Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: A Step Towards Eradicating The Trafficking Of Women Into Greece For Forced Prostitution

The purpose of this article is to provide a survey of the international law instruments presently in existence to combat trafficking of women for forced prostitution. This article will develop suggestions for more effective implementation of existing international obligations. Specifically, this article proposes extraterritorial jurisdiction as an opportunity for international cooperation

Development of Zinc Nitride Materials for Semiconductor Applications

Zinc Nitride has recently attracted research interest as a candidate for use in earth-abundant semiconductor devices. However, zinc nitride is in a group of semiconductor materials that have not been studied extensively in past literature. As a result, this study is focused on the fundamental properties of zinc nitride from a materials science point of view, with an emphasis on properties relevant to semiconductor applications. The samples presented throughout this work were deposited by means of Reactive Sputtering and Molecular Beam Epitaxy. Samples with a wide range of material quality were obtained between these two techniques. The samples examined were polycrystalline in structure and highly doped due to intrinsic defects. The absorption onset for zinc nitride samples varied in the range of 1.15-1.50 eV. Photoluminescence measurements on optimised samples further indicated that the bandgap of the films was in the energy region of 1.40 eV. Variations in the measured optical bandgap were attributed to the Burstein-Moss effect for highly doped samples. A parabolic approximation of the conduction band suggested an intrinsic bandgap of ~ 1.10 eV. Furthermore, tuning of the optical properties of zinc nitride was demonstrated in the form of a II-III-V AlZnN alloy. By increasing the Al content in the ternary films, an increase of the bandgap of AlZnN up to 2.76 eV was demonstrated. Finally, a method for improving the ambient stability of zinc nitride thin films is discussed. It was found that ex-situ thermal annealing improved the stability of the zinc nitride films dramatically. The mechanism suggested to explain these observations is an improvement in the structural quality of the native oxide caused by the annealing process. The improvement in stability was gradual for annealing temperatures up to 400 °C examined here. This is a promising method as it improves the stability of zinc nitride layers significantly by utilising the native oxide and does not require the growth of any capping layers

Cross-border transfer of organizational knowledge : a two country comparison

Organizational knowledge is considered an essential competency for multinational corporations wanting to efficiently transfer their experience and practices to subsidiaries. Knowledge transfer has traditionally been examined through the transmission of routines, rules, and procedures--but when transferring knowledge from one country to the other, cultural characteristics also need to be taken into consideration. This paper uses a multiple case study to investigate how the transfer of know-how is influenced by three factors: level of individualism, the degree of subsidiary autonomy, and time. The sample consisted of seven Canadian and Greek parent companies and eight subsidiaries, with qualitative data triangulated from twenty-seven interviews, as well as documentation and observation. The findings confirm the majority of the hypothesized constructs, indicating that cultural characteristics influence cross-border knowledge transfer

Thermal treatment and environment effect on transient photoconductivity behavior of anatase TiO2 with dominant {0 0 1} facets

Nanosized anatase TiO2 powders with dominant {0 0 1} facets were prepared by solvothermal reaction of titanium isopropoxide in the presence of hydrofluoric acid as a capping agent. Two kinds of samples, as prepared and calcinated at 600 °C were fabricated and their UV-Visible and transient photoconductivity were investigated in vacuum and in air. The photoconductivity reaches high values and is sensitive on the environment. Thermal treatment improves the crystalline quality and enhances the amount of created excess charge carriers

