Snow dynamics in the Alps: long-term trends and remote sensing-driven hydrological modeling

Snow represents a key component of the Alpine hydrological cycle, strongly influencing water availability, ecosystems, and natural resource management. In the context of rapid climate change, understanding the evolution of snow conditions and developing reliable tools for snow monitoring have become increasingly important, particularly in mountain regions. This PhD thesis addresses these issues by focusing on the Central Alps region, considering long-term observational analyses and innovative...

Testing the fidelity of waveform reconstruction for gravitational wave transients using minimal assumptions

On the 14th of September 2015, the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs) was made by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations. This discovery opened a new era in astronomy and physics, allowing us to observe the Universe under a different light. Since then, hundreds of detections have been made in the years, and many more are expected to come. These observations can now be used to test our understanding of the Universe and gain a deeper understanding binding astrophysics, cosmology an...

Adaptive Meta-Reasoning for Algorithm Selection in Cognitive Agent Architectures

Autonomous agents operating in dynamic environments face a fundamental challenge: no single algorithm consistently performs best across all conditions. Whether navigating physical spaces, allocating computational resources, or selecting reasoning strategies, agents that commit to a fixed algorithmic approach at design time may risk underperforming when runtime conditions deviate from initial assumptions. This thesis addresses the problem of enabling autonomous agents to adaptively select the ...

Towards a sustainable management of bio-hazardous healthcare waste in LMICs. Global and local perspectives on impact studies

Deep Learning Model for Identifying Ionospheric Electric Field Perturbations and Seismic Correlation

The quest for dependable earthquake-induced perturbations has driven investigations into the ionosphere. Recent advancements in satellite observations and machine learning offer novel opportunities to investigate these potential correlations via data-driven methodologies. This thesis examines ionospheric electric field disturbances through the application of deep learning methodologies to global space-based data. The research employs electric field measurements from the DEMETER satellite ICE ...

Formal Aspects of Smart Contract Security

Smart contracts are programs that automatically enforce some kind of agreement between parties, without the need of a trusted third party. Since they frequently deal with large sums of money (in the form of crypto assets) it is critical that smart contracts attain precisely to their specification and do not have any unexpected behaviour. In this thesis, I will present two lines of research, one related to developing smart contract languages for the UTXO blockchain model, and the other related...

Rapamycin deregulated genes as new targets for antiaging interventions

Rapamycin is currently considered one of the leading candidate compounds for delaying aging and age-related diseases in Homo sapiens. Evidence from multiple model organisms indicates that early-life interventions can have long-lasting effects on aging trajectories, and short rapamycin exposure during postnatal early life has been shown to extend lifespan in both Mus musculus and Drosophila melanogaster. To identify genes involved in mediating these effects, we analyzed gene expression profile...

Identification and functional characterisation of M6A71: a novel YTH inhibitor targeting YTHDF2 in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia models

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a rapidly evolving blood tumour characterised by the uncontrolled proliferation of myeloid haematopoietic precursor cells. Current therapeutic interventions are predominantly focused on intensive chemotherapy and allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. However, it is important to note that not all patients diagnosed with AML are eligible for these treatments. Recent studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between the development of AML and the dysregu...

HuR activity modulation as a novel anti-psoriatic pharmacological strategy

HuR is one of the most studied RNA Binding Proteins (RBPs involved in post-transcriptional regulation, capable of binding mRNA via AU-rich elements (AREs) in 3’-untranslated regions (3’-UTRs). HuR primarily localizes in the nucleus, however, following external stimuli (e.g., stress or inflammation), it translocates into the cytoplasm. It is ubiquitously expressed and acts as a pivotal regulator of cellular stability; its dysregulation is therefore strongly associated with the progression of c...