University of Southern Denmark

About: University of Southern Denmark is a education organization based out in Odense, Syddanmark, Denmark. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Randomized controlled trial. The organization has 11928 authors who have published 37918 publications receiving 1258559 citations. The organization is also known as: SDU.

The Fire of Desire: A Multisited Inquiry into Consumer Passion

Abstract: Desire is the motivating force behind much of contemporary consumption. Yet consumer research has devoted little specific attention to passionate and fanciful consumer desire. This article is grounded in consumers' everyday experiences of longing for and fantasizing about particular goods. Based on journals, interviews, projective data, and inquiries into daily discourses in three cultures (the United States, Turkey, and Denmark), we develop a phenomenological account of desire. We find that desire is regarded as a powerful cyclic emotion that is both discomforting and pleasurable. Desire is an embodied passion involving a quest for otherness, sociality, danger, and inaccessibility. Underlying and driving the pursuit of desire, we find self-seduction, longing, desire for desire, fear of being without desire, hopefulness, and tensions between seduction and morality. We discuss theoretical implications of these processes for consumer research.

Diversity of ageing across the tree of life

Abstract: Evolution drives, and is driven by, demography. A genotype moulds its phenotype’s age patterns of mortality and fertility in an environment; these two patterns in turn determine the genotype’s fitness in that environment. Hence, to understand the evolution of ageing, age patterns of mortality and reproduction need to be compared for species across the tree of life. However, few studies have done so and only for a limited range of taxa. Here we contrast standardized patterns over age for 11 mammals, 12 other vertebrates, 10 invertebrates, 12 vascular plants and a green alga. Although it has been predicted that evolution should inevitably lead to increasing mortality and declining fertility with age after maturity, there is great variation among these species, including increasing, constant, decreasing, humped and bowed trajectories for both long- and short-lived species. This diversity challenges theoreticians to develop broader perspectives on the evolution of ageing and empiricists to study the demography of more species.

Collections and ficolins: humoral lectins of the innate immune defense

Abstract: Collectins and ficolins, present in plasma and on mucosal surfaces, are humoral molecules of the innate immune systems, which recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns. The human collectins, mannan-binding lectin (MBL) and surfactant protein A and D (SP-A and SP-D), are oligomeric proteins composed of carbohydrate-recognition domains (CRDs) attached to collagenous regions and are thus structurally similar to the ficolins, L-ficolin, M-ficolin, and H-ficolin. However, they make use of different CRD structures: C-type lectin domains for the collectins and fibrinogen-like domains for the ficolins. Upon recognition of the infectious agent, MBL and the ficolins initiate the lectin pathway of complement activation through attached serine proteases (MASPs), whereas SP-A and SP-D rely on other effector mechanisms: direct opsonization, neutralization, and agglutination. This limits the infection and concurrently orchestrates the subsequent adaptive immune response. Deficiencies of the proteins may predispose to infections or other complications, e.g., reperfusion injuries or autoimmune diseases. Structure, function, clinical implications, and phylogeny are reviewed.

Data Resource Profile: The Danish National Prescription Registry.

Abstract: Data Resource Profile: The Danish National Prescription Registry Anton Pottegård,* Sigrun Alba Johannesdottir Schmidt, Helle Wallach-Kildemoes, Henrik Toft Sørensen, Jesper Hallas and Morten Schmidt Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark, Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark, Social and Clinical Pharmacy, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark and Department of Internal Medicine, Regional Hospital of Randers, Randers, Denmark