This dissertation investigated a very specialised, highly sensitive and complex research area in policing known as undercover policing or covert policing operations. This is the first examination to be conducted in the Australasian policing context and the only known research to explore, empirically, undercover operatives' experiences of returning to mainstream police duties after completing their covert duties.----- There were two main research objectives in this dissertation. The first was to develop research methodology specific for use with undercover police officers. The second main objective was to conduct an empirical investigation to identify the psychological processes associated with the reintegration or re-assimilation of undercover police officers into mainstream policing environments. Social identity theory was applied to deconstruct undercover police officers' reintegration experiences.----- Given the closed and protected nature of covert policing, careful consideration to methodological and ethical issues required high priority in the development of research practices. Addressing these considerations in research practices protected the anonymity and security of those involved in the research. Tailoring research methods to suit the officers' circumstances and satisfy police managements' security concerns improved the practical application of research methods and research relations with police members and, therefore, the quality of the findings.----- In developing a research methodology for specific use with undercover police officers, a multi-method approach was adopted. Data triangulation with the use of a variety of data sources and methodological triangulation with the use of multiple methods and multiple indicators were employed. This technique proved constructive in creating a more holistic perspective of undercover policing and officers' experiences of re-assimilation.----- In theoretical terms, the major issue under investigation is of negotiating dual memberships or multiple identities. Three studies are reported. The first study is a field study, in which the researcher spent more than 18 months in the covert policing context, as a participant observer. Through field research, the researcher was able to learn about the Australasian covert policing context; obtain in-house police documents; define research issues and hypotheses; understand methodological considerations; identify a psychological theoretical framework; and examine &quotthe fit " between theory and the social dynamics of covert policing. Other benefits of becoming immersed in the working life of undercover police officers and the police organisation included understanding the ways of proceeding and the social and organisational structure that exists among covert personnel.----- The second study interviewed 20 former covert police personnel, from two police jurisdictions, who had been reintegrated for more than three years. The majority of officers found returning to mainstream police duties a difficult experience and two separate profiles of reintegration experiences emerged from the data. This study identified the presence of more than one police identity among former operatives. It found that some officers internalise aspects of the undercover policing norms and use these police norms to define aspects of the self both as a police officer and as an individual. That is, role-playing the undercover police persona became an extension of the officer as an individual and contributed positively to their personal self-worth. It was noted that the majority of officers expressed cognitive confusion over how to behave in the mainstream policing environment after covert duties had ceased.----- The other profile to emerge from the data was of officers who characterised their undercover policing experiences as being more integrated into their overall police persona. Officers interviewed in this study employed different identity decision-making strategies to restructure their police identities. In sum, this study found that the extent, to which the undercover and mainstream memberships were integrated cognitively, influenced officers' experiences of reintegration.----- The third study is a cross-sectional design using survey methods. Thirty-eight trainees, 31 currently operational and 38 former undercover operatives from four police jurisdictions took part in this study. A group of mainstream police officers matched according to former operatives' age, gender and years of policing experience was also included. This study found that police identities change over the phases of undercover police work and that changes in former operatives' mainstream police identity were a function of covert police work. Cross-sectional comparisons revealed that former operatives' undercover police identity had declined since covert policing, however, officers' mainstream police identity had not significantly increased. Failure to increase identification with mainstream police after undercover police work has ceased has a number of implications in terms of predicting re-assimilation. Operatives most likely to experience difficulties were those who resisted the mainstream police identification and reported difficult relations with their mainstream peers. Trends analysis revealed that despite the physical change, 'cognitive' re-assimilation actually commences in the second year of the operatives' reintegration. These exploratory analyses revealed that following return to the mainstream policing environment, identity stressors were mostly likely to be experienced in the first year of reintegration.----- To determine psychological adjustment since undercover police work, the person-environment fit was also investigated in the study. Operatives' current perceptions of working in the mainstream context were reported using a number of behavioural and organisational indicators. Overall, this study found that former operatives remain committed to their policing profession, however, those who experienced identity stress during the re-assimilation process were less satisfied with their current work duties and failed to find their work interesting, tended to perceive undercover duties as having been detrimental to their career, and expressed greater intentions to leave the service within 12 months of the survey. Overall former operatives' satisfaction and commitment levels were not significantly different from mainstream officers. Mainstream police, however, reported being under greater pressure and felt more overworked in the mainstream context than former operatives. In summary, these organisational indicators revealed that the difficulties of re-assimilation and intentions to leave the service are more related to the stress of modifying officers' police identity during this period than the workload characteristics of mainstream policing.----- Overall these studies demonstrated that the process of negotiating police identities is an important psychological dynamic present in undercover operatives' reintegration experiences. The identity stress experienced during this period was shown to have a number of organisational-behavioural consequences, such as problematic intergroup relations and greater intentions to leave the police service after undercover police work. Based on findings from this research a number of practical recommendations are made and suggestions for the direction of future research are outlined. Contributions to theory are also discussed.

