The story of a post-feminist in post-patriarchy : the consequences of customary laws and practices on rural women’s land rights and livelihoods in Tanzania

In rural Tanzania, customary laws and practices have for over 50 years been the major constraints of women’s land rights and livelihood. According to customs, a man has inherent powers to own and control land, and he is considered to be the rightful heir of such resource, and a woman is not. In most cases, women get to experience such disposition in matters of inheritance, succession, and division of matrimonial properties after divorce. This study is aimed to investigate on the experience of rural women brought by the laws and cultural practices applied in ownership of land, and how these laws and practices affect women’s livelihood in Tanzania. A combination of two conceptual frameworks of patriarchy and livelihood was applied to answer the research questions, where the conceptualisation of patriarchy follows the idea of the importance of culture in explaining the experience of rural women in matters of land ownership, whilst livelihood was important in order to provide an understanding of the impacts of cultural practices applied in land issues on the livelihood of rural women, since securing of livelihood can be done when a person have access to resources, which enhances their capabilities to earn a living. Both frameworks are derivate of Amartya Sen and Chambers & Conway’s definition, and were situated within the mode of application done by three development actors who are UNDP, DFID, and CARE. The study is structured into two phases, in which phase 1 consists of document analysis, while phase 2 carries the case study where a purposive sampling of Local Government officials and local female villagers was made and employed semi-structured interviews as the data collection approach. The findings insinuates that, cultural practices, assumptions, beliefs, customary laws and national laws have not only led to the dispossession of rural women in land ownership, but also lowered the social position of women in household decision making processes. As a consequence, this constrains the capability of rural women to earn a living since land is the major asset needed for them to secure their livelihood. The findings concluded that there is a need for reconsideration of the prevailing patriarchal assumptions in the land ownership discourse, which largely focuses on male and disregard the position of their female counterparts

Fatigue and fracture of cement mortars containing fly ash

The aim of the work described in this thesis was two-fold; to investigate the effects of fly ash on the fatigue resistance of cement mortars when included as a partial cement replacement, and to seek to improve the understanding of cyclic fatigue crack growth mechanisms in cementitious materials. Mortar mixes were prepared with similar compressive cube strengths using a range of three fly ash contents from 0% to 25% (by mass of cement). Samples prepared using these mixes were tested in a double torsion facility under cyclic loading, and the rates of crack growth measured and recorded. These crack velocities were plotted against the applied stress intensities on log-log scales in so called V-K diagrams. An advantage of using the double torsion system was that the applied stress intensity was constant for constant load conditions and changing crack length, unlike many other configurations. However, the amount of scatter inherent in the system, and in testing cementitious materials, is large. This has meant that comparison between sets of data has had to be carried out on the basis of comparing the positions of clouds of data, rather than comparing the slopes of best fit lines. Another advantage of the OT system is that some of the parameters pertaining to the test can be changed whilst the test is in progress. This means that the effects of changing, say, load amplitude or cyclic frequency can be observed on the same specimen. Parameters that were considered in the test matrix. included the following: fly ash content, sample age, cyclic frequency and amplitude, maximum applied stress intensity, relative humidity and temperature of the environment, drying preparation of the sample and the type of fluid in which the samples were tested. The relative effects of all of these variables were compared in a series of V-K plots and trends were noted

Progress in Translation Studies

Non peer reviewe

Dastar, Vorya: Dictionary of Research Methodologies in Translation and Interpreting Studies. Tabriz: Zaban Academic Publishing, 2017. [Book review]

Non peer reviewe

Review of Literary Translation in Modern Iran: A Sociological Study, Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam (2014)

Book review. Reviewed work: Literary translation in Modern Iran : a sociological study / Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam. - Amsterdam, the Netherlands ; Philadelphia, PA : John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2014. ISBN 978-90-272-5854-0 (hc), 978-90-272-6939-3 (ebk).Non peer reviewe

Translation ethics

Peer reviewe

Fiberscopic Imaging of the Pediatric Nasopharynx

This study describes the endoscopic findings about the size of the adenoid tissue and the condition of the nasopharyngeal orifice of the eustachian tube. Results confirmed that only fiberscopic examination allows a thorough inspection of the nasopharyngeal anatomy to make a correct diagnosis and design therapeutic planning. When the presence of adenoid hypertrophy resulting in nasal obstruction, snoring, and/or otitis media was confirmed endoscopically, adenoidectomy proved to be highly efficacious in relieving these symptoms