer such questions, for experience may be needed to grasp their content. Call a piece of information about Fs extraneous if it is not required …

The Role Of Rhetoric Content In Charismatic Leadership: A Content Analysis Of A Singaporean Leader's Speeches, Hwee Hoon Tan, Gladys Wee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study provides an extension to the Charismatic Leadership theories by delineating the roles of rhetoric content: in frame alignment and trust building. Propositions were developed from past literature on the rhetorical behaviors of Charismatic Leadership and the interpersonal trust literature. An empirical study was then conducted to test the propositions developed and it was found that Mr. Lee Kuan Yew use the Singapore National Day Rally speeches in limited ways to align frames and build trust.

The International And Comparative Criminal Trial Project, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The International Criminal Trial Project (ICTP) has been in operation within the Centre for Legal Research (CLR), Nottingham Law school since January 2000. To date the project has succeeded in establishing a global network of scholars researching international and comparative criminal justice. The ICTP examines and compares trial processes and practice in a variety of local, regional and global contexts. The research incorporates particular evaluations of issues and relationships essential to the operation of trial process in different jurisdictions and stages of development. From the focus on the trial the project is producing knowledge about international and comparative criminal justice. …

Scripted Thought: Processing Korean Hancha And Hangul In A Multimedia Context, Nader T. Tavassoli, Jin K. Han

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We compare the cognitive processing of words written in alphabetic scripts with the cognitive processing of words written in logographic scripts. We suggest that the processing of words written in alphabetic scripts relies more heavily on the storage of--and the serial rehearsal properties of--short-term memory's phonological loop. In contrast, the processing of words written in logographic scripts relies more on the storage of--and the spatial-relational rehearsal properties of--visual short-term memory. A series of three experiments investigates implications of these processing differences within a single language, Korean, where words can be written in the alphabetic Hangul or in the logographic Han-cha. …

Religion And Technology: Refiguring Place, Space, Identity And Community, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper reviews the literature on the religion-technology nexus, drawing up a research agenda and offering preliminary empirical insights. Firsts I stress the need to explore the new politics of space as a consequence of technological development, emphasizing questions about the role of religion in effecting a form of religious (neo)imperialism, and uneven access to techno-religious spaces. Second, I highlight the need to examine the politics of identity and community, since cyberspace is not an isotropic surface. Third, I underscore the need to engage with questions about the poetics of religious community as social relations become mediated by technology. Finally, …

Foreign Country Priorities In The Internationalization Process: A Measure And An Exploratory Test On British Firms, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark, Derek S. Pugh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

After a critical analysis of the psychic distance aspect of the Uppsala model of internationalization and empirical studies to test it, this paper proposes a measure to enable comparison between target foreign countries in the priority given them in the internationalization process. An International Priority Index is developed for each target country, and used as the dependent variable in a model to analyze the effects of the independent variables of size of market, affluence of market, geographical distance and cultural distance on foreign country priority choice of home country firms. The measure and the model are given a first test …

Communication And Shared Reality: Implications For The Psychological Foundations Of Culture, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Chi-Yue Chiu, Sau-Lai Lee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Lau et al present a conceptualization of the evolution of shared beliefs from individual interactions, focusing on the role of communication. They argue that the reciprocal relationship between shared reality and communication enables the development of systems of social representations at an individual level.

Is Feminism Bad For Multiculturalism?, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Multiculturalism and feminism are in tension to the extent that multiculturalism is a doctrine that condones the tolera- tion of cultural communities which might not respect or value women's concerns or interests. This has led some feminist think- ers, notably Susan Okin, to ask whether multiculturalism is bad for women. This paper agrees with Okin that there is a tension between feminism and multiculturalism - some of her critics to the contrary notwithstanding - but argues that multiculturalism should take preceden

Linguistic Gender Is Related To Psychological Gender: The Case Of Chinese Characters, Yuk-Yue Tong, Chi-Yue Chiu, Ho-Ying Fu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Past research (Ervin, 1972; Konishi, 1993) suggests that a noun's linguistic gender is not just an arbitrary, semantically-empty linguistic category. Rather it may connote masculine or feminine properties, and thus can subtly influence responses to the noun and its referent. The present study extended this research by exploring how gendered radicals of nonsense Chinese characters might affect the characters' connotations. The results showed that when an unfamiliar Chinese character is encountered, meaning interpretation can be affected by the meaning of the radicals. Moreover, since gendered Chinese radicals are linked to share representations of psychological gender, such as representation may then …

Mentors Or Friends: Confucius And Aristotle On Equality And Ethical Development In Friendship, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In Thinking from the Han, David Hall and Roger Ames compare Plato's - and Confucius's views of friendship in relation to the question of transcendence and arrive at the sad conclusion that Socrates and Confucius could not be friends. "Socratic irony would not allow the inequality Confucius requires as a means of self-betterment. Confucius would not permit he and Socrates to hold all things in common." Along the way, they articulate an understanding of Confucius’ view of friendship as "a one-directional relationship in which one extends oneself by association with one who has attained a higher level of realization." Hall …

On The Interaction Of Alphabetic And Logographic Words With Sounds And Images, Nader T. Tavassoli, Jin K. Han

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

It is well established that reading alphabetic words is dominated by phonological (sound-based) processes, whereas phonological processes do not appear to dominate the processing of Chinese logographs, where visual processes are more pronounced (for reviews, see Tavassoli, in press; Zhou & Marslen-Wilson, 1999). Most previous demonstrations of these linguistic differences have relied on low-level processes that potentially do not involve short-term memory. For example, they have attempted to assess differences in the speed (measured in milliseconds) by which phonological and semantic information get activated in the brain. Our research adds to a growing stream of consumer behavior research that has …

Education And Citizenship In Diverse Societies, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The question of the state's role in the control of sponsorship of education is addressed in the light of liberal political principles designed to keep peace and enforce toleration in culturally diverse societies. Some contemporary, self-described liberal philosophers argue for a much more substantial educational role for the state than liberal principles will really allow. Brian Barry's argument for that role assumes that the state can prescribe answers to controversial questions regarding the truth and the good life in which a truly liberal state would take no interest. Stephen Macedo is more accommodating to religious diversity than Barry, but his …

Bbm Programme Student Handbook 2000-01, Smu School Of Business

SMU Corporate Reports

The SMU Business School (School) undergraduate curriculum leads to the award of the degree of Bachelor of Business Management (BBM). The objective of the programme is to produce professionally competent graduates who are entrepreneurial, creative, capable of critical thinking and committed to life-long learning. In order to accomplish this objective, the curriculum is structured into 3 sections and a business attachment.

The School offers students a carefully designed programme in which business and management education is integrated with a broad-based foundation throughout the student's 4 years. The courses aim to equip all students with the fundamental skills and attributes needed …