This thesis seeks to extend the application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to temporal graphs, in particular providing new insights for the understanding of covert networks. The analyses undertaken reveal informative features and properties of individuals' affiliations under covertness that also illustrate how both individuals and events influence the network structure. The review of the literature on covert networks provided in the initial two chapters suggests the presence of some ambiguities concerning how authors define structural properties and dynamics of covert networks. Authors sometimes disagree and use their findings to explain opposite views about covert networks. The controversy in the field is used as a starting point in order to justify the methodological application of SNA to understand how individuals involved in criminal and illegal activities interact with each other. I attempt to use a deductive approach, without preconceived notions about covert network characteristics. In particular, I avoid considering covert networks as organisations in themselves or as cohesive groups. I focus on individuals and their linkages constructed from their common participation in illicit events such as secret meetings, bombing attacks and criminal operations. In order to tackle these processes I developed innovative methods for investigating criminals' behaviours over time and their willingness to exchange tacit information. The strategy implies the formulation of a network model in order to represent and incorporate in a graph three types of information: individuals, events, and the temporal dimension of events. The inclusion of the temporal dimension offers the possibility of adopting a more comprehensive theoretical framework for considering individuals and event affiliations. This thesis expands the analysis of bipartite covert networks by adopting several avenues to explore in this perspective. Chapter 3 proposes a different way to represent two-mode networks starting from the use of line-graphs, namely the bi-dynamic line-graph data representation (BDLG), through which it is possible to represent the temporal evolution of individual's trajectories. The following chapter 4 presents some reflections about the idea of cohesion and cohesive subgroups specific to the case of two-mode networks. Based on the affiliation matrices, the analysis of local clustering through bi-cliques offers an attempt to analyse the mechanism of selecting accomplices while taking into account time. Chapter 5 is concerned with the concept of centrality of individuals involved in flows of knowledge exchanges. The theoretical and analytical framework helps in elaborating how individuals share their acquired hands-on experiences with others by attending joint task activities over time. Chapter 6 provides an application of the approaches introduced in the preceding chapters to the specific case of the Noordin Top terrorist network. Here, the knowledge of experience flow centrality measure opens up a new way to quantify the transmission of information and investigate the formation of the criminal capital. Finally, the last Chapter 7 presents some future research extensions by illustrating the versatility of the proposed approaches in order to provide new insights for the understanding of criminals' behaviours.

This investigation evaluated the use of conditional discrimination (CD) instruction and multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) to establish derived relational responding in accordance with hierarchical frames with school aged children. The first experiment used a multiple probe design to evaluate the effectiveness of MEI to teach participants to correctly respond to BELONGS TO and INCLUDES relations between academically relevant stimuli in the target hierarchy. The protocol was presented via an automated computer program. Written and oral intraverbal pre and posttest were administered to determine if CD instruction and MEI were sufficient for academically relevant behaviors to emerge. Transformation of stimulus functions was assessed using a property inheritance task. A retrospective protocol analysis was used to evaluate the covert verbal behavior the participants were engaging in when responding to the CD across the hierarchy task. The second experiment also used a multiple probe across participants design to assess hierarchical responding. An ABABCB withdrawal design was used to assess the functional relation of covert verbal behavior and the CD across the hierarchy task. The target stimuli and procedures for Experiment 2 were identical to the first experiment with the exception of using a concurrent protocol analysis as opposed to the retrospective protocol analysis to assess the role of the participants' covert verbal behavior on task performance. That is, the second experiment used the silent dog method (Hayes, White, & Bissett, 1998) to assess if self-talk is functionally related to the transformation of stimulus function task.

The following studies examined the effectiveness and the efficiency of individual and small group equivalence-based instruction on English and math relations with elementary school children. The first experiment implemented a multiple-probe design across three typically developing third graders using an automated procedure to evaluate the stimulus equivalence paradigm (SEP) on establishing English and math equivalence classes. Since some researchers have proposed that covert behavior facilitates in the formation of equivalence classes (Horne & Lowe, 1996; Stromer, Mackay, & Remington, 1996), the second experiment examined the possible role of covert behavior, more specifically, a visual imagining strategy, on correct responding after remedial instructional sessions. To further extend SEP into more academic environments, the third experiment used an observational learning procedure to evaluate the formation of English and math symmetry relations as well as the formation of equivalence classes in a small group format. The emergence of topography-based responding was also assessed after instruction for all three experiments.

Alcoholism is a major health problem, and current methods of treatment have been only partially successful. One treatment approach is to teach coping skills for dealing with problematic situations. This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of imagery techniques in teaching coping skills. There were two major objectives of this study. The first objective was to determine whether covert skills training would produce positive changes in alcoholics in terms of their effectiveness in responding to stressful situations, their self-concept, and selected personality characteristics. The second objective was to determine whether alcoholics subjectively experience the imagery approach as beneficial. The statistical design also evaluated whether the effectiveness of the treatment fluctuated as a function of age, education, chronicity of alcohol problem, number of rehabilitation attempts, and environmental support as measured by the presence of a family or job awaiting the alcoholic's return.

