Consent in Marriage: A Radical Feminist Analysis of Pakistani Law

In Abdul Kadir v. Salima, Mahmood J summarised the nature of a Pakistani wife’s duties under Islamic Law. The nikkah contract “imposes submission on the wife when summoned to the couch and confers on him the power of correction when she is disobedient or rebellious.” Earlier, a similar pronouncement was made across the ocean in the United Kingdom by Sir Matthew Hale that through the marriage contract the “wife hath given herself to the husband, consent of which she cannot retract.” Marital rape was later recognised as an offence in the UK by the House of Lords in R v. R. In Pakistan, however, the jurisprudence behind the decision in Abdul Kadir continues to prevail. This Essay will assess the offence of rape in Pakistan and analyse the difficulty in prosecuting marital rape cases. The discussion will also focus on the underlying source of this difficulty, being the corresponding rights of spouses under Islamic law, particularly the husband’s right to obedience and sexual access to the wife. A critique of these spousal rights will then be presented using radical feminist jurisprudence, particularly the works of Catherine MacKinnon, Robin West, and Andrea Dworkin. The subject of inquiry is the nature of a Pakistani wife’s ‘consent’ in light of social, economic and sexual inequalities prevalent in an Islamic marriage and whether exploitation of the same renders a consent-based definition of rape redundant

Domestic Resource Mobilisation: A Structural Approacb

The Mobilisation of domestic resources and their efficient utilisation are two of the most crucial tasks in revitalising the economy of Pakistan. Historically, low saving fotmation and relatively higher targets of investment and economic growth made it imperative to depend on external resources. Despite heavy domestic borrowing from both private and public sectors, there still has remained an unmet resource gap that has necessitated dependence on foreign capital. I In recent years, the sources of foreign assistance have become scarce due to a growing shortage in world saving and growing domestic demand for budget appropriations in the western countries. If economic growth in Pakistan is to be sustained and selfgenerating, investment in physical and human development must be increased and mad more efficient. To meet this challenge, most of the capital will have to come from domestic sources. Hence, the focus of this paper is on harnessing domestic efforts to increase saving formation and to enhance efficiency of capital investments. Traditionally, the government of Pakistan has relied on conventional approaches to increasing domestic saving. First, the government has been encouraging greater saving by the private sector through a package of national saving schemes and by allowing financial institutions to introduce saving incentives. Saving-schemes and saving incentives have not produced satisfying results. Table 1 shows saving and investment in selected South Asian countries. Saving in Pakistan is very low and, indeed, among the lowest even when compared with neighbouring and other developing countries. Explanations of this failure include the low levels of income and high rate of inflation in the country.2 Moreover, the financial institutions have in general remained inefficient

An Account of the Rise and Fall of the Australian Cameleering Industry, 1830-1930

The Australian cameleering industry, which thrived in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, played a crucial role in the exploration of the Australian outback, and development of the mineral riches of the new colony. The Australian cameleering industry emerged at that time as one of the most thriving and profitable businesses in Australia. It presents a unique scenario whereby immigrants not only came with highly sought after and locally scarce skills but they also brought their own lucrative transport ‘technology’, camels, to their adopted country. This paper intends to open up the aforementioned industry to the Australian business history scholarship. This paper presents an account of key events of the Australian cameleering industry, in order to elicit feedback for further developing theoretical frameworks for that aspect of hitherto inadequately investigated Australian history. Two possible lines of investigation would be specifically elaborated for feedback from business history colleagues. First, the paper traces the rise and ultimate demise of the industry in the wake of the introduction of mechanised transport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; is there a story of an industry going through its life cycle, which could be a good teaching case study in business history? Second, the paper also highlights the dynamics of the cartage industry of that time in terms of the clash between the interests of the powerful and unionised industry incumbents ( the horse and bullock drawn cartage) and the economically more efficient but less politically influential new entrants (the camel carriers). Could this clash of various industry actors also inform policy making on contemporary issues on optimum regulatory responses to managing the interests of various industry actors?The symposium is organised on behalf of AAHANZBS by the Business and Labour History Group, The University of Sydney, with the financial support of the University’s Faculty of Economics and Business

