The Beginning of the End of the Broad-Brush Approach? – A Case Comment of UQP v UQQ [2019] SGHCF 7 (April 2019). Singapore Law Watch Commentary (Issue 1 of Apr 2019)

The High Court in UQP v UQQ [2019] SGHCF 7 has created another exception to the broad-brush approach from ANJ v ANK [2015] 4 SLR 1043 for the division of matrimonial assets by resisting its application to this short dual-income marriage. This case comment argues that the broad-brush approach ought to have been applied to division of the matrimonial home (that is held in the Wife’s sole name) despite it being wholly financed by the wife and her father before and during the marriage. The author proposes that it is perhaps time to reconsider equality as the starting point to have a single test for the division of matrimonial assets

Taming the Unruly Public Policy Horse in Private International Law in Family Law: A Pragmatic Singaporean Approach to the Recognition of Foreign Same-Sex Marriages and Divorces

With the legalisation of same-sex marriages by more states, it is a matter of time before jurisdictions that have yet to do so will need to decide on the recognition of foreign same-sex marriages and divorces. Public policy – the unruly horse – peers its head out again even if these marriages and divorces pass the muster of the common law private international law rules. This article explores the role of public policy in such situations and proposes a framework for the balancing of the claimed rights, comity, and public policy. Applying the proposed framework, even if there is a public policy against same-sex marriage, this public policy should play a diminished role in private international law such that foreign same-sex marriages and divorces can be recognised by the forum

Bandit Learning for Dynamic Colonel Blotto Game with a Budget Constraint

We consider a dynamic Colonel Blotto game (CBG) in which one of the players is the learner and has limited troops (budget) to allocate over a finite time horizon. At each stage, the learner strategically determines the budget distribution among the battlefields based on past observations. The other player is the adversary, who chooses its budget allocation strategies randomly from some fixed unknown distribution. The learner's objective is to minimize its regret, which is the difference between the payoff of the best mixed strategy and the realized payoff by following a learning algorithm. The dynamic CBG is analyzed under the framework of combinatorial bandit and bandit with knapsacks. We first convert the dynamic CBG with budget constraint to a path planning problem on a graph. We then devise an efficient dynamic policy for the learner that uses a combinatorial bandit algorithm Edge on the path planning graph as a subroutine for another algorithm LagrangeBwK. It is shown that under the proposed policy, the learner's regret is bounded with high probability by a term sublinear in time horizon $T$ and polynomial with respect to other parameters

The Garnishment of Monies in Joint Bank Accounts: Timing Ltd v Tay Toh Hin and another [2020] SGHC 169; and Timing Ltd v Tay Toh Hin and another [2021] SGHC 5

Generally, common law jurisdictions do not allow for the garnishing of monies in a joint account to satisfy a judgment debt. In Timing Ltd v Tay Toh Hin and another [2020] SGHC 169; and Timing Ltd v Tay Toh Hin and another [2021] SGHC 5, the Singapore High Court carved out a limited exception to the rule, allowing a provisional garnishee order to be granted over a joint account where there is at least strong prima facie evidence that all monies in that account belongs to the judgment debtor. The authors believe that the exception is a step in the right direction: it disincentivises judgment debtors from using joint accounts to keep assets out of their creditors’ reach. At the same time, the requirement of strong prima facie evidence is a high threshold which ensures that garnishee banks and joint account holders will not be subject to frivolous proceedings. However, there remain a number of substantive and procedural issues, such as the legal effect of a garnishee order on the ownership rights of the joint account holders, and the appropriate costs orders in such proceedings, which will need to be dealt with in future cases

Tests on the effect of shape on the strength of castings

Citation: White, Leon Vincent and Corbin, De Verne. Tests on the effect of shape on the strength of castings. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1903.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: Introduction: It was our intention upon taking up this subject for ta thesis, to deal mainly with beams of various cross-section; to ascertain their transverse strength and the effect of the shape of the sections chosen upon this strength, but owing to unforeseen difficulties which prevented the foundry from maintaining their usual supply of iron, it was impossible to cast the specimens and so we were limited almost entirely to tests in compression and tension, using the common test bars on hand and those specimens that we could turn from them. The first test made was that of finding the relative strength of cast iron, in tension and compression. For this purpose specimens were turned three-fourths of an inch in diameter and one and a half inches long, five specimens being tested in compression and five in tension. The average breaking lad of the specimens tested in tension was 21,852 pounds per square inch, and for those in compression 112,473 pounds per square inch this giving the ratio of the breaking load in tension to the breaking lad in compression as 1 is to 5.147. Results of this test are shown in table number one. The second test (results shown in table number two) was made with turned bars in tension, sixteen specimens being broken in all; six of the shapes shown by figure one, four like figure two, three like figure three and three like figure four. The first specimen was simply a turned bar, the finished surface being of no specified length and the shoulders lift round. In the second a V shaped cut was made in the surface of the bar with a diamond nose lathe tool. The third specimen was treated the same as the second except that in place of the diamond nose a round nose tool was used, cutting a U shaped groove

Laboratory Model of Magnetic Frictionless Flywheel and Hoverboard

We constructed a ring Halbach array of strong NdBeB grade 52 arc-segment magnets, with magnetizations chosen to create a one-sided magnet with the field magnified on the flat side. We investigated a repulsive axial levitating forces and associated circumferential drag forces acting on an assembly of inductors suspended above the rotating array. After measuring induced currents, voltages and magnetic fields in the individual inductors (in the form of short solenoids) of our induction wheels, we investigated the dependence of lift/drag forces on the speed of relative rotation of magnets and inductors. The ratio of lift to drag increases uniformly with the angular velocity, as expected from a related theory of the induction effects in linear motion. We experimented with the shape and density of the various inductive loads made from air core inductors, and with their nonmagnetic conductive material to maximize lift. We have achieved a maximum lift of some 20% of the inductor assembly’s weight at our limiting speed of 2500 rpm. More development is still needed in order to obtain better and more accurate results. Eventually this design could have applications as frictionless bearings or as frictionless gear in a wide range of systems, especially in machinery that cannot be easily accessed. This paper has implications for ideas to build frictionless flywheels and hover boards