A parallel implementation of the tool GeoTriples using Apache Spark

Η πληθώρα γεωχωρικών δεδομένων που γίνονται διαθέσιμα δωρεάν στην Ευρώπη και τις Η.Π.Α. δείχνει την προσπάθεια για περισσότερα ελεύθερα γεωχωρικά δεδομένα.Τα διασυνδεδεμένα δεδομένα αποτελούν την προσπάθεια για διαθεσιμότητα δεδομένων στο Διαδίκτυο και τη διασύνδεση αυτών με άλλα δεδομένα ,ώστε η αξία του τελικού αποτελέσματος να είναι μεγαλύτερη από ένα απλό άθροισμα των δεδομένων που το αποτελούν.Τα γεωχωρικά δεδομένα που έχουν γίνει διαθέσιμα από διαστημικά πρακτορεία όπως ESA και NASA δεν ακολουθούν τη λογική των διασυνδεδεμένων δεδομένων.Επομένως ένας χρήστης που αναζητά γεωχωρικά δεδομένα μπορεί να τα βρει μόνο σε μεμονωμένες αποθήκες δεδομένων που μπορεί να περιέχουν ένα μέρος των δεδομένων που χρειάζεται.Η δημοσίευση των περιεχομένων αυτών των αποθηκών σε μορφή γράφων RDF καθιστά δυνατή την ανάπτυξη εφαρμογών ανάλυσης δεδομένων με γιγάντια περιβαντολλογική και οικονομική αξία. Το GeoTriples είναι ένα ημι-αυτόματο εργαλείο που επιτρέπει τη δημοσίευση γεωχωρικών δεδομένων σε γράφους RDF χρησιμοποιώντας τα πλέον σύγχρονα λεξιλόγια όπως είναι τα GeoSPARQL και stSPARQL , αλλά ταυτόχρονα δεν είναι δεσμευμένο σε κάποιο συγκεκριμένο λεξιλόγιο.Σε αυτή την πτυχιακή εργασία παρουσιάζουμε μία παράλληλη υλοποίηση του εργαλείου GeoTriples αξιοποιώντας το Apache Spark.Χρησιμοποιώντας την τεχνική MapReduce η εφαρμογή μας προσφέρει σημαντική βελτίωση στο χρόνο εκτέλεσης όταν λαμβάνει σαν είσοδο μεγάλα δεδομένα.A plethora of Earth Observation data that is becoming available at no charge in Europe and the US recently reflects the strong push for more open Earth Observation data. Linked data is a paradigm which studies how one can make data available on the Web, and interconnect it with other data with the aim of making the value of the resulting “Web of data” greater than the sum of its parts. Open Earth Observation data that are currently made available by space agencies such as ESA and NASA are not following the linked data paradigm. Therefore, Earth Observation data and other kinds of geospatial data that are necessary for a user to satisfy her information needs can only be found in different data silos, where each silo may contain only part of the needed data. Publishing the content of these silos as RDF graphs, enables the development of data analytics applications with great environmental and financial value. GeoTriples is a semi-automated tool that allows the publication of geospatial information into an RDF graph using the state of the art vocabularies like GeoSPARQL and stSPARQL, but at the same time it is not tightly coupled to a specific vocabulary. In this thesis we present a parallel implementation of the tool GeoTriples utilizing Apache Spark. Using the MapReduce technique we provide noticable improvement in time when dealing with large datasets

Electrical conductivity studies of anatase TiO2 with dominant highly reactive {0 0 1} facets

Nanostructured powders of titanium dioxide anatase nanoplates with dominant highly reactive {0 0 1} facets were fabricated using a solvothermal method. Two kinds of samples, as prepared and calcinated at 600 °C, were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and electrical conductivity in vacuum and in air. The dependence of the conductivity versus the inverse of temperature in the temperature range 150-440 K indicated the contribution of at least two conduction mechanisms in vacuum. The electron transport was controlled by partially depleted of charge carriers grains and adiabatic small polaron conduction in the high temperature regime and by Mott variable-range hopping (VRH) at lower temperatures. The environment was found from the experimental results to influence significantly the electrical conductivity values and its temperature dependence. A decrease with temperature in air is observed in the ranges 290-370 and 285-330 K for the as prepared and the calcinated sample respectively. Potential barriers caused by partial depletion of carriers at grain boundaries control the electrical conductivity behavior in air at high temperatures and VRH in the lower temperature regime

Improved ambient stability of thermally annealed zinc nitride thin films

Zinc nitride films are known to readily oxidize in an ambient atmosphere, forming a ZnO/Zn(OH)2 medium. We report that post-growth thermal annealing significantly improves the stability of zinc nitride with a three-order magnitude increase in degradation time from a few days in un-annealed films to several years after annealing. A degradation study was performed on samples annealed under a flow of nitrogen at 200–400 °C, which showed that the stability of the films depends strongly on the annealing temperature. We propose a mechanism for this improvement, which involves a stabilization of the native oxide layer that forms on the surface of zinc nitride films after exposure to ambient conditions. The result holds significant promise for the use of zinc nitride in devices where operational stability is a critical factor in applications

Temperature dependence of the band gap of zinc nitride observed in photoluminescence measurements

We report the photoluminescence properties of DC sputtered zinc nitride thin films in the temperature range of 3.7–300 K. Zinc nitride samples grown at 150 °C exhibited a narrow photoluminescence band at 1.38 eV and a broad band at 0.90 eV, which were attributed to the recombination of free carriers with a bound state and deep-level defect states, respectively. The high-energy band followed the Varshni equation with temperature and became saturated at high excitation powers. These results indicate that the high-energy band originates from shallow defect states in a narrow bandgap. Furthermore, a red-shift of the observed features with increasing excitation power suggested the presence of inhomogeneities within the samples