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Originated in southern China, nanyin (南音) is regarded as 'the sound of motherland' (乡音) performed and loved by the Hokkien dialect speakers in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and diasporic populations living in Southeast Asia. Having thrived in transnational spaces, nanyin is now celebrated as a shared heritage in China and Southeast Asian countries, such as Singapore. This paper explores the process of heritage‐making, that is, the ways in which the art form and cultural practice of nanyin have been re‐shaped and re‐appropriated by the diasporic communities and the native place to articulate different understandings of the Chinese identity in their distinct nation‐state frameworks. In this ambivalent entanglement, China has re‐appropriated the diasporic history of nanyin to gain international recognition and build soft power through United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In Singapore, the Siong Leng Music Association has actively engaged in the heritage‐making of nanyin, leading to the creation of a unique Singapore brand that speaks to hybridity and cosmopolitanism, in the same way as the re‐construction of their Chinese identity. Examining the two processes of heritagisation of nanyin along the China‐Singapore 'heritage corridors', the paper argues that the two ends are connected in important ways but always seek to maintain distance to articulate their own cultural representations at international stages. Thus, nanyin through a comparative perspective enables a critical examination of issues of centre versus periphery, authenticity, and hybridity in the Sinophone world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is difficult to detect bridges in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images due to the inherent speckle noise of SAR images, the interference generated by strong coastal scatterers, and the diversity of bridge and coastal terrain morphologies. In this paper, we present a two-step bridge detection method for polarimetric SAR imagery, in which the probability graph model of a Markov tree is used to build the water network, and bridges are detected by traversing the graph of the water network to determine all adjacent water branch pairs. In the step of the water network construction, candidate water branches are first extracted by using a region-based level set segmentation method. The water network is then built globally as a tree by connecting the extracted water branches based on the probabilistic graph model of a Markov tree, in which a node denotes a single branch and an edge denotes the connection of two adjacent branches. In the step of the bridge detection, all adjacent water branch pairs related to bridges are searched by traversing the constructed tree. Each bridge is finally detected by merging the two contours of the corresponding branch pair. Three polarimetric SAR data acquired by RADARSAT-2 covering Singapore and Lingshui, China, and by TerraSAR-X covering Singapore, are used for testing. The experimental results show that the detection rate, the false alarm rate, and the intersection over union (IoU) between the recognized bridge body and the ground truth are all improved by using the proposed method, compared to the method that constructs a water network based on water branches merging by contour distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Threat perception has been central in the field of international relations, especially in the literature of states' alliances and conflict solutions. International Relations (IR) balance of power and alliance theories have largely equated "threat" to "power." A standard narrative in Singapore's foreign policy toward great powers is its reluctance to choose between both. Singapore's immediate neighbor, Indonesia, the largest archipelagic country in the world, has voiced similar inclinations. Studies have concentrated on the larger power threat interpretation and their responses toward the change in the international order arising from China's growth or the rise of terrorism but rarely examining issues from small states' point of view. According to Realists' logic, small states possess little capacity to influence the fate of their own survival; therefore, they can only choose between balancing and band wagoning. Threat perceptions play an intermediary role in connecting the external environment and state foreign policy behavior. Hence, the study of threat perception is critical as it influences states foreign policies regarding issues ranging from defense spending to states' level of commitment toward international multilateral cooperation. IR scholars have examined how states form threat perceptions from various psychological and non-psychological perspectives. However, these factors are often studied independently. This paper argues that Gestalt principles of threat perception offer a more thorough analysis of Singapore's threat perception by bridging the gap between realist and constructivist studies by demonstrating how Singapore's threat perception as a small state is magnified due to its unique geographical position and its shared cultural affinity with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic, an exceptional crisis, sparked the introduction of new digital infrastructure to halt the novel coronavirus's spread. This paper explores how such digital infrastructure's impact might reverberate over the long term, by comparing Singapore, Hong Kong, and mainland China's utilization of digital technology in response to the 2003 SARS outbreak, and their responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. We find that advancements in digital technology since 2003 have boosted governments' surveillance and segregation abilities substantially—most dramatically so in China. Even though some of these new digital interventions are ostensibly designed to be temporary ones to address the needs of the immediate crisis, we argue that the resultant extensions of state power experienced during COVID-19 are likely to have profound long-term effects because they fundamentally affect sociopolitical contexts, institutional capabilities, and digital cultures. We also find that the extent to which governments can extend digital surveillance and segregation abilities during the pandemic is contingent on their respective sociopolitical, institutional, and digital cultural contexts. • COVID-19 pandemic sparked calls for a new digital infrastructure. • We compare 2003 SARS outbreak to COVID-19 pandemic. • New digital technologies increased governments' ability to surveil and segregate. • Their impact on surveillance and segregation will persist post COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]