This article examines the “beloved’s male camel section” in classical Arabic poetry, a structural and thematic component within the traditional ẓaʿāʾin section, which depicts the departure of the beloved. It investigates the development of this significant element and explores its usage in both Umayyad and pre-Umayyad poetry, with particular emphasis on the work of the early Islamic poet Mulayh b. al-Hakam from the Hejaz region, whose contributions have been largely overlooked in modern studies. The article concludes with several key findings, notably that the beloved’s male camel section is a defining feature of Umayyad-era poetry. This study also helps pinpoint when six poems from Mulayh’s dīwān were composed and reevaluates the timeframe of another poem attributed to an anonymous poet.

This article provides a microhistorical case study centered on a Roma couple residing in Istanbul’s renowned Romani settlement, Sulukule. It sheds light on three significant historical processes related to modernity that influenced the interactions of the individuals involved: land commodification, the 1881 census reform, and the rise of both inclusive and conservative Orientalist discourses within the Ottoman ruling elite. At the heart of the narrative are Sadık and Züleyha, who aimed to purchase waqf land subdivided and offered for sale by Mehmed Efendi in Yenibahçe. Their goal was to escape the spatial segregation they experienced. They leveraged the new census policy, which eliminated the classification of Muslim "Gypsy” from official records, allowing them to present themselves as Muslim refugees from Bulgaria. However, upon discovering the couple’s Roma identity from Sulukule, their new neighbors initiated a legal dispute, resulting in the Internal Affairs Section of the Council of State voting to annul the transaction. The differing opinions among council members highlighted the competing inclusive and conservative Orientalist discourses. The article first reconstructs the case and examines the associated historical processes using extensive primary and secondary sources.

There is increasing demand for milk and dairy products and an associated increase in milk production in Asia and Africa, making them important emerging dairy markets for the future. To the best of our knowledge, there has been little effort to comprehensively review literature on dairy production in these regions despite the changing situation, growth and challenges that require sustainable solutions. Thus, the objective of this review was to present an overview and evaluation of the dairy industry in selected countries in Eastern Africa and Asia using recent literature. The countries were selected based on the potential of dairy production in the respective regions. It focused on two types of countries: those in East Africa, which are at different stages of intensification regarding the global production issue, and those in Asia, which have large dairy industries. Based on this, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania were selected from eastern Africa, while India, Pakistan and China were selected from Asia. The review revealed that dairy production in Eastern Africa predominantly relies on small-scale production systems. Factors such as inadequate feed, disease prevalence, poor access to breeding and formal/organized market pose significant challenges to this region's dairy industry. However, recent efforts have focused on improving productivity through technology adoption, livestock breeding programmes and market development initiatives. In contrast, Asia showcases a diverse range of dairy production systems. Countries like India are known for their large-scale dairy operations involving both indigenous and exotic dairy breeds. Additionally, cooperative models and public-private partnerships have contributed to the growth of the dairy sector in Asian countries. Nevertheless, challenges such as land/feed availability, environmental concern, and market competitiveness remain areas for improvement. While Eastern Africa aims to enhance small-scale farming systems through partly upgrading scale of production, innovation and market access, Asia seeks to bridge the gaps in productivity and sustainability.

This article examines the subject of Ottoman shipping in the Indian Ocean in the two and a half centuries after 1650. With reference to both Ottoman and European sources, it first grapples with the empirical problems involved in studying the subject. It then explores how a combination of trade dynamics in the Gulf and the economic preferences of both Ottoman state and private actors attenuated the expansion of Ottoman shipping. Taken together, these factors confirm that the comparative dearth of Ottoman vessels in the Indian Ocean trade was a product of geopolitical and ecological contingency rather than entrepreneurial neglect or state aversion. Even so, as shown by two case studies, Ottoman subjects of one type or another were found in ports from Surat to Batavia at various moments before 1800. The analysis then turns to later nineteenth-century attempts by Ottoman state actors to augment Ottoman shipping. These efforts were inhibited by the contrasting incentives of private Ottoman seafarers, the dominance of European and Indian ships in the empire’s trade with India, the dislocation of nominal Ottoman territories in the Gulf, and the political economy of the Ottoman Gulf itself. Despite the fact that state-sponsored shipping came to grief, the presence of Ottoman ships in the Indian Ocean invites reflections on the highly mutable character of Ottoman identity and sovereignty, as well as the empire’s relative position in the wider commercial world of the Indian Ocean, across these centuries.

Aerial perspectives are often used to strategic ends by providing the valuable survey view instrumental to military operations, while also contributing to damage assessment and potentially to accountability efforts in the aftermath of such initiatives, via before-and-after diptychs. Precision is the lauded principle of military visioning and targeting, whereas uncertainty or ambiguity is frequently a governing characteristic of aerial photographs in civilian contexts. Aerial photographs are examples of what Allan Sekula refers to as “instrumental images” (images with primarily logistical purposes), a term that sits adjacent to Harun Farocki’s “operational images” (“pictures that are part of an operation”).1 Commenting on the instrumentality of aerial reconnaissance photographs in the context of the First World War, Sekula remarks that these images “seem to have been devoid of any rhetorical structure” so that their interpretation demanded that each photograph “be treated as an ensemble of ‘univalent,’ or indexical signs—signs that could only hold one meaning, that could only point to one object. Efficiency demanded this illusory certainty.” Given this imposed limitation of meaning, Sekula concludes, “Within the context of intelligence operations, the only ‘rational’ questions were those that addressed the photograph at an indexical level, such as ‘Is that a machine gun or a stump?’”2

The blood-milk barrier (BMB) forms at parturition when the gland switches form a non-lactating state to one of copious milk production and becomes leaky again when milk removal ceases and mammary involution is initiated. In this review the importance of the BMB in milk production and, in particular, its hormonal regulation is explored. Tight junctions (TJ) between adjacent mammary epithelial cells form a barrier to the two-directional paracellular movement of small molecules between the blood and milk and are responsible for establishing and maintaining the BMB. They form part of the cell's junctional complex and consist of transmembrane proteins that are linked to the mammary cell's cytoskeleton. This means that when, during lactation, TJ become “leaky” the resulting perturbation of the cytoskeleton interferes with the cell's secretory function. As such, TJ are involved in regulating and maintaining milk production. Mammary TJ are under hormonal control, with progesterone, glucocorticoids, prolactin, parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP) and serotonin (5-HT) being the key hormones. Progesterone prevents closure of TJ and the immediate prepartum drop in its concentration is a prerequisite for TJ closure. A simultaneous increase in the levels of glucocorticoids and prolactin is necessary for full TJ closure and initiation and maintenance of lactation. Both PTHrP and 5-HT are important hormones in maintaining extracellular calcium concentrations, a requirement for maintaining TJ integrity. Whereas PTHrP reduces TJ permeability, necessary for establishing and maintaining milk production, 5-HT has an opening effect on TJ. The latter may help speed up mammary involution and facilitate the movement of immune factors into the gland, preventing intramammary infections. In summary, mammary TJ make up the BMB and play a role in establishing and maintaining milk production and are under hormonal control, with progesterone, glucocorticoids, PTHrP and 5-HT being key regulatory hormones and prolactin likely playing a supporting role.

This article traces the history of estate landholding in the Andean valley of Antapampa over the first half of the twentieth century. It challenges a long-held and widely accepted belief that highland haciendas concentrated vast tracts of land in just a few hands. Rather, by the middle of the last century, many properties had fragmented into numerous more modest holdings. Others either held very little land at all, found themselves severely restricted by the mountainous terrain, or ceded most, sometimes all, of their possessions to a rapidly growing number of tenant farmers. The relative absence of mass land concentration, then, forces us to reconsider the role of a key institution in the countryside, in Peru, in Latin America and even beyond. To do so, this study draws upon extensive and original archival materials from roughly 300 Ministry of Agriculture case files, rarely, if ever, used before.

The standard of living is a conceptual object of great concern to governments, social scientists, and the public. How people lived in the past is likewise of much interest to historians. There is wide (if not universal) agreement that a higher standard of living is preferable to a lower one. Congruence ends there, however, as what constitutes the appropriate measure of people’s well-being is subject to a wide range of parallel, overlapping, and sometimes even conflicting opinions. How to collect the evidence necessary to calculate whatever measure we settle on, from both the contemporary world and the historical record, is equally contested. Indeed, in the case of efforts to measure well-being in the past, the evidence we might want may not exist at all. The question is too important though to settle for narrow and often misleading metrics that capture material wealth alone. Measures of our lifespan, the expansion of our mental capabilities, and our ability to feel secure and to participate in our collective governance make essential contributions. Finally, we need measures that are sensitive to the requirements for shared human sociability in different historical contexts. The insights of historians and other observers of human societies will be essential to complement the theorizing of social scientists.