This Research Communication reports the physicochemical properties, aflatoxin levels and antibiotic residues in buffalo milk. The milk and feed samples were collected from nine farms in Peninsular Malaysia, with the lactation stage studied in one farm. Buffalo milk composition varied across farms; Petaling Jaya showed high fat and total solids but low protein and solids non-fat (SNF), while Jitra 1 and Seberang Perai 2 exhibited higher protein, casein and SNF. Langkawi and Hulu Langat had higher moisture, ash and lactose levels. Early and late lactation were linked to higher protein and casein. Aflatoxin B1 in feed was undetectable; however, aflatoxin M1, amoxicillin and oxytetracycline were present in milk but below the regulatory limits. These findings indicate that current on-farm management practices are effective in ensuring the safety and quality of buffalo milk, while continuous monitoring remains crucial.

In this paper, we solve an exit probability game between two players, each of whom controls a linear diffusion process. One player controls its process to minimize the probability that the difference of the processes reaches a low level before it reaches a high level, while the other player aims to maximize the probability. By solving the Bellman–Isaacs equations, we find the sub-value and sup-value functions of the game in explicit forms, which are twice continuously differentiable. The optimal plays associated with the sub-value and sup-value are also found explicitly.

This article comparatively examines commentaries by sixteenth-century European reformers on the apostle Paul’s “allegory” in Galatians 4:21–31. Older scholarship on the reformers’ relationship to allegorical exegesis tended to view the reformers as strict literalists, leading to charges that Protestantism created an anti-figurative culture. More recent work, however, has frequently argued that the reformers in fact continued to subtly interpret the Bible allegorically, even to the point that some regularly contradicted their theoretical opposition to allegory in their actual exegetical practice. I argue that a close reading of the reformers’ commentaries on Galatians 4:21–31 challenges both of these interpretations. Rather than seeing the reformers as solely concerned with whether scripture should be read allegorically, this article points to a more nuanced set of questions that the reformers debated concerning the nature, status, and purposes of allegorical exegesis. Understanding these sixteenth-century questions supports seeing a high degree of consistency between various reformers’ hermeneutical theory and their exegetical practice, while also offering a much richer set of considerations for what it means to speak of the reformers’ spectrum of approaches to allegory than has typically been given. The reformers offered no unified approach to allegory but instead gave a rich variety of approaches to this perennial literary and exegetical conundrum.

It was by chance that John Morrogh (1849–1901) became an imperial player. Leaving Ireland as an almost penniless young man moulded by the Catholic nationalism of the Christian Brothers, he joined the early diamond rush to Kimberley, South Africa, and returned home twenty years later a director of Cecil Rhodes’s De Beers Consolidated Diamond Mines. He joined the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and his diamond fortune eased his path to a seat in the House of Commons. As the IPP fragmented, he took the side of the anti-Parnellite, Tim Healy, until he resigned his seat and returned to Cork where he became an influential figure in business and local government. This article traces the fortunes and sensibilities of an Irish migrant who in many ways exemplifies Ireland’s ‘ambivalent heritage’ of nationalism and empire.1

In this paper, we study the quantitative recurrence properties in the case of $\mathbb {Z}$-extension of Axiom A flows on a Riemannian manifold. We study the asymptotic behavior of the first return time to a small neighborhood of the starting point. We establish results of almost everywhere convergence, and of convergence in distribution with respect to any probability measure absolutely continuous with respect to the infinite invariant measure. In particular, our results apply to geodesic flows on the $\mathbb {Z}$-cover of compact smooth surfaces of negative curvature.

This article explores the early development of Japan’s recording industry, focusing on locally driven “minor transnational engagements” between emerging Japanese record companies and foreign recording experts. The initial phase of Japan’s recording history mirrored the pattern in most countries from the early 1900s, with major record companies organizing international recording expeditions equipped with new acoustic disc recording technology. However, it was homegrown firms in the 1910s, especially the Nipponophone Company (Nihon Chikuonki Shōkai 日本蓄音器商會), that positioned themselves as the main producers of Japanese titles and gramophones. In the second half of the 1920s, the industry evolved further with the introduction of electrical recording technology, and Japanese record companies embraced it by partnering with international labels to establish multinational ventures. With a focus on the acoustic recording era of the 1910s and early 1920s, this article investigates Nipponophone’s recruitment of foreign recording experts, who not only shared their technical knowledge but also served as strategic conduits for expanding the company’s presence across regional and international markets. Nipponophone and other domestic record companies grew through expert collaborations and secondhand emulation. Their efforts, rather than global campaigns led by the multinational major labels, played a decisive role in shaping Japan’s early recording industry.

