Imposing Regulation on Advanced Algorithms

This book discusses the necessity and perhaps urgency for the regulation of algorithms on which new technologies rely; technologies that have the potential to re-shape human societies. From commerce and farming to medical care and education, it is difficult to find any aspect of our lives that will not be affected by these emerging technologies. At the same time, artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, cognitive computing, blockchain, virtual reality and augmented reality, belong to the fields most likely to affect law and, in particular, administrative law. The book examines universally applicable patterns in administrative decisions and judicial rulings. First, similarities and divergence in behavior among the different cases are identified by analyzing parameters ranging from geographical location and administrative decisions to judicial reasoning and legal basis. As it turns out, in several of the cases presented, sources of general law, such as competition or labor law, are invoked as a legal basis, due to the lack of current specialized legislation. This book also investigates the role and significance of national and indeed supranational regulatory bodies for advanced algorithms and considers ENISA, an EU agency that focuses on network and information security, as an interesting candidate for a European regulator of advanced algorithms. Lastly, it discusses the involvement of representative institutions in algorithmic regulation.Comment: XXI, 82 pages, 5 figures. Cham: Springe

The Hellenic Parliament’s use of digital media in its response to the 2019 Turkey-Libya Memorandum of Understanding on maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean Sea: a preliminary assessment

There is growing academic attention to both parliamentary diplomacy and to parliamentary digital communication in recent years. Yet, the study of Greek parliamentary diplomacy remains an under-researched topic. The paper brings together these two dimensions by considering the following case study: the Hellenic Parliament´s reactions to the November 2019 Turkey-Libya (internationally recognized government) Memorandum of Understanding on maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean Sea. To do so, this study will address the following key research question: has the Hellenic Parliament as an institution adopted new technologies and data openness to promote its parliamentary diplomacy? There is new literature widely expecting that parliaments do so, but, to date, there is little empirical evidence to that effect. This paper attempts to close this gap by investigating which digital tools were utilized in an effort to defend and promote Greece´s stance on that issue between November 2019 and March 202

Applying Post-Legislative Scrutiny to the Analysis of Legislation and SDGs in South and Southeast Asia

Post-Legislative Scrutiny (PLS) is an emerging oversight technique which is applied by parliaments to scrutinise implementation and impact of specific laws or legal frameworks. This article takes stock of PLS practices in countries in South and Southeast Asia and argues that PLS can also be used to scrutinise complex processes at the national or supra-national level, such as the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, a wide introduction and the state of play in PLS is provided, with reference to different parliamentary and development approaches emerging from the application of PLS in parliaments worldwide, followed by two specific case studies: the law on microfinance in Myanmar and the law on social practice reform in Nepal. The examination of these case studies offers insights about the application of scrutiny techniques in different parliaments. The outcome of the analysis is used to respond to the main research question of this contribution: whether PLS techniques can be applied for the oversight of extended processes, as is the case with the implementation of SDGs. For this, details of the first world study on parliamentary oversight of SDGs are presented, with a regional focus on South and Southeast Asia. The results seem to support the authors’ claim that PLS as a technique can facilitate oversight both of specific legal provisions and complex multi-stakeholder processes, such as the monitoring of SDGs

Xtralingua: An open-source tool for extracting quantitative text profiles

The Xtralingua project aims at developing a tool for extracting quantitative text profiles from large collections of texts. Existing solutions and tools are hard to use and require high technical knowledge, often absent in researchers of Digital Humanities. We developed an open-source working prototype that can also be used in combination with other tools to create an automated pipeline of text analysis

Исследование параметров механоэлектрических преобразований в железобетоне в процессе изгиба

В работе представлено исследование параметров механоэлектрических преобразований в железобетоне с ростом дефектности в его структуре. Рассмотрены такие параметры, как изменение коэффициента затухания энергии сигнала электрического отклика на импульсное ударное воздействие, смещение центра тяжести спектра сигнала электрического отклика и изменение максимального коэффициента взаимной корреляции спектра сигнала электрического отклика в процессе изгиба железобетона. Результатом работы является выявление основных зависимостей для данных параметров от дефектности структуры исследуемого материала.The paper presents an investigation of the parameters of mechanoelectric transformations in reinforced concrete with increasing defectiveness in its structure. The change in the energy attenuation coefficient of the electrical response signal to the impulse shock, the shift of the center of gravity of the electrical signal response spectrum, and the change in the maximum cross-correlation coefficient of the electrical response signal spectrum during the bending of the reinforced concrete are considered. The result of the work is the identification of the main dependencies for these parameters on the defectiveness of the structure of the material being studied