The early period of the national liberation of Mozambique provided a stage for superpower competition, and a means for different African states, groups of states, and organizations to advance their particular, and often conflicting goals and agendas. In so doing, both the superpowers and regional African actors were supporting different rival Mozambican nationalist leaders and their respective movements. More than being only a conflict between Portuguese authorities and Mozambican nationalists, the process of Mozambican national liberation was also a proxy confrontation between different foreign actors. The thesis examines the relations and power dynamics within the complex of superpowers - African states - national liberation movements, in the contexts of the Cold War, African affairs and the process of national liberation of Mozambique. It assesses the roles played by local and regional African actors in affecting Soviet and American interests and designs throughout their engagements with the process of Mozambican national liberation, from 1961 to 1964.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the fastest growing disability category in U.S. schools. Current legislation mandates that students with disabilities be educated in the classroom setting to the greatest extent possible. The increase in prevalence combined with placement regulations presents a challenge for classroom teachers who support students with ASD, as many of these students struggle with the necessary classroom skills to function appropriately in that environment. Classroom skills have been referred to in the literature as skills that are required for learning to occur, including: (a) looking at the teacher, (b) keeping hands to self, (c) raising a hand before talking, and (d) completing appropriate academic tasks. This study will focus on the classroom skill of attending. Since ASD is a spectrum, an intervention that is effective for one individual may not be successful for another, despite having the same diagnosis. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a discipline that is among the most effective, scientifically-based methods, for educating children with ASD. Covert audio coaching (CAC) is an intervention that adheres to the principles of ABA. Covert audio coaching is a form of performance feedback that involves an instructor coaching a participant from a distance. Both have a two-way radio, and the participant wears an earpiece so that they can receive feedback from the coach without anyone except the participant knowing they are being supported. While CAC has been used successfully to support individuals with disabilities throughout the past several years, there is only one published study that explored the effectiveness of CAC with its use on an elementary school student with a disability. The current study examined the effect of CAC on the classroom skill of attending of four elementary school students with ASD in their classrooms. The researcher provided supportive and corrective statements to participants via an earpiece device during instructional time. A multiple probe design across participants was used. A visual analysis showed that the CAC intervention was successful for all four participants, with increased levels of attending maintaining for up to five weeks once the intervention was removed. The results of this study suggest that CAC can be an effective intervention for improving the classroom skills of children with ASD in the classroom setting.

While Disgrace seems to be written from a single perspective, it is in fact multi-layered. In order to support this claim, this essay investigates what the novel's protagonist sees, how he sees it and who is narrating the story, using respectively the narratological key concepts of internal focalization, fallible filter and covert narration. The essay thereafter studies how the novel has affected readers in South Africa and how it is neccessary to challenge the perspective presented in the novel in order to fully understand the text.

Online social networks have become a powerful venue for political activism. In many cases large, insular online communities form that have been shown to be powerful diffusion mechanisms of both misinformation and propaganda. In some cases these groups users advocate actions or policies that could be construed as extreme along nearly any distribution of opinion, and are thus called Online Extremist Communities (OECs). Although these communities appear increasingly common, little is known about how these groups form or the methods used to influence them. The work in this thesis provides researchers a methodological framework to study these groups by answering three critical research questions: How can we detect large dynamic online activist or extremist communities? What automated tools are used to build, isolate, and influence these communities? What methods can be used to gain novel insight into large online activist or extremist communities? These group members social ties can be inferred based on the various affordances offered by OSNs for group curation. By developing heterogeneous, annotated graph representations of user behavior I can efficiently extract online activist discussion cores using an ensemble of unsupervised machine learning methods. I call this technique Ensemble Agreement Clustering. Through manual inspection, these discussion cores can then often be used as training data to detect the larger community. I present a novel supervised learning algorithm called Multiplex Vertex Classification for network bipartition on heterogeneous, annotated graphs. This methodological pipeline has also proven useful for social botnet detection, and a study of large, complex social botnets used for propaganda dissemination is provided as well. Throughout this thesis I provide Twitter case studies including communities focused on the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the ongoing Syrian Revolution, the Euromaidan Movement in Ukraine, as well as the alt-Right.

This diploma thesis deals with hiding data in the Internet traffic. It contains a description of the law interception. Various possibilities of hiding data are mentioned. The practical part of this thesis consists of an application that hides the data of HTTP and HTTPS protocols in a fake VoIP call. The application consists of two parts: a client and a server. Data transmitted between the client and the server parts are masked as multimedia data of the VoIP call. When a user or Internet server does not transmit any data, random data are transmitted between client and server parts in order to simulate the VoIP call. Then, the thesis focuses on detection of the attack.