Cool passion:The political theology of modern conviction

The category of belief has been severely criticised in the last decades but ideas of having principles based on interior refl ections and conscience are as strong as ever across the world. This indicates that the modern idea of conviction - religious or secular - should be understood as a way of relating to the world that has a genealogy of its won that is not identical to religious belief. Modern convictions are based on two forms of ethics: firstly an individualized ethics of sincerity that emerged from the 17th century onwards as an ideal of honest and consistent public conduct. Secondly, an ethics of consequence that emerges with radical, Jacobin and collective politics and a new belief in radical socio-political utopias in the 19th century. In the 20th century, these ethical formations have spread across the world and form today the basis of a global grammar of interiority that lies at the heart of near-universal fi gures such as the 'activist' and the committed selfl ess social worker

Microbiological and chemical profiles of dairy farm red smear cheese made from pasteurized and un-pasteurized milk

A red-smear soft cheese was produced four times during a year at an organic dairy farm using pasteurized and un-pasteurized milk, respectively, from the same milking. A commercial starter culture was added. The cheeses were characterized microbiologically and chemically in order to study how heat treatment and season affected their characteristics during cheese making and ripening. Large variations between the different lots of cheeses characterized the production. However, the cheeses made from un-pasteurized milk generally had a higher lactic acid bacteria count except in cases, where the pasteurized milk was recontaminated or if acidification failure took place. Delays in acidification caused a more pronounced increase in numbers of E.coli, Enterobacteriaceae and staphylococci, as well as an increase in the plasmin and plasminogen-derived activities. A number of pre-milking and process steps were identified as important for the microbiological contamination and development in the cheeses

The India That Does Not Shine

The 140 million Muslims in India receive very little media attention. The resulting lack of knowledge has assisted Hindu nationalists in cultivating stereotypical depictions, but has hindered policies aimed at the incorporation of Muslims into Indian society. This article analyzes a recent government report about Muslims in India and shows that the oftcommented upon introversion of Muslims is not an innate propensity of Muslims, but a reaction to decades of exclusion from broader social life

Exercise mediates the association between positive affect and 5-year mortality in patients with ischemic heart disease

Background Positive affect has been associated with better prognosis in patients with ischemic heart disease, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We examined whether positive affect predicted time to first cardiac-related hospitalization and all-cause mortality, and whether exercise mediated this relationship in patients with established ischemic heart disease. Methods and Results The sample comprised 607 patients with ischemic heart disease from Holbæk Hospital, Denmark. In 2005, patients completed the Global Mood Scale (GMS) to assess positive affect and a purpose-designed question on exercise. Data on mortality and hospitalization were collected from Danish national registers for the period 2006–2010. Adjusted Cox and logistic regression were used to analyze the mediation model. Because no significant association between positive affect and cardiac-related hospitalization was found, we constructed no mediation model for hospitalization. Importantly, patients with high positive affect had a significantly reduced risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 0.58; 95% confidence interval, 0.37–0.92; unadjusted analysis) and were more likely to exercise (odds ratio, 1.99; 95% confidence interval, 1.44–2.76; unadjusted analysis; odds ratio, 1.48; 95% confidence interval, 1.03–2.13; adjusted analysis). When controlling for positive affect and other relevant variables, patients engaged in exercise were less likely to die during follow-up (hazard ratio, 0.50; 95% confidence interval, 0.31–0.80; P=0.004). Importantly, exercise acted as a mediator in the relationship between positive affect and mortality. Conclusions Patients with higher levels of positive affect were more likely to exercise and had a lower risk of dying during 5-year follow-up, with exercise mediating the relationship between positive affect and mortality. Interventions aimed at increasing both positive affect and exercise may have better results with respect to patients’ prognosis and psychological well-being than interventions focusing on 1 of these factors alone