Inter-parliamentary cooperation and its administrators

Parliamentary administrators have to cope with a complex and ever-changing procedural framework, as well as with conflicting demands from the policy side. Nevertheless, their role in inter-parliamentary cooperation is rather under-researched. This article focuses on the actors of Administrative Parliamentary Networks and introduces two entirely new entities: European Programmes; and networks of Parliamentary Budget Offices, which seem to have escaped scholar’s attention. Administrative duties and roles are discussed in the context of inter-parliamentary cooperation and a new role is attributed to parliamentary administrators, that of the researcher. Existing findings from previous studies are put under a new light and analysed with the support of empirical data

MOCVD of high-K ceramic thin films for the Gbit DRAM technology

The next generation of DRAM memories demands the miniaturization of the storage capacitor . The road to smaller capacitors still able to maintain a sufficient amount of charge in terms of an error free logic state recognition leads to high-k materials. (Ba,Sr)Ti03 is the most promising of these new materials, since it offers a high relative permittivity combined with low leakage. Deposition of BST via MOCVD is considered to be the method of choice for thin films in view of DRAM application, in order to achieve homogenous growth and sufficient step coverage in high aspect ratio trenches. This thesis is concemed with the MOCVD growth of BST thin films using a prototype tool for oxide deposition and the systematical understanding of the film properties as a function of their composition and of the growth parameters. The scope of this thesis is twofold. From the engineering point of view an existing MOCVD tool, the AIXTRON Planetary Reactor® 2600G3 that has been developed for the growth of 111-V semiconductors, is optimized for the deposition of ceramic oxides. Both reactor and deposition processes are modified to achieve an optimal temperature and process homogeneity. Many changes an the vital components of the system like the liquid delivery system (LDS-300B) from ATMI, the precursor and the gas transfer lines are performed. Design of experiment methods (DOE) are applied early in many cases to narrow the process window and reduce the multidimensional parameter space to a manageable minimum and allow precise statements about the behavior of the reactor. The scientific part of this thesis considers the systematic investigation of the properties of the (Ba,Sr)Ti03 material system in form of thin films ranging from few nm up to 120nm. Many of the structural and especially the electrical properties interesting for application are focused and a variety of analyzing techniques are applied . Within the scope of this work, an advanced XRF analytic procedure is developed, in order to achieve a precision <_1% in thickness and stoichiometry measurements . The investigations cover all important material aspects of BST and especially its integration in the existing CMOS process. Finally, a central point in the discussion is the interrelation between the microstructure of the films and the obtained electrical propertie

Οργανομεταλλική επίστρωση κεραμικών υμενίων υψηλής διηλεκτρικής σταθεράς για την τεχνολογία δυναμικής μνήμης τάξης μεγέθους Gbit

