Impact of host country policies on the overseas Chinese family in Singapore and Malaysia

The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of changes in the family construct of the Singaporean Overseas Chinese resulting from migration, settlement, and public policy. The family institution then changes in response to family policy, so that today it bears little resemblance to the traditional blueprint. Differences between the family institutions of the three major racial groups in Singapore have emerged as a result of discriminatory policy pressures. The Singaporean government has used family planning policies to create the ideal social structure and human resource capital, possibly at the expense of Malays and women with less education. The fate of the Overseas Chinese family institution in Singapore may also differ to its counterpart in Malaysia. In Malaysia, the pro-Malay affirmative action program has contributed to a dramatic reduction in Overseas Chinese fertility, whilst creating unintended consequences that are not easily reversible. Both examples lend credence to the “minority status hypothesis” on family planning. The paper concludes with issues for macromarketing scholars to ponder

Objective Classes for Micro-Facial Expression Recognition

Micro-expressions are brief spontaneous facial expressions that appear on a face when a person conceals an emotion, making them different to normal facial expressions in subtlety and duration. Currently, emotion classes within the CASME II dataset are based on Action Units and self-reports, creating conflicts during machine learning training. We will show that classifying expressions using Action Units, instead of predicted emotion, removes the potential bias of human reporting. The proposed classes are tested using LBP-TOP, HOOF and HOG 3D feature descriptors. The experiments are evaluated on two benchmark FACS coded datasets: CASME II and SAMM. The best result achieves 86.35\% accuracy when classifying the proposed 5 classes on CASME II using HOG 3D, outperforming the result of the state-of-the-art 5-class emotional-based classification in CASME II. Results indicate that classification based on Action Units provides an objective method to improve micro-expression recognition.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures and 5 tables. This paper will be submitted for journal revie

Wideband, high efficiency optical modulator requires less than 10 watts drive power

Wideband optical modulation system operates with less than 10-watts drive power. It consists of an optical modulator and transistorized driver that combines small cross-section potassium dideuterium phosphate crystals with laser beam-condensing optics. Optical modulation systems may serve importantly in future space wideband communication systems

The role of negative urgency impulsivity and financial management practices in compulsive buying

Previous research has shown that negative urgency impulsivity is associated with compulsive buying even after controlling for depression. The aim of the present study was to replicate this finding and to examine if financial management practices mediated this relationship. A community sample of 162 participants (34 male and 128 female), aged between 18 and 82 years, completed online self-report questionnaire measures. As expected, results revealed (1) significant positive associations between compulsive buying and both negative urgency impulsivity (NUI) and psychological distress; and (2) a significant negative association between compulsive buying and financial management practices. We also found that after controlling for psychological distress (3) NUI was still significantly correlated with compulsive buying, and (4) financial management practices partially mediated the relationship between NUI and financial management practices. Our findings are consistent with an extension of the theory that compulsive buying is motivated by relieving negative mood states, positing both negative affect-driven impulsivity and psychological distress as important factors in understanding compulsive buying. These findings also support current cognitive-behavioural interventions for the treatment of compulsive buying that target psychological distress, NUI, and financial management practices

ACSys/RDN experiences with Telstra’s experimental broadband network, second progress report

This report addresses three issues relevant to DHPC network infrastructure requirements:. · Technically, what we can currently achieve with the EBN? · What are desirable qualities in future ATM networks? · What further development of the EBN would we like to see for other applications? In writing this report, we will briefly describe the EBN ATM experience of ACSys’ Distributed High Performance Computing Project and Digital Media Libraries project, explain some of the technology and networking issues we have dealt with and summarise what we have learned. We have also included some background material on the EBN and ATM networks in general

The personal and social influences of charity donations

The critical research question pondered in this paper is whether donation intentions can be predicted by general attitudes toward giving or helping. Using findings from the literature review and several focus groups, the authors propose a conceptual framework of charity donation intentions and test it with data from a sample of 313 survey respondents. Partial least squares regression was used to estimate the model and results indicated that while general attitudes towards helping others are influenced by altruism and collectivism, it does not predict donation intentions to a specific charity organization. The authors conclude that donation intentions to a specific organization is organization- or context-bound and that global predictors, such as personal and social characteristics, may not be as helpful in explaining donation behavior. The authors also call for more research in this are

Wideband high efficiency optical modulator Final report, 15 Feb. 1966 - 15 Mar. 1967

Design of wideband high efficiency optical modulation system tested over 100-MHz ban