In many cells and specially in muscle, mitochondria form elongated filaments or a branched reticulum. We show that Mfn2 (mitofusin 2), a mitochondrial membrane protein that participates in mitochondrial fusion in mammalian cells, is induced during myogenesis and contributes to the maintenance and operation of the mitochondrial network. Repression of Mfn2 caused morphological and functional fragmentation of the mitochondrial network into independent clusters. Concomitantly, repression of Mfn2 reduced glucose oxidation, mitochondrial membrane potential, cell respiration, and mitochondrial proton leak. We also show that the Mfn2-dependent mechanism of mitochondrial control is disturbed in obesity by reduced Mfn2 expression. In all, our data indicate that Mfn2 expression is crucial in mitochondrial metabolism through the maintenance of the mitochondrial network architecture, and reduced Mfn2 expression may explain some of the metabolic alterations associated with obesity.

Semigroups describing the time evolution of open quantum systems in finite-dimensional spaces have generators of a special form, known as Lindblad generators. These generators and the corresponding processes of time evolution are analyzed, characterized as Decay, Dissipation and Dephasing. In relation to these processes the Hilbert space of the system is equipped with a special structure, a decomposition into a sum of mutually orthogonal subspaces. The complete set of all the stationary states and the asymptotic behavior of the evolutions are presented in detail. Some unusual special facts about invariant operators and symmetries are studied, examples are demonstrated. Perturbation theory for the structure and for the stationary states is discussed and performed in case studies.

SignificanceAerosol particles can form and grow by gas-to-particle conversion and eventually act as seeds for cloud droplets, influencing global climate. Volatile organic compounds emitted from plants are oxidized in the atmosphere, and the resulting products drive particle growth. We measure particle growth by oxidized biogenic vapors with a well-controlled laboratory setup over a wide range of tropospheric temperatures. While higher temperatures lead to increased reaction rates and concentrations of highly oxidized molecules, lower temperatures allow additional, but less oxidized, species to condense. We measure rapid growth over the full temperature range of our study, indicating that organics play an important role in aerosol growth throughout the troposphere. Our finding will help to sharpen the predictions of global aerosol models.

Atmospheric aerosol formation from biogenic vapors is strongly affected by air pollutants, like NOx, SO2, and NH3.

We investigate the state space of bipartite qutrits. For states which are locally maximally mixed we obtain an analog of the "magic" tetrahedron for bipartite qubits-a magic simplex W. This is obtained via the Weyl group which is a kind of "quantization" of classical phase space. We analyze how this simplex W is embedded in the whole state space of two qutrits and discuss symmetries and equivalences inside the simplex W. Because we are explicitly able to construct optimal entanglement witnesses we obtain the border between separable and entangled states. With our method we find also the total area of bound entangled states of the parameter subspace under intervestigation. Our considerations can also be applied to higher dimensions.

Focus is on two parties with Hilbert spaces of dimension d, i.e. "qudits". In the state space of these two possibly entangled qudits an analogue to the well known tetrahedron with the four qubit Bell states at the vertices is presented. The simplex analogue to this magic tetrahedron includes mixed states. Each of these states appears to each of the two parties as the maximally mixed state. Some studies on these states are performed, and special elements of this set are identified. A large number of them is included in the chosen simplex which fits exactly into conditions needed for teleportation and other applications. Its rich symmetry -related to that of a classical phase space -helps to study entanglement, to construct witnesses and perform partial transpositions. This simplex has been explored in details for d = 3. In this paper the mathematical background and extensions to arbitrary dimensions are analysed.

Each semigroup describing time evolution of an open quantum system on a finite dimensional Hilbert space is related to a special structure of this space. It is shown how the space can be decomposed into orthogonal subspaces: One part is related to decay, some subspaces of the other subspace are ranges of the stationary states. Specialities are highlighted where the complete positivity of evolutions is actually needed for analysis, mainly for evolution of coherence. Decompositions are done the same way for discrete as for continuous time evolutions, but they may show differences: Only for discrete semigroups there may appear cases of sudden decay and of perpetual oscillation. Concluding the analysis we identify the relation of the state space structure to the processes of Decay, Decoherence, Dissipation and Dephasing.

To better understand the role of aromatic hydrocarbons in new-particle formation, we measured the particle-phase abundance and volatility of oxidation products following the reaction of aromatic hydrocarbons with OH radicals. For this we used thermal desorption in an iodideadduct Time-of-Flight Chemical-Ionization Mass Spectrometer equipped with a Filter Inlet for Gases and AEROsols (FIGAERO-ToF-CIMS). The particle-phase volatility measurements confirm that oxidation products of toluene and naphthalene can contribute to the initial growth of newly formed particles. Toluene-derived (C 7) oxidation products have a similar volatility distribution to that of α-pinene-derived (C 10) oxidation products, while naphthalene-derived (C 10) oxidation products are much less volatile than those from toluene or α-pinene; they are thus stronger contributors to growth. Rapid progression through multiple generations of oxidation is more pronounced in toluene and naphthalene than in α-pinene, resulting in more oxidation but also favoring functional groups with much lower volatility per added oxygen atom, such as hydroxyl and carboxylic groups instead of hydroperoxide groups. Under conditions typical of polluted urban settings, naphthalene may well contribute to nucleation and the growth of the smallest particles, whereas the more abundant alkyl benzenes may overtake naphthalene once the particles have grown beyond the point where the Kelvin effect strongly influences the condensation driving force.