The next generation of DRAM memories demands the miniaturization of the storage capacitor. The road to smaller capacitors still able to maintain a sufficient amount of charge in terms of an error free logic state recognition leads to high-k materials. (Ba,Sr)TiO3 is the most promising of these new materials, since it offers a high relative permittivity combined with low leakage. Deposition of BST via MOCVD is considered to be the method of choice for thin films in view of DRAM application, in order to achieve homogenous growth and sufficient step coverage in high aspect ratio trenches. This thesis is concerned with the MOCVD growth of BST thin films using a prototype tool for oxide deposition and the systematical understanding of the film properties as a function of their composition and of the growth parameters. The scope of this thesis is twofold. From the engineering point of view an existing MOCVD tool, the AIXTRON Planetary Reactor® 2600G3 that has been developed for the growth of III-V semiconductors, is optimized for the deposition of ceramic oxides. Both reactor and deposition processes are modified to achieve an optimal temperature and process homogeneity. Many changes on the vital components of the system like the liquid delivery system (LDS-300B) from ATMI, the precursor and the gas transfer lines are performed. Design of Experiment methods (DOE) were applied early in many cases to narrow the process window and reduce the multidimensional parameter space to a manageable minimum and allow precise statements about the behavior of the reactor. The scientific part of this thesis considers the systematic investigation of the properties of the (Ba,Sr)TiO3 material system in form of thin films ranging from few nm up to 120nm. Many of the structural and especially the electrical properties interesting for application were focused and a variety of analyzing techniques were applied. Within the scope of this work, an advanced XRF analytic procedure was developed, in order to achieve a precision ≤1% in thickness and stoichiometry measurements. The investigations cover all important material aspects of BST and especially its integration in the existing CMOS process. Finally, a central point in the discussion was the interrelation between the microstructure of the films and the obtained electrical properties.Η επόμενη γενιά μνήμης DRAM απαιτεί τη σμίκρυνση του πυκνωτή αποθήκευσης ηλεκτρικού φορτίου. Ο δρόμος προς μικρότερους πυκνωτές, οι οποίοι είναι σε θέση να διατηρήσουν ικανοποιητικό ηλεκτρικό φορτίο για την αναγνώριση της λογικής κατάστασης, οδηγεί σε υλικά υψηλής διηλεκτρικής σταθεράς. Το (Ba,Sr)TiO3, ή αλλιώς BST, είναι το πιο ελπιδοφόρο από αυτά τα νέα υλικά, δεδομένου ότι προσφέρει υψηλή διηλεκτρική σταθερά σε συνδυασμό με χαμηλή διαρροή φορτίου. H εναπόθεση BST μέσω οργανομεταλλικής επίστρωσης (MOCVD) θεωρείται ως η βέλτιστη μέθοδος για την παραγωγή λεπτών υμενίων (φιλμ) του υλικού, εν όψει της χρήσης του σε μνήμες DRAM, προκειμένου να επιτευχθεί ομοιογενής κάλυψη των τρισδιάστατων δομών που τις χαρακτηρίζουν. Η παρούσα διατριβή ασχολείται με την ανάπτυξη των λεπτών υμενίων BST χρησιμοποιώντας ένα πρωτότυπο εργαλείο MOCVD για την εναπόθεση του οξειδίου και την συστηματική κατανόηση των ιδιοτήτων του, ως συνάρτηση της σύνθεσής του και των παραμέτρων της δημιουργίας του. Ο σκοπός της διατριβής είναι διττός. Από την κατασκευαστική μεριά, χρησιμοποιήθηκε ένα υφιστάμενο μηχάνημα MOCVD, με πλανητικό αντιδραστήρα AIXTRON 2600G3® που είχε αρχικά αναπτυχθεί για επιστρώσεις ημιαγωγών ΙΙΙ-V. Ο αντιδραστήρας αυτός βελτιστοποιήθηκε για την εναπόθεση των κεραμικών οξειδίων. Οι μετατροπές στον αντιδραστήρα και στους παράγοντες της εναπόθεση έγιναν έτσι, ώστε να επιτευχθεί η βέλτιστη θερμική ομοιογένεια, η οποία διασφαλίζει την ομαλή εξέλιξη της διαδικασίας εναπόθεσης του υλικού σε πλάκες (wafer) πυριτίου έξι (6) ιντσών. Έγιναν πολλές τροποποιήσεις στα ζωτικά στοιχεία του συστήματος, όπως το σύστημα μεταφοράς υγρών (LDS-300B) της εταιρίας ATMI και τις γραμμές μεταφοράς των αερίων. Εξειδικευμένες μέθοδοι σχεδιασμού πειραμάτων εφαρμόστηκαν σε πολλές περιπτώσεις, με σκοπό να περιορίσουν το πολυδιάστατο παράθυρο λειτουργίας της συσκευής, που να επιτρέπει την ακριβή εξέταση της συμπεριφοράς του αντιδραστήρα. Το επιστημονικό μέρος της εργασίας καλύπτει τη συστηματική διερεύνηση των ιδιοτήτων του συστήματος (Ba,Sr)TiO3 που βρίσκεται με τη μορφή λεπτών υμενίων πάχους από μερικά νανόμετρα (nm) έως 120nm. Μια μεγάλη ποικιλία από δομικές, συστατικές και ηλεκτρικές αναλύσεις χρησιμοποιήθηκαν για το χαρακτηρισμό των δειγμάτων. Εντός της παρούσας εργασίας, αναπτύχθηκε μια προηγμένη διαδικασία ανάλυσης XRF, προκειμένου να επιτευχθεί μια ακρίβεια ≤ 1% στις μετρήσεις πάχους και στοιχειομετρίας. Οι έρευνες καλύπτουν όλες τις σημαντικές πτυχές του ηλεκτροκεραμικού υλικού BST, και κυρίως την δυνατότητα χρήσης του σε ολοκληρωμένα κυκλώματα CMOS. Ένα κεντρικό σημείο της ανάλυσης αφορά την αλληλεπίδραση μεταξύ της μικροδομής των δειγμάτων και τις ηλεκτρικές ιδιότητές τους