MODELLING AND FAULT DIAGNOSIS APPROACH FOR PROTON EXCHANGE MEMBRANE FUEL CELL SYSTEMS INCORPORATING AMBIENT CONDITIONS

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), as a source of electrical power, provides numerous benefits such as zero carbon emission and high reliability as compared to wind and solar energy. PEMFC operates at very low temperature, high power density, and has very high durability as compared to other fuel cells. Being a non-linear power source with high sensitivity to ambient conditions variation, the prediction of PEMFC voltage and temperature is a complicated issue. The most common PEMFC models are classified as mechanistic models, semi-empirical models, and purely empirical methods. The mechanistic models are complex and require differential equations to predict the voltage and temperature of PEMFC. However, the semi-empirical models are less complicated and can be used easily for the online prediction of PEMFC outputs. Therefore, the first part of this thesis attempt to model the voltage of PEMFC using simple and effective semi-empirical equations. The initial feature of the proposed technique is to incorporate the features of a mechanistic model with less complex equations. The model considers the internal currents and the internal voltage drop associated with the PEMFC. Besides, activation and concentration voltage drops are addressed based on theoretical functions. Thus, the proposed model provides an additional benefit that not only does the output voltage model satisfy the voltage for both loaded and unloaded conditions but also the component voltage drops waveforms match with the theoretical waveforms given in the mechanistic models. The second part of the thesis focuses on modelling the PEMFC temperature. Previously most temperature models use complex equations incorporating PEMFC output voltage which is not a good option as the temperature must be predicted using only load current and ambient temperature. The model proposed in this thesis is developed through an algorithm that tracks the online changes in the load current and ambient temperature. It provides the accurate temperature of PEMFC by using a simple first-order equation with the help of a tracking algorithm. Quantum lig tening search algorithm (QLSA) is used for the optimization of constant parameters for both voltage and temperature models. The PEMFC performance is affected by factors such as variations in ambient temperature, pressure, and air relative humidity and thus they are vital for predicting PEMFC performance. The thesis also attempts to directly predict the variations in PEMFC voltage under varying ambient conditions at different load resistance. For this purpose, statistical analysis is used to propose empirical equations that can predict the variations in PEMFC voltage for varying ambient conditions. In this context of the model development, the parameters which are significantly varying with ambient changes are identified with the help of statistical regression analysis and represented as ambient temperature and air relative humidity dependent parameters. The enhanced semi-empirical voltage model is verified by performing experiments on both the Horizon and NEXA PEMFC systems under different conditions of ambient temperature and relative humidity with root mean square error (RMSE) less than 0.5. Results obtained using the enhanced model are found to closely approximate those obtained using PEMFCs under various operating conditions, and in both cases, the PEMFC voltage is observed to vary with changes in the ambient and load conditions. Inherent advantages of the proposed PEMFC model include its ability to determine membrane-water content and water pressure inside PEMFCs. The membrane-water content provides clear indications regarding the occurrence of drying and flooding faults. For normal conditions, this membrane water content ranges between 12.5 to 6.5 for the Horizon PEMFC system. Based on simulation results, a threshold membrane water- content level is suggested as a possible indicator of fault occurrence under extreme ambient conditions. Limits of the said threshold are observed to be useful for fault diagnosis within the PEMFC systems

Developing magnetic functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes-based buckypaper for the removal of Furazolid

Magnetic f-MWCNTs-based BP/PVA membrane was fabricated and utilized for the elimination of furazolidone (FZD) from aqueous solution. Characterisation and adsorption studies were performed to evaluate the performance and adsorptive efficiency, respectively of the membrane. Furthermore, statistical and machine learning technique were also applied to predict the removal efficiency of FZD on the membrane. The results revealed that magnetic f-MWCNTs-based BP/PVA membrane has the potential to be used as an efficient membrane for practical applications

Comparison of Cooperative Diversity Protocols in Various Relay Locations through Network Coding

In this paper, the performance of Network Coded (NC) based cooperative network for various relay location over Rayleigh fading channels is studied. Comparisons of Amplify and Forward (AAF), Detect and Forward (DTF) and Decode and forward (DCF) protocols for the proposed system are shown. The performance of relays in AAF, DTF and DCF is analyzed in terms of bit error rate (BER) vs signal to noise ratio (SNR). Matlab is used to build Monte-Carlo link level simulation. The effect of relays at different position is studied

Assessing decision of inpatient or outpatient care in community acquired pneumonia: APT care study

Objective: To estimate the proportion of community-acquired pneumonia patients with disagreement between Confusion, Uraemia, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, age \u3e 65 years recommendation and physician\\\\u27s decision to hospitalise or not.Methods: This cross-sectional nation-wide, non-interventional, cross-sectional study was carried out across 10 cities of Pakistan from December 2011 to May 2012, and recruited consenting adult patients with confirmatory diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia on chest X-ray. Confusion, Uraemia, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, age \u3e 65 years recommendation for each patient was determined at the time of analysis. This recommendation was compared with treatment decision made by the physician. Disagreement was considered when the physician\\\\u27s decision did not match with the recommendation. SPSS 18 was used for data analysis.Results: Of the 352 patients, 201(57.10%) were males. The overall mean age was 50.67±18.45 years. In 140(39.77%) patients there was disagreement between Confusion, Uraemia, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, age \u3e 65 years recommendation and physician\\\\u27s decision regarding hospitalisation or outpatient care. Of the 352 cases 132(37.50%) were hospitalised despite the recommendation of outpatient treatment.Conclusion: In almost four out of every 10 patients there was disagreement between Confusion, Uraemia, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, age \u3e 65 years recommendation and the physician\\\\u27s decision regarding hospitalisation of community-acquired pneumonia patients