Effects of eight neuropsychiatric copy number variants on human brain structure

Many copy number variants (CNVs) confer risk for the same range of neurodevelopmental symptoms and psychiatric conditions including autism and schizophrenia. Yet, to date neuroimaging studies have typically been carried out one mutation at a time, showing that CNVs have large effects on brain anatomy. Here, we aimed to characterize and quantify the distinct brain morphometry effects and latent dimensions across 8 neuropsychiatric CNVs. We analyzed T1-weighted MRI data from clinically and non-clinically ascertained CNV carriers (deletion/duplication) at the 1q21.1 (n = 39/28), 16p11.2 (n = 87/78), 22q11.2 (n = 75/30), and 15q11.2 (n = 72/76) loci as well as 1296 non-carriers (controls). Case-control contrasts of all examined genomic loci demonstrated effects on brain anatomy, with deletions and duplications showing mirror effects at the global and regional levels. Although CNVs mainly showed distinct brain patterns, principal component analysis (PCA) loaded subsets of CNVs on two latent brain dimensions, which explained 32 and 29% of the variance of the 8 Cohen’s d maps. The cingulate gyrus, insula, supplementary motor cortex, and cerebellum were identified by PCA and multi-view pattern learning as top regions contributing to latent dimension shared across subsets of CNVs. The large proportion of distinct CNV effects on brain morphology may explain the small neuroimaging effect sizes reported in polygenic psychiatric conditions. Nevertheless, latent gene brain morphology dimensions will help subgroup the rapidly expanding landscape of neuropsychiatric variants and dissect the heterogeneity of idiopathic conditions

Selective Electron Beam Melting: A new Way to Auxetic Cellular Structures

This paper is concerned with the build up and characterisation of well defined auxetic structures from Titanium alloys through Selective Electron Beam Melting (SEBM).The negative Poisson’s ratio of auxetic structures make them interesting candidates for a wide range of applications (e.g. joining of dissimilar materials). Up to date auxetic cellulars have mainly been produced through volumetric compression of conventional foams. However, by using SEBM we are able to produce structures of any geometry in a well defined manner. This opens an almost limitless field for new cellular auxetics and the tuning of their properties. In the following we will introduce a simple self designed auxetic structure and show first results for the mechanical characterisation of that structure.Mechanical Engineerin

Investigating Sustainable NGO–firm Partnerships: An Experimental Study of Consumer Perception of Co-Branded Products

With crises like climate change and degradation of the earth’s natural habitats, human consumption needs to become more sustainable to decrease humanity’s environmental footprint. Fostering sustainable consumer behavior by enabling consumers to make an informed choice for sustainable products is vital in changing human consumption for the better. To optimize consumers’ perception of sustainable products, companies can establish partnerships with environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In practice, retailers and NGOs can engage in NGO–firm co-branding of sustainable products. Yet, little is known about the impact of this NGO–firm co-branding on consumer perception. We fill this gap based on a 2 × 2 × 2 experimental study. We test consumers’ trust, product and brand perception of co-branded sustainable products. Our study finds that NGO–firm co-branding has a significant positive effect on all the above. The effect is moderated by familiarity with the co-branding partnership and consumer attitudes. We discuss how those NGO–firm partnerships can be a useful tool to guide customers to more sustainable consumption choices. The results are discussed in light of sustainability communication and cross-sector partnership theory. We offer important insights for consumer perspectives on sustainability communication, business engagement of NGO–firm partnerships and develop future research ideas for consumer behaviour