During the Imjin War (1592–1598), a new type of warfare centered on the harquebus was introduced into Korea. This led to the formation of a new infantry-based military composed largely of harquebusiers. Existing scholarship on the military change of Korea in this period has primarily focused on the emergence of the standing army. However, most of the troops were militiamen, similar to those of the prewar military. This article examines the broader contours of Korea’s military organization during this transformative period, with particular attention to the composition and roles of the forces. To be sure, a new standing army unit was organized, but its proportion was small both in absolute numbers and in participation in actual warfare. Instead, the militia continued to constitute the core of the Korean military and carried out the majority of wartime operations. The Korean court did not intend to raise a standing army as the new center of military power. This was due to its strong ideological commitment to the militia system and the actual military environment that Korea was facing. The Korean case presents a distinctive example of how the introduction of harquebus could coexist with the persistence of militia-based military structures.

Triplet pregnancies are linked to a higher risk of maternal and fetal complications compared to twins and singletons. Chorionicity has been suggested as a key factor influencing perinatal and maternal outcomes in triplet pregnancies; however, more evidence is needed to clarify its role. This study aimed to assess the impact of chorionicity on adverse maternal, fetal, and neonatal outcomes in triplet pregnancies. This retrospective observational study was conducted on triplet pregnancies delivered between 2010 and 2025 at Florence University Hospital, a tertiary referral maternity center. A total of 77 triplet pregnancies were included, 51 trichorionic and 26 nontrichorionic, resulting in the delivery of 214 newborns. Maternal characteristics and obstetric, fetal, and neonatal complications were compared based on chorionicity. Multivariate logistic regression analyses identified complications most strongly associated with chorionicity, after adjusting for maternal age, mode of conception, and gestational age at delivery. Women with nontrichorionic triplet pregnancies had higher risks of delivering earlier and postpartum hemorrhage. Their newborns had significantly lower birth weights, a greater need for neonatal intensive care admission and respiratory support, and higher rates of hypoglycemia and sepsis. The multivariate logistic regression confirmed nontrichorionicity as an independent factor associated with earlier delivery and postpartum hemorrhage. Chorionicity plays an essential role in determining the prognosis of triplet pregnancies. Nontrichorionic pregnancies are strongly linked to earlier delivery, lower birth weights, and increased neonatal complications. These findings are useful for counseling patients, helping them understand specific risks based on chorionicity, although intensive prenatal care remains critical for all triplet pregnancies.

Over a four-year period from 1909 to 1913, the German expedition to Tendaguru removed 250 metric tons of dinosaur fossils from what is now Tanzania and was then part of the colony of German East Africa. To this day, these fossils – some of them now world-famous exhibits – are held in Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde. Using hitherto unexamined sources, this paper reveals how the expedition’s leaders translated their initial mission of “thorough excavation” into a strategy of total extraction, leading them to amass thousands of additional animals, plant samples, and cultural artifacts that were subsequently distributed among Berlin’s national museums. It shows that this multi-institutional and transdisciplinary colonial archive relied heavily on colonial infrastructures and violence and argues that collecting in this context must be understood as an enactment of power. Following Dan Hicks, it asks how this history might be interpreted within a theory of taking.

This article examines the lexicon for “gift” in the Gāndhārī epigraphical corpus, focusing on three key word-forms: G. dana-, danamuha- and deyadhaṃma-. These terms, which denote the meaning of “gift”, appear 36, 111 and 14 times respectively (both as single words and as compound constituents) in Gāndhārī inscriptions currently recorded in the CKI. Despite their frequent appearance, existing scholarship has primarily restricted itself to identifying their synonymous functions or analysing their grammatical construction in the case of the two compounds. No comprehensive study has yet catalogued all occurrences of these word-forms, traced their semantic development or examined the reasons behind their changing usage over time. This article addresses this gap by providing a complete inventory of the occurrences of these word-forms in the Gāndhārī epigraphical corpus and examining their use in non-Gāndhārī sources. It also presents a semantic analysis, exploring their synchronic and diachronic relationships within Gāndhārī inscriptions.

Contemporary historians of philosophy almost universally embrace the idea that the young Plato had a close, personal relationship with the historical Socrates. Many refuse to countenance a similar status for Plato’s contemporary, Xenophon. This note takes as its focus a novel argument intended to support the claim that Xenophon was never on intimate terms with Socrates or even privy to reliable information about him. The reply offered here has implications far beyond this apparently narrow focus, however, and points to pervasive biases in Socratic studies generally that remain in sore need of correction.

This article develops a praxeological perspective on the history of partisanship in Central and Eastern Europe. The author proposes to examine partisanship not as an idea or a concept but as a virtue that was supposed to be forcibly cultivated and practiced in science and scholarship under Soviet domination. The article focuses on the cases of two prominent Marxist philosophers, Arnošt Kolman and Adam Schaff, who became devoted teachers of partisanship in the Soviet Union as well as in their “native” Czechoslovakia and Poland. Later, both were publicly accused of “non-partisanship.” Based on these examples, the author argues that, with the establishment of the socialist regimes, partisanship became a tool of maintaining stability. This implied more autonomy for the scholars and scientists who learned how to use the quasi-moral authority of partisanship to exclude from the “moral consensus” those who, due to their “excessive diligence,” threatened the internal norms and conventions.