Spelling out amnesia, or “forgetting me on the pretext of understanding me”

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Biochemical and molecular characterisation of the transcription factor WUSCHEL in Arabidopsis thaliana

Plants are autotroph sessile organisms that are characterised by extensive postembry- onic development. This continuous generation of new tissues and organs, which follows the germination of the plant embryo, is driven by multipotent stem cells that reside in special- ized tissues called meristems. The Shoot Apical Meristem (SAM) is the tissue where almost all aerial plant organs are generated. In the eudicot reference plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the stem cell pool of the SAM is located in the Central Zone (CZ) and is maintained by the cells of the adjacent Organising Centre (OC). The latter express the homeodomain transcrip- tion factor WUSCHEL (WUS), which is the key regulator of stem cell function in the SAM. WUS moves from the OC into the CZ through the plasmodesmata where it upregulates or represses its target genes. CLAVATA3 (CLV3), a gene activated by WUS in the CZ, encodes an oligopeptide that is secreted in the apoplastic space and subsequently moves back to the OC where it represses WUS, thereby establishing a negative feedback loop that controls stem cell fate. The biological functions of WUS cannot be fully explained yet. However, it is known that WUS exerts its role in the SAM via physical interaction with other proteins. WUS acts as negative regulator of gene expression for a multitude of genes and this function is enhanced by its interaction with the transcriptional repressor TOPLESS (TPL). In addition, the interac- tion of WUS with transcription factor HAIRY MERISTEM 1 (HAM1) is a prerequisite for the spatially correct activation of CLV3 by WUS in the SAM. Therefore, I decided to ascertain the in vivo WUS complex with the goal of identifying novel WUS interactors in an attempt to elucidate WUS function. To this end, I performed a yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screening against an extensive library of transcription factors from A. thaliana. The interaction of a subset of these transcription fac- tors with WUS was further validated with Acceptor Photobleaching Förster Resonance En- ergy Transfer (AP-FRET) in planta. Among the candidates that I identified were WOX9 and ESR1, whose genetic interaction with WUS I dissected by means of generating and studying CRISPR mutants for the respective genes. Additionally, I performed co-immunoprecipitation reactions (co-IPs) of WUS fusion proteins that were expressed under the native WUS pro- moter in A. thaliana meristematic tissue or were overexpressed in Nicotiana benthamiana. The WUS complexes that I pulled down were further analysed with Mass Spectrometry. I also studied the effect of WUS phospho-PTMs by expressing the respective phospho-mutants and phospho-mimics in A. thaliana

Random Testing For Language Design

Property-based random testing can facilitate formal verification, exposing errors early on in the proving process and guiding users towards correct specifications and implementations. However, effective random testing often requires users to write custom generators for well-distributed random data satisfying complex logical predicates, a task which can be tedious and error prone. In this work, I aim to reduce the cost of property-based testing by making such generators easier to write, read and maintain. I present a domain-specific language, called Luck, in which generators are conveniently expressed by decorating predicates with lightweight annotations to control both the distribution of generated values and the amount of constraint solving that happens before each variable is instantiated. I also aim to increase the applicability of testing to formal verification by bringing advanced random testing techniques to the Coq proof assistant. I describe QuickChick, a QuickCheck clone for Coq, and improve it by incorporating ideas explored in the context of Luck to automatically derive provably correct generators for data constrained by inductive relations. Finally, I evaluate both QuickChick and Luck in a variety of complex case studies from programming languages literature, such as information-flow abstract machines and type systems for lambda calculi

Belonging to Greece and the Soviet Union: Greeks of Tashkent, 1949-1974

This thesis illustrates the narrative of the Greek political refugees of Tashkent and seeks to recognize their Greek and Soviet identity. By examining the public and private spaces of Greek political refugees in Soviet Tashkent between 1949-1974, the thesis identifies the beliefs, symbols and practices, which reveal the hybridity of Greek-Soviet identity. Research was based on oral histories and Greek-language newspapers published during the period as well as on memoirs of Greeks who lived in Tashkent. This will aid our understanding of the collective memory and homemaking narrative of the Greek experience in Soviet Tashkent. The collective narrative of Greeks of Tashkent was very positive and idealized. Greeks legitimized their settlement in Tashkent by defending Soviet ideology and contributing to and developing Soviet society. The homemaking narrative allowed Greeks to belong to the imagined Greek Soviet Community, the imagined Soviet community and the imagined Greek community

Ανάλυση ευαισθησίας μοντέλου πεπερασμένων στοιχείων για διάτρηση συμπαγούς κυλινδρικής πλάκας από κωνικό διεισδυτή

Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο--Μεταπτυχιακή Εργασία. Διεπιστημονικό-Διατμηματικό Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών (Δ.Π.Μ.Σ.) “Συστήματα Αυτοματισμού