We assessed the feeding behavior, intake, apparent total tract digestibility, blood parameters, milk yield, milk composition and milk fatty acid profile in dairy goats fed diets containing increasing levels of whole cottonseed (WCS), specifically a control diet with no WCS and diets containing 120, 150 and 180 g WCS/kg DM. Eight lactating dairy goats were distributed in a replicated 4 × 4 Latin square design with four 21-day periods. Rumination and total chewing time increased linearly with WCS inclusion levels. However, no effects on dry matter intake or digestibility were observed. Milk production was similar among treatments, but milk fat and lactose concentration increased linearly with WCS dietary levels, as did monounsaturated and polyunsaturated FA and conjugated linoleic acid concentration in milk fat. This study demonstrates that increasing the inclusion of WCS in the diets of dairy goats offers potential nutritional benefits without negatively impacting intake, digestibility or ruminal fermentation. Notably, WCS-enhanced diets led to improved milk fat composition, with increased concentrations of beneficial FA. These results support the use of WCS as an effective feed ingredient to enhance milk quality in dairy goats, leveraging both the high-energy content and fiber structure of WCS, which promotes rumen health and function without reducing DMI. Dairy goat producers can incorporate up to 180 g WCS/kg DM in diets to produce milk with a healthier fat profile, potentially enhancing its marketability.

About 1960, the study of West African history took a new turn as historians became aware of the interest and value of Islamic sources for their work, particularly manuscript materials in Arabic. To be sure, the use of Arabic sources for the history of West Africa is nothing new: in 1841, W. Des-borough Cooley published his The Negroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained; or, an Inquiry into the Early History and Geography of Central Africa. But Cooley's pioneering book was discounted by later British and American writers on Africa as the work of an eccentric. In the 1880's and 1890's, many of these writers were spellbound by their vision of what Christianity might do for the African, while others were preoccupied by what they deemed to be the morally indefensible activities of the Muslims as slave-raiders and traders in West and East Africa. As late as the 1930's, the well-known British anthropologist C. K. Meek indicted Islam in northern Nigeria when he wrote: “The institution of slavery is a pivotal feature of Islamic society, and we are justified with charging Muhammadanism with the devastation and desolation in which Northern Nigeria was found at the beginning of this century.” Other writers, like Sir A.C. Burns for Nigeria, and A. W. Cardinall and W. E. F. Ward for Ghana, dismissed the Islamic side of West African history in few words, or gave it no mention at all. There were other reasons for this lack of emphasis. In northern Nigeria, for example, many British officials were apprehensive of an outbreak of “Mahdism” among the Muslims; and very frequently, French officials looked on Islam as a rival political system, dangerous and potentially subversive.

Do parties respond to inequality? Despite the relevance of inequality and its consequences, existing studies fail to capture parties’ emphasis on economic equality and redistribution or to differentiate between existing levels of inequality and increases in inequality. Based on 850,000 party statements from 12 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries (1970–2020), we introduce a crowd-coded dataset that allows us to distinguish positive references to economic equality and redistribution from upward-trending equal-rights/anti-discrimination rhetoric. We show that responses found in previous studies do not capture economic equality and redistribution. In reassessing the impact of inequality, we argue that low visibility, status quo bias, and turnout effects discourage party responses to high inequality levels, while rising inequality poses a visible status quo change and a threat that left parties respond to. We find that left parties respond to inequality increases (except less tangible gains among the most affluent) but not to (high) inequality levels. This helps to understand why inequality is not